Do you think that any resuscitation technology, including defibrillation is a sin (or use their favorite objection against cryonics)?
How about one that enables resuscitation on a longer time frame? How long is still OK? Hours? Days? Years?
Would you take a treatment that makes one feel younger and live longer?
Would you approve of being cooled down for a day or two until a life-saving liver/heart/kidney transplant is available? What if it requires cooling deep enough that your heart stops beating?
Their replies, if any, might give you a hint of their true objections. If they are truly religious in nature, and your family attends church regularly, consider having a talk with your local pastor (or whatever religious authority figure they look up to). To paraphrase Ender’s game and HPMoR, children’s opinions have zero weight, so try to engage someone actually being listened to.
They weren’t arguing that it wouldn’t work. They think that being revived is selfish, that spending money on having your head frozen is selfish, and my mom says she wants to die. The old death=good cached thought seems to be one of the main driving factors. She also said there’d be no place for her in the future, that the world might be inconceivably different and strange, and that she would be unable to deal with it.
When I explained that some thousand people have done it, and a lot more are signed up, she said that was only “insane rich eccentrics” and when I explained that ordinary people do it, she said some nasty things about those people, along the lines of calling them nuts.
My main question was related towards figuring out if I should keep pursuing it, and try to change their minds, or if I should respect their wishes. I don’t know what the right thing to do in this situation is- because saving lives is very important, but respecting others’ rights is also pretty important. But the difficulty of this situation is compounded, because I’m angry with her and I don’t want to give up because I’m angry.
I don’t know what the right thing to do in this situation is- because saving lives is very important, but respecting others’ rights is also pretty important.
First, there is no objectively right thing to do. At this point you are expending effort on an essentially selfish goal: saving your mother’s life against her current wishes. Not that “selfish” is in any sense bad or negative. But if you actually cared about saving lives in general, you would apply your effort where it is more likely to pay off. Your current position is no more defensible than hers: you selfishly want her to have a chance to live in some far future with you, she selfishly disregards your wishes and wants to expire when it’s her time. Certainly telling her that her wishes are less valid than yours is not likely to convince her. You can certainly point out that by deciding to forgo cryo she behaves just as selfishly as you do by wanting her to sign for cryo. Maybe then you and her can discuss what “selfish” means to each of you, and maybe have some progress from there. Of course, you should be fully prepared to change your mind and do your best to steelman her arguments. Can you make them better than she does, have her agree and then discuss potential weaknesses in them?
My main question was related towards figuring out if I should keep pursuing it, and try to change their minds, or if I should respect their wishes … the difficulty of this situation is compounded, because I’m angry with her.
As the first step I would recommend to stop being angry with her.
Also keep in mind that for a true-believer Christian cryonics is basically trying to cheat oneself out of heaven—not a very appealing idea :-/
The old death=good cached thought seems to be one of the main driving factors.
Have you read this? Might give you some useful tools to speak against that idea.
I don’t know what the right thing to do in this situation is- because saving lives is very important, but respecting others’ rights is also pretty important.
Would you rather act on your own preferences, or some lesswrongian’s?
I’m angry with her and I don’t want to give up because I’m angry.
Anger is temporary, so not a great basis for long term decisions. Also, anger will affect your tone and therefore make you less convincing.
I feel my own judgement is suspect on this occasion. I don’t know. I want to help her and she’s alternating between being incredibly blase and being furious with me. It’s not like I can just point her at some books to read, because her and my dad don’t like to read. And the things that convinced me, my parents regard as rubbish or nonsense and get-your-head-out-of-space-go-get-married-and-be-normal-goddamnit!
If I continue to pursue this, either the relationship between my parents and I will suffer and they won’t choose to freeze themselves, or they’ll choose to freeze themselves and our relationship won’t suffer. Large risk, large benefit.
My other consideration is to attempt to be subtle, plant the seeds in their heads that give them the sense that maybe the world doesn’t work how they think it does (I managed to convince my dad that the earth was old and that dinosaurs did not roam the earth with humans this way, so it has some merit.)
(I managed to convince my dad that the earth was old and that dinosaurs did not roam the earth with humans this way, so it has some merit.)
This aside’s quite important; it sounds like the inferential distance between you and your parents is huge. Trying to bridge it in one fell swoop is quite ambitious, so I’d err towards a slow & subtle approach. (Not that I have much experience with this problem!)
I think subtlety usually works the best with stubborn individuals, but might easily backfire now that you’ve been in their face. If you were to use that strategy, I’d recommend you let the issue settle for a while so that they don’t immediately see what you’re trying to do. If they realize you’re manipulating them, that might make them even less susceptible to your ideas. Planning is the key, unless it’s an emergency.
Don’t try to push an idea in a way that costs you something.
When it comes to convincing others it helps to understand the other person. Nobody get’s angry if you show genuine interest into how they think the world works. Listen a lot.
