I am, as you know, deeply sceptical concerning the prospects of a cryonics technology that works any time in the foreseeable future, for scientific and technological reasons.
And engineer hubris is endemic amongst technologists. Reinventing the wheel is perfectly normal behaviour, unfortunately.
I think the questions Maxim asks can be asked in a reasonable form, and are the sort of questions that cryonics advocates need to be able to answer. That is, you can separate the factual questions from the tone of the piece. And you in particular need to, because you’re a staunch advocate.
You get the critics you get, not the idealised ones you’d like. Do you think you could go through and extract the reasonable questions to ask? Someone really, really needs to. The issues Maxim raises are not inherently unreasonable questions, even if you want to set the “villain bit” on her. She won’t stop asking, and her questions sound reasonable and others will start asking and wondering if there aren’t answers.
CI suspension reports appear to include made-up and misunderstood medical terms. What is going on here?
Where did EUCRIO come from? Where did 26-year-old David Styles find the many qualified, trained, cryonics-friendly medical personnel he says he has on call? Who are they? [*]
How closely aware of the state of mainstream medical technology are cryonics advocates, so as to avoid reinventing the wheel?
etc., etc.
You must also remember that every other human endeavour with thousands of dollars sloshing around (even from life insurance) attracts a vast ecology of financial parasites, who are in it for a buck. Compare a technology that sells hope but works, such as IVF—there the technology works well enough, but the bit that involves selling hope attracts an amazing range of parasites who have caused much more of its regulation than the philosophical issues did.
I’m frankly amazed that, as far as I can tell, cryonics hasn’t attracted this sort of parasite, and divining the reasons it hasn’t would be worth study. However, you can’t expect people to just believe the parasites aren’t there, because that’s out of step with reasonable human expectation based on the way it plays out in almost every other field. Cryonics has to look extremely honest as well as being honest.
[*] and please note that I’m not in any way doubting David Styles’ sincerity either. I do, however, think it sounds like previous cases I’ve seen of someone who’s in way over his head and doesn’t realise it yet.
You get the critics you get, not the idealised ones you’d like.
This is a good point. But… at the same time, there are limits to who should be taken seriously. If a person insists on questions on the order of whether you’ve stopped beating your wife yet, they aren’t a critic worth replying to. That said, in this context the term would have to be “bozo bit” not “villian bit” as far as I’m concerned—I tend not to paint things black and white as far as character goes, but I accept that there are those who are pointless to reason with (at least at given points in time, for given topics). It seems very plausible that Melody has laudable motives.
I’m not particularly good at ignoring noise, unfortunately, and I am not an expert at what goes on at cryonics organizations. If someone who is wants to step in and reply that’s great. (I am definitely glad this topic has reached the attention of Less Wrong.) My own staunch support for cryonics is not aligned with the success of any particular organization. I think some stabilization is better than no stabilization, but I don’t have an opinion on whether SA is grossly incompetent or not.
It does seem likely to me that they are at least under-utilizing available technologies and probably not using specialists to the degree possible.
Indeed. The critics of cryonics on the Rick Ross boards, for example, have gone way over the edge of serious consideration. And I know some of these people—they were fellow critics in the great battle against Scientology, they sincerely believe they’re doing a good thing, and they have a great deal of experience in dealing with cultishness, financial parasites and those who sell false hope. Unfortunately, they then take this to presume clear organisational incompetence is evidence of actual evil, and then start dehumanising the people they’ve assigned the villain bit. It’s a good example of a failure to examine one’s own thinking.
The Anticult accuses me of advocating child sacrifice because of a thought experiment I posted on the ImmInst forum, which he pulled out of context. I can understand now how Jews feel about blood libel.
I am, as you know, deeply sceptical concerning the prospects of a cryonics technology that works any time in the foreseeable future, for scientific and technological reasons.
The organisational issues are a whole other reason to worry, however. You have a lot of financially shaky organisations (it’s an expensive business to run as a charity) run by people who radiate weirdness signals and thus make it less likely for the rest of the world to take their concerns seriously. Which is a failure in instrumental rationality. And Alcor (Mike Darwin in particular) is famously litigation-happy against those it perceives as critics, which is a BIG cultural warning sign these days.
