Cryonics working requires most of the same “black swan,” and providing large lifespans is heavily correlated with large lifespans for ordinary people. The chance of cryonic organizations failing increases with time (among other things, their financials are rickety, and there have been past failures), so the much of the chance of cryonics working depends on big technological advances happening within a century.
I would say that conditional on cryonics working (which is a major thing to condition on), the chance of the “black swan” (which I would define more precisely) is over 10%, which is enough for it to do better on that front. And the black swan can occur even if the cryopreservation process doesn’t store the key information, which would further increase its advantage.
If we assume cryonics requires advances within the century, it’s still true that those advances are more likely to come LATER than sooner. Cryonics means I survive whether the advance comes tomorrow or the day before the company would have thrown in the towel.
So the odds still favor the cryonaut over the African kids, because the cryonaut has longer for that advance to occur. Also, the cryonaut is someone who has the resources and culture to invest in a long-shot like cryonics DESPITE it being unpopular and fringe, whereas the African kids are unlikely to do any such thing. The African Kids only survive if there’s a massive world-wide change like the Singularity or Friendly AI.
Keep in mind, we live in a society where millions die of starvation simply because we’re inefficient at distributing food—we have enough to go around, it just doesn’t end up where it’s needed. We’re talking a VERY radical change, and it needs to be before most of the kids are already dead (if it happens in exactly 60 years, statistically most of the kids are probably already dead)
Cryonics working requires most of the same “black swan,” and providing large lifespans is heavily correlated with large lifespans for ordinary people. The chance of cryonic organizations failing increases with time (among other things, their financials are rickety, and there have been past failures), so the much of the chance of cryonics working depends on big technological advances happening within a century.
I would say that conditional on cryonics working (which is a major thing to condition on), the chance of the “black swan” (which I would define more precisely) is over 10%, which is enough for it to do better on that front. And the black swan can occur even if the cryopreservation process doesn’t store the key information, which would further increase its advantage.
If we assume cryonics requires advances within the century, it’s still true that those advances are more likely to come LATER than sooner. Cryonics means I survive whether the advance comes tomorrow or the day before the company would have thrown in the towel.
So the odds still favor the cryonaut over the African kids, because the cryonaut has longer for that advance to occur. Also, the cryonaut is someone who has the resources and culture to invest in a long-shot like cryonics DESPITE it being unpopular and fringe, whereas the African kids are unlikely to do any such thing. The African Kids only survive if there’s a massive world-wide change like the Singularity or Friendly AI.
Keep in mind, we live in a society where millions die of starvation simply because we’re inefficient at distributing food—we have enough to go around, it just doesn’t end up where it’s needed. We’re talking a VERY radical change, and it needs to be before most of the kids are already dead (if it happens in exactly 60 years, statistically most of the kids are probably already dead)