What I had in mind is that people will click more often if they’ve gone through some of the inferential distance already and are in a mindset in which, when they first encounter cryonics/AI/whatever, it appears obviously/intuitively possible. Which is why you have 25% computer industry people and 25% scientists (i.e. it’s obviously not a random sample of people). Scientists are more likely than most people to be atheists, believe in the possibility of AI, etc, and also more likely to click when they first hear about cryonics on the radio.
As you’ve said, the chain of reasoning followed by a click is very short. But it’s only short for those people that don’t have other (longer) chains of reasoning and beliefs that seem to contradict the original statement. And in order to connect the short chain, you have to dissolve the long one first. It seems to me that people need to have already accepted to a certain extent the naturalistic/scientific worldview in order to click immediately on cryonics.
Now, I’m not sure how much of this applies to children, but I don’t see why kids can’t have a similar (albeit based on simpler reasoning chains) mindset, i.e. they already accept most of the prerequisites for cryonics.
What I had in mind is that people will click more often if they’ve gone through some of the inferential distance already and are in a mindset in which, when they first encounter cryonics/AI/whatever, it appears obviously/intuitively possible. Which is why you have 25% computer industry people and 25% scientists (i.e. it’s obviously not a random sample of people). Scientists are more likely than most people to be atheists, believe in the possibility of AI, etc, and also more likely to click when they first hear about cryonics on the radio.
As you’ve said, the chain of reasoning followed by a click is very short. But it’s only short for those people that don’t have other (longer) chains of reasoning and beliefs that seem to contradict the original statement. And in order to connect the short chain, you have to dissolve the long one first. It seems to me that people need to have already accepted to a certain extent the naturalistic/scientific worldview in order to click immediately on cryonics.
Now, I’m not sure how much of this applies to children, but I don’t see why kids can’t have a similar (albeit based on simpler reasoning chains) mindset, i.e. they already accept most of the prerequisites for cryonics.