It’s hard to see how not signing up for cryonics could be “conspicuous” (except for a small minority of professional transhumanists who might face questioning about it, like Eliezer) since (1) to an excellent first approximation no one has signed up for cryonics, so the signal gives rather little information, and (2) it’s only going to become public if you are close to death (or if you put out a press release about it like Paris Hilton, I guess).
To most people, abstaining from other luxury goods in favour of cryonics is going to look and feel much more like self-sacrifice than abstaining from cryonics in favour of other luxury goods. In fact, it’s probably only among (a certain sort of) high-calibre rationalists that Nick’s conjecture would have any plausibility.
It’s hard to see how not signing up for cryonics could be “conspicuous” (except for a small minority of professional transhumanists who might face questioning about it, like Eliezer) since (1) to an excellent first approximation no one has signed up for cryonics, so the signal gives rather little information, and (2) it’s only going to become public if you are close to death (or if you put out a press release about it like Paris Hilton, I guess).
To most people, abstaining from other luxury goods in favour of cryonics is going to look and feel much more like self-sacrifice than abstaining from cryonics in favour of other luxury goods. In fact, it’s probably only among (a certain sort of) high-calibre rationalists that Nick’s conjecture would have any plausibility.