When I started this thread, I wasn’t quite sure where it was going to end up. But here’s what I see as the most powerful argument:
An enlightened, benign future society might revive you to let you live life to your full potential, for your sake—when it is convenient for them. But a future society that has morality in line with some pretty good present ones (not the very best) might see you as a precious commodity to revive for the ends of the elite. An enlightened society would not revive you if you were going to be miserable with serious brain damage, but a less enlightened society would have few qualms about that. Even if revived intact, you would still serve the ends of the elite and might well be prevented from taking your own life if you found it miserable.
I judge the latter scenario much more likely than the former. If so, cryonic preservation’s appeal would be much less—it might even be something you would pay to get out of!
You who are cryonics enthusiasts who are also committed to the LW method should think about this. Maybe you will judge the probabilities of the future scenarios differently, but there are strong cognitive biases at work here against an accurate analysis.
Immortality is still possible. We might be subjects in an experiment, and when we croak our brains might be uploaded by the compassionate experimenters. Maybe the theists are right (there sure are a lot of them) and maybe the ones are right who preach universal salvation. You can still have hope, but it doesn’t rest on spending large sums on freezing your brain.
Immortality is still possible. [...] You can still have hope, but it doesn’t rest on spending large sums on freezing your brain.
How does this follow? Even your most powerful argument/worst-case scenario has immortality as its outcome, just not completely on your own terms. To what extent are we not “[serving] the ends of the elite” and “prevented from taking [our] own life if [we] found it miserable” even now?
Even your most powerful argument/worst-case scenario has immortality as its outcome
By “possible”, I meant that we can imagine scenarios (however unlikely) where we will be immortal. Cryonics also relies on scenarios (admittedly not quite as unlikely) where we would at least have much longer lives, though not truly immortal. If being alive for a thousand years with serious brain damage still strikes you as much preferable to death, then I agree that my argument does not apply to you.
To what extent are we not “[serving] the ends of the elite” and “prevented from taking [our] own life if [we] found it miserable” even now?
In the US today, as a person of no particular import to the government, I feel I have considerable freedom to live as I want, and no one is going to stop me from killing myself if I choose. If on some construal I inevitably serve the elite today, I at least have a lot of freedom in how I do that. Revived people in a future world might be of enough interest that they could be supervised so carefully that personal choice would be severely limited and suicide would be impossible.
When I started this thread, I wasn’t quite sure where it was going to end up. But here’s what I see as the most powerful argument:
An enlightened, benign future society might revive you to let you live life to your full potential, for your sake—when it is convenient for them. But a future society that has morality in line with some pretty good present ones (not the very best) might see you as a precious commodity to revive for the ends of the elite. An enlightened society would not revive you if you were going to be miserable with serious brain damage, but a less enlightened society would have few qualms about that. Even if revived intact, you would still serve the ends of the elite and might well be prevented from taking your own life if you found it miserable.
I judge the latter scenario much more likely than the former. If so, cryonic preservation’s appeal would be much less—it might even be something you would pay to get out of!
You who are cryonics enthusiasts who are also committed to the LW method should think about this. Maybe you will judge the probabilities of the future scenarios differently, but there are strong cognitive biases at work here against an accurate analysis.
Immortality is still possible. We might be subjects in an experiment, and when we croak our brains might be uploaded by the compassionate experimenters. Maybe the theists are right (there sure are a lot of them) and maybe the ones are right who preach universal salvation. You can still have hope, but it doesn’t rest on spending large sums on freezing your brain.
How does this follow? Even your most powerful argument/worst-case scenario has immortality as its outcome, just not completely on your own terms. To what extent are we not “[serving] the ends of the elite” and “prevented from taking [our] own life if [we] found it miserable” even now?
By “possible”, I meant that we can imagine scenarios (however unlikely) where we will be immortal. Cryonics also relies on scenarios (admittedly not quite as unlikely) where we would at least have much longer lives, though not truly immortal. If being alive for a thousand years with serious brain damage still strikes you as much preferable to death, then I agree that my argument does not apply to you.
In the US today, as a person of no particular import to the government, I feel I have considerable freedom to live as I want, and no one is going to stop me from killing myself if I choose. If on some construal I inevitably serve the elite today, I at least have a lot of freedom in how I do that. Revived people in a future world might be of enough interest that they could be supervised so carefully that personal choice would be severely limited and suicide would be impossible.