It might also help to reduce the amount of things that make her furious with you. If those wouldn’t exist it might be easier to convince her on other questions.
I wonder how you framed it.
Do you think that any resuscitation technology, including defibrillation is a sin (or use their favorite objection against cryonics)?
How about one that enables resuscitation on a longer time frame? How long is still OK? Hours? Days? Years?
Would you take a treatment that makes one feel younger and live longer?
Would you approve of being cooled down for a day or two until a life-saving liver/heart/kidney transplant is available? What if it requires cooling deep enough that your heart stops beating?
Their replies, if any, might give you a hint of their true objections. If they are truly religious in nature, and your family attends church regularly, consider having a talk with your local pastor (or whatever religious authority figure they look up to). To paraphrase Ender’s game and HPMoR, children’s opinions have zero weight, so try to engage someone actually being listened to.
They weren’t arguing that it wouldn’t work. They think that being revived is selfish, that spending money on having your head frozen is selfish, and my mom says she wants to die. The old death=good cached thought seems to be one of the main driving factors. She also said there’d be no place for her in the future, that the world might be inconceivably different and strange, and that she would be unable to deal with it.
When I explained that some thousand people have done it, and a lot more are signed up, she said that was only “insane rich eccentrics” and when I explained that ordinary people do it, she said some nasty things about those people, along the lines of calling them nuts.
My main question was related towards figuring out if I should keep pursuing it, and try to change their minds, or if I should respect their wishes. I don’t know what the right thing to do in this situation is- because saving lives is very important, but respecting others’ rights is also pretty important. But the difficulty of this situation is compounded, because I’m angry with her and I don’t want to give up because I’m angry.
First, there is no objectively right thing to do. At this point you are expending effort on an essentially selfish goal: saving your mother’s life against her current wishes. Not that “selfish” is in any sense bad or negative. But if you actually cared about saving lives in general, you would apply your effort where it is more likely to pay off. Your current position is no more defensible than hers: you selfishly want her to have a chance to live in some far future with you, she selfishly disregards your wishes and wants to expire when it’s her time. Certainly telling her that her wishes are less valid than yours is not likely to convince her. You can certainly point out that by deciding to forgo cryo she behaves just as selfishly as you do by wanting her to sign for cryo. Maybe then you and her can discuss what “selfish” means to each of you, and maybe have some progress from there. Of course, you should be fully prepared to change your mind and do your best to steelman her arguments. Can you make them better than she does, have her agree and then discuss potential weaknesses in them?
I already am. This is in addition to that.
It is definitely a good idea to talk to her about what selfish means, because my mother and I have differing views on what is selfish and what is not.
I’m interested to know what comes out of these discussions and if you guys manage to converge. Keep us posted.
As the first step I would recommend to stop being angry with her.
Also keep in mind that for a true-believer Christian cryonics is basically trying to cheat oneself out of heaven—not a very appealing idea :-/
Have you read this? Might give you some useful tools to speak against that idea.
Would you rather act on your own preferences, or some lesswrongian’s?
Anger is temporary, so not a great basis for long term decisions. Also, anger will affect your tone and therefore make you less convincing.
I’ve read it.
I feel my own judgement is suspect on this occasion. I don’t know. I want to help her and she’s alternating between being incredibly blase and being furious with me. It’s not like I can just point her at some books to read, because her and my dad don’t like to read. And the things that convinced me, my parents regard as rubbish or nonsense and get-your-head-out-of-space-go-get-married-and-be-normal-goddamnit!
If I continue to pursue this, either the relationship between my parents and I will suffer and they won’t choose to freeze themselves, or they’ll choose to freeze themselves and our relationship won’t suffer. Large risk, large benefit.
My other consideration is to attempt to be subtle, plant the seeds in their heads that give them the sense that maybe the world doesn’t work how they think it does (I managed to convince my dad that the earth was old and that dinosaurs did not roam the earth with humans this way, so it has some merit.)
This aside’s quite important; it sounds like the inferential distance between you and your parents is huge. Trying to bridge it in one fell swoop is quite ambitious, so I’d err towards a slow & subtle approach. (Not that I have much experience with this problem!)
I think subtlety usually works the best with stubborn individuals, but might easily backfire now that you’ve been in their face. If you were to use that strategy, I’d recommend you let the issue settle for a while so that they don’t immediately see what you’re trying to do. If they realize you’re manipulating them, that might make them even less susceptible to your ideas. Planning is the key, unless it’s an emergency.
Don’t try to push an idea in a way that costs you something.
When it comes to convincing others it helps to understand the other person. Nobody get’s angry if you show genuine interest into how they think the world works. Listen a lot.
It might also help to reduce the amount of things that make her furious with you. If those wouldn’t exist it might be easier to convince her on other questions.