I must stress that I do not see any reason whatsoever to assume villainy. I am struck by the deep sincerity of pretty much any cryonics advocate I have ever encountered. However, organisations of smart, sincere people are remarkably capable of stupidity.
And engineer hubris is endemic amongst technologists. Reinventing the wheel is perfectly normal behaviour, unfortunately.
I think the questions Maxim asks can be asked in a reasonable form, and are the sort of questions that cryonics advocates need to be able to answer. That is, you can separate the factual questions from the tone of the piece. And you in particular need to, because you’re a staunch advocate.
You get the critics you get, not the idealised ones you’d like. Do you think you could go through and extract the reasonable questions to ask? Someone really, really needs to. The issues Maxim raises are not inherently unreasonable questions, even if you want to set the “villain bit” on her. She won’t stop asking, and her questions sound reasonable and others will start asking and wondering if there aren’t answers.
CI suspension reports appear to include made-up and misunderstood medical terms. What is going on here?
Where did EUCRIO come from? Where did 26-year-old David Styles find the many qualified, trained, cryonics-friendly medical personnel he says he has on call? Who are they? [*]
How closely aware of the state of mainstream medical technology are cryonics advocates, so as to avoid reinventing the wheel?
etc., etc.
You must also remember that every other human endeavour with thousands of dollars sloshing around (even from life insurance) attracts a vast ecology of financial parasites, who are in it for a buck. Compare a technology that sells hope but works, such as IVF—there the technology works well enough, but the bit that involves selling hope attracts an amazing range of parasites who have caused much more of its regulation than the philosophical issues did.
I’m frankly amazed that, as far as I can tell, cryonics hasn’t attracted this sort of parasite, and divining the reasons it hasn’t would be worth study. However, you can’t expect people to just believe the parasites aren’t there, because that’s out of step with reasonable human expectation based on the way it plays out in almost every other field. Cryonics has to look extremely honest as well as being honest.
[*] and please note that I’m not in any way doubting David Styles’ sincerity either. I do, however, think it sounds like previous cases I’ve seen of someone who’s in way over his head and doesn’t realise it yet.
This is a good point. But… at the same time, there are limits to who should be taken seriously. If a person insists on questions on the order of whether you’ve stopped beating your wife yet, they aren’t a critic worth replying to. That said, in this context the term would have to be “bozo bit” not “villian bit” as far as I’m concerned—I tend not to paint things black and white as far as character goes, but I accept that there are those who are pointless to reason with (at least at given points in time, for given topics). It seems very plausible that Melody has laudable motives.
I’m not particularly good at ignoring noise, unfortunately, and I am not an expert at what goes on at cryonics organizations. If someone who is wants to step in and reply that’s great. (I am definitely glad this topic has reached the attention of Less Wrong.) My own staunch support for cryonics is not aligned with the success of any particular organization. I think some stabilization is better than no stabilization, but I don’t have an opinion on whether SA is grossly incompetent or not.
It does seem likely to me that they are at least under-utilizing available technologies and probably not using specialists to the degree possible.
Indeed. The critics of cryonics on the Rick Ross boards, for example, have gone way over the edge of serious consideration. And I know some of these people—they were fellow critics in the great battle against Scientology, they sincerely believe they’re doing a good thing, and they have a great deal of experience in dealing with cultishness, financial parasites and those who sell false hope. Unfortunately, they then take this to presume clear organisational incompetence is evidence of actual evil, and then start dehumanising the people they’ve assigned the villain bit. It’s a good example of a failure to examine one’s own thinking.
The Anticult accuses me of advocating child sacrifice because of a thought experiment I posted on the ImmInst forum, which he pulled out of context. I can understand now how Jews feel about blood libel.
But there’s no reason not to answer hypotheticals.
And yet, it still seems more likely to succeed than bury-and-allow-to-rot technology, or burn-at-a-high-temperature technology.