I wouldn’t put figures on estimates when it doesn’t seem like even a consensus of experts would get any of those right, as they verge on questions more or less unsolved.
You have to make a decision. Obviously, what the right decision is depends on what those probabilities are, so you have to factor in your beliefs (uncertain though they are) about them. What makes you think you can do that better without numbers than with?
I’d expect that [...] your life [...] supersedes in utility most if not all of the other things you value.
A reasonable expectation if you care only about yourself. Most of us care to some extent about other people. (In most cases, rather less than we like to think and say we do; but still, more than zero.) Any money you spend on cryonics is money that isn’t helping your family in the shorter term.
it has some potential to turn you into a money pump
Yes. There is a parallel objection to Pascal’s wager. (Though I think what it really is, in both cases, is not so much a reason to disagree as a sign that there’s likely something wrong with the logic. It could turn out that being money-pumped is the best one can do, after all.)
Yes, if we are to take a decision, we need the numbers. I wouldn’t say that a decision taken without numbers factored in, can be better, all else being equal. I’d say it can be worse, or equally good. Equally good if the numbers used are as good as numbers that would have been obtained through a random number generator. So even though numbers are ok, seeing a definite probability estimate put forward as if it was significantly better than a random luck guess, is a misuse I think.
When I see one of those, it makes me think of the other; in the absence of a particular reason, a detailed analysis, or a mechanism explaining “why”, then I might be tempted to think both estimates rely on the same rule of thumb.
“A news story about an Australian national lottery that was just starting up, interviewed a man on the street, asking him if he would play. He said yes. Then they asked him what he thought his odds were of winning. “Fifty-fifty,” he said, “either I win or I don’t.”
“The probability that human civilization will survive into the sufficiently far future (my estimate: 50%)”
As to the fact that an overwhelming majority of people don’t just care about themselves, I agree. Even avowed selfish people still ought to have (barring abnormal neurology) some mindware buried in that brain of theirs, that could cause them to care about others, and possibly even sacrifice their life for them.
You have to make a decision. Obviously, what the right decision is depends on what those probabilities are, so you have to factor in your beliefs (uncertain though they are) about them. What makes you think you can do that better without numbers than with?
A reasonable expectation if you care only about yourself. Most of us care to some extent about other people. (In most cases, rather less than we like to think and say we do; but still, more than zero.) Any money you spend on cryonics is money that isn’t helping your family in the shorter term.
Yes. There is a parallel objection to Pascal’s wager. (Though I think what it really is, in both cases, is not so much a reason to disagree as a sign that there’s likely something wrong with the logic. It could turn out that being money-pumped is the best one can do, after all.)
Yes, if we are to take a decision, we need the numbers. I wouldn’t say that a decision taken without numbers factored in, can be better, all else being equal. I’d say it can be worse, or equally good. Equally good if the numbers used are as good as numbers that would have been obtained through a random number generator. So even though numbers are ok, seeing a definite probability estimate put forward as if it was significantly better than a random luck guess, is a misuse I think.
When I see one of those, it makes me think of the other; in the absence of a particular reason, a detailed analysis, or a mechanism explaining “why”, then I might be tempted to think both estimates rely on the same rule of thumb.
“A news story about an Australian national lottery that was just starting up, interviewed a man on the street, asking him if he would play. He said yes. Then they asked him what he thought his odds were of winning. “Fifty-fifty,” he said, “either I win or I don’t.”
“The probability that human civilization will survive into the sufficiently far future (my estimate: 50%)”
As to the fact that an overwhelming majority of people don’t just care about themselves, I agree. Even avowed selfish people still ought to have (barring abnormal neurology) some mindware buried in that brain of theirs, that could cause them to care about others, and possibly even sacrifice their life for them.