Like Michael Vassar, I see the rationality of cryonics, but I’m not signed up myself. In my case, I currently use altruism + inertia (laziness) + fear of looking foolish to non-transhumanists + “yuck factor” to override my fear of death and allow me to avoid signing up for now. Altruism is a constant state of Judo.
My initial gut emotional reaction to reading that Eliezer signed up for cryonics was irritation that Eliezer asks for donations, and then turns around and spends money on this perk that most people, including me, don’t indulge in. (An analogy is the emotion that strikes you if you hear that the president of a charity drives a Ferrari that he bought out of his charity salary.)
I then quickly realized (even before seeing Eliezer’s elaboration) that this reaction is illogical, it doesn’t matter if you spend money on cryonics rather than, say, on eating out more often, or buying a house that’s slightly larger than you need for bare survival. So, I discount this emotion.
However, it’s not clear to me what % of the non-cryonics majority will reach step 3. There are many ways someone could easily rationalize the emotions of step 2 if, unlike me, they were inclined to do so in this case. (I can give examples of plausible rationalizations on request.)
One way to mitigate, for people who didn’t reach step 3, would be to point out that, while signing up for cryonics when you’re on death’s door is a 5 to 6-figure investment, signing up through life insurance when you’re young and healthy (which I presume is Eliezer’s situation) is extremely cheap.
Eliezer is a product of Darwinian evolution. An extreme outlier, to be sure, with the “altruism knob” cranked up to 11, but a product of evolution nonetheless, with all the messy drives that entails. I would be more bothered if he claimed to be altruistic 100% of the time, since that would cause me to doubt his honesty.
(Corollary to (6)) If someone is considering donating, but is holding off because “I am not sufficiently convinced Eliezer is altruistic enough, I’m going keep my money and wait until I meet someone with a greater probability of being altruistic”, please let me know (here, or at rzolf.h.d.nezlson@gmail.com, remove z’s) and I will be happy to enlighten you on all the ways this reasoning is wrong.
Here’s my data point:
Like Michael Vassar, I see the rationality of cryonics, but I’m not signed up myself. In my case, I currently use altruism + inertia (laziness) + fear of looking foolish to non-transhumanists + “yuck factor” to override my fear of death and allow me to avoid signing up for now. Altruism is a constant state of Judo.
My initial gut emotional reaction to reading that Eliezer signed up for cryonics was irritation that Eliezer asks for donations, and then turns around and spends money on this perk that most people, including me, don’t indulge in. (An analogy is the emotion that strikes you if you hear that the president of a charity drives a Ferrari that he bought out of his charity salary.)
I then quickly realized (even before seeing Eliezer’s elaboration) that this reaction is illogical, it doesn’t matter if you spend money on cryonics rather than, say, on eating out more often, or buying a house that’s slightly larger than you need for bare survival. So, I discount this emotion.
However, it’s not clear to me what % of the non-cryonics majority will reach step 3. There are many ways someone could easily rationalize the emotions of step 2 if, unlike me, they were inclined to do so in this case. (I can give examples of plausible rationalizations on request.)
One way to mitigate, for people who didn’t reach step 3, would be to point out that, while signing up for cryonics when you’re on death’s door is a 5 to 6-figure investment, signing up through life insurance when you’re young and healthy (which I presume is Eliezer’s situation) is extremely cheap.
Eliezer is a product of Darwinian evolution. An extreme outlier, to be sure, with the “altruism knob” cranked up to 11, but a product of evolution nonetheless, with all the messy drives that entails. I would be more bothered if he claimed to be altruistic 100% of the time, since that would cause me to doubt his honesty.
(Corollary to (6)) If someone is considering donating, but is holding off because “I am not sufficiently convinced Eliezer is altruistic enough, I’m going keep my money and wait until I meet someone with a greater probability of being altruistic”, please let me know (here, or at rzolf.h.d.nezlson@gmail.com, remove z’s) and I will be happy to enlighten you on all the ways this reasoning is wrong.