I am not particularly exceptional among the set of human beings, and so should not value my lifespan much more than that of other humans. I obviously fail at this in practice, but I think the world would be a much better place if I and others didn’t fail so often.
If one really took this extreme position, why buy cryonics for yourself rather than someone else (e.g. subsidizing those who can almost afford it to produce more suspensions per dollar)?
Really, what you’re asking here is “is paying for cryonic suspensions the most cost-effective known way of purchasing person-neutral QALYs in the entire world?” That’s an extremely implausible position that almost no one defends. Even conditional on thinking cryonics was extraordinarily great, paying for research, e.g. scientific tests of the effectiveness of cryonic suspension and related biology, would be better.
What about the probability that, if signed up for cryonics, I will live into the far future?
There is a chance we’ll discover immortality in my lifetime. If so, then if I signed up for cryonics the payout is 0, and the people who died because I bought insurance instead of charity are people I could have saved for far longer.
This is a common confusion on LW, but it doesn’t make sense. The cost of life insurance is scaled to your risk of death in a covered period. If technology advances reduce your risk of death in a given period then the cost of life insurance drops. If it falls to negligible levels, then just stop paying premiums, or trade in the policy for its cash surrender value.
Consider applying the same logic to fire insurance: if I pay $N for fire insurance each year, future people might invent a perfect fire-suppression system, reducing the risk of my house burning down to zero. Then I would stop buying fire insurance. But that wouldn’t mean the early purchases were foolish: if my house had burned down, future invention of fire-suppression technology wouldn’t have helped.
Really, what you’re asking here is “is paying for cryonic suspensions the most cost-effective known way of purchasing person-neutral QALYs in the entire world?” That’s an extremely implausible position that almost no one defends. Even conditional on thinking cryonics was extraordinarily great, paying for research, e.g. scientific tests of the effectiveness of cryonic suspension and related biology, would be better.
Thanks for saying that. I had the (incorrect) impression that there were many on LessWrong who did believe that.
future people might invent a perfect fire-suppression system, [...] But that wouldn’t mean the early purchases were foolish
Unless the post was edited, I don’t think the OP was saying it was foolish; he was saying the payout of the decision was 0. Which is true, whether you’re talking about fire insurance or cryogenics (unless there’s a cancellation option in your contract). Now, there’s utility in peace-of-mind which might make it small but not zero, but the point stands.
If one really took this extreme position, why buy cryonics for yourself rather than someone else (e.g. subsidizing those who can almost afford it to produce more suspensions per dollar)?
Really, what you’re asking here is “is paying for cryonic suspensions the most cost-effective known way of purchasing person-neutral QALYs in the entire world?” That’s an extremely implausible position that almost no one defends. Even conditional on thinking cryonics was extraordinarily great, paying for research, e.g. scientific tests of the effectiveness of cryonic suspension and related biology, would be better.
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This is a common confusion on LW, but it doesn’t make sense. The cost of life insurance is scaled to your risk of death in a covered period. If technology advances reduce your risk of death in a given period then the cost of life insurance drops. If it falls to negligible levels, then just stop paying premiums, or trade in the policy for its cash surrender value.
Consider applying the same logic to fire insurance: if I pay $N for fire insurance each year, future people might invent a perfect fire-suppression system, reducing the risk of my house burning down to zero. Then I would stop buying fire insurance. But that wouldn’t mean the early purchases were foolish: if my house had burned down, future invention of fire-suppression technology wouldn’t have helped.
Your quotation tags are a bit mangled.
No forms of insurance legally obligate you to pay future premiums. If you stop paying premiums the insurance ends.