[Link] Reddit, help me find some peace I’m dying young
Saw this on reddit.
Hey Reddit,
I’m a 23 year old girl with recurrent Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a highly aggressive type of brain cancer. I posted a couple of months ago asking for suggestions for things I should try before I die (life expectancy is 3-6 months) and got a lot of great ideas (many of which I’ve fulfilled).
At the time of my last post, my treatment was undecided. I ended up participating in a phase I trial at Dana-Farber, but I progressed after two months of treatment. There are not many great treatment options left for me, but my next move will be five radiosurgery treatments at Duke University next week. My prognosis looks pretty bleak at this point, and though I am hoping to exceed the 6-10 month median survival, I have to prepare to die. In a way, I am fortunate because the lesion is primarily in my brain stem (controls things like breathing), so I will likely die before the tumor spreads to the areas central to who I am.
I’m back on Reddit again, mostly to ask for help because I want to be cryogenically preserved upon my death. I’ve been interested in cryonics since long before I was even diagnosed, but I never thought that I would have to secure the finances so fast, and without a career or savings to stand on. As weird as it feels to ask for help here, I feel I should just give it a shot and sees what happens.
I caused a lot of family controversy last week by breaking the news to my parents. I can tell I’ve alienated them quite a bit as they are Christian and don’t see why I’d want to be preserved; in their mind, I am going to heaven and my “soul” will forever leave my body when I die anyway. I clearly upset both of them with the implication that I was agnostic (I didn’t say this outright, but it’s true). My mom is fairly supportive of my plans to be preserved, but unfortunately, my dad isn’t a fan of the idea, and he’s really the only family I have that could offer financial help (my parents are divorced and not on good terms). The company I’m looking into, Cryonics Institute, costs $30,000-35,000 with transportation to the facility accounted for. My boyfriend is fully supportive, but like me, he’s broke and barely out of college.
I know this is a big thing to ask for, and I’m sure many people are doubtful that preservation is plausible with cryonics. I’m far from convinced, but I would rather take the chance with preservation than rot in the ground or get cremated. The company I’m looking into, Cryonics Institute, has a good intro on their FAQ page that offers a hopeful outlook on future technology: http://cryonics.org/prod.html
A lot of people on reddit wanted to start a fundraiser for me awhile ago to aid in doing fun things before I die. I am hoping that redditors will still have some interest in helping me even if it’s not going towards vacation or skydiving and shit like that. Cryopreservation is sincerely what will bring me the most peace in death.
I wish I could give a particularly compelling reason why I deserve another chance at life, but there’s not much to say. I’m still just a kid, and hadn’t even finished college when I was diagnosed. Unfortunately the most interesting thing I have yet to do is get a terminal disease at a young age.
If you guys can help me out, I would be grateful to a degree I can’t possibly describe. I’m desperate. If you care to donate to the cause, the link to my blog and fundraiser is HERE. Anything, and I mean ANYTHING, you can do to help would be endlessly appreciated. If you don’t want to look at my dumb cancer blog, the direct link to the preservation fund can be found HERE
On a lighter note, I’m open to the idea of trading donations for anything you might want in exchange (within legal limits). This could be fun!
Proof can be found on my earlier post, but here’s a pic from today: http://i.imgur.com/Qdkzn.jpg?1
I’m also open to any questions about brain cancer, or my rationale for wanting to be preserved.
EDIT:
I want to explain in a little more detail why I think cryopreservation is worth a try. (Even an expensive try).
First, I want to make it clear that I’m not betting my life on cryopreservation. I am aware of the problems with the current state of cryonics, but I have the hope that technology might come up with a solution in the future. No one knows what technology will be available in 50 years. Yes, it takes “faith” in technology, but it takes faith to assume that technology won’t be sufficient to reverse these problems someday.
The main point I want to make here is that it’s a better shot at living again than if I were decomposing somewhere or cooked into ash. The relative value of even a slight chance at living again is a huge payoff for what seems like a lot of money to me now, but probably would be an easy decision for me if I had a steady job. Compare the cost of preservation to the cost of traveling overseas to pursue experimental treatments; I think the current state of glioblastoma treatment is just as bleak (if not more), but it doesn’t seem so crazy to pursue those routes.
I’m trying to be preserved because I’ve done everything else in my power to help me extend my life. I’ve looked at essentially every diet, supplement, clinical trial, and “miracle treatment” out there. This is the last thing I can possibly do to fight for another chance, and if does happen to work, it will be incredible.
Live again or die trying.
EDIT 2: A cool quote
“The correct scientific answer to the question “Does cryonics work?” is: “The clinical trials are in progress. Come back in a century and we’ll give you a reliable answer.” The relevant question for those of us who don’t expect to survive that long is: “Would I rather be in the control group, or the experimental group?” We are forced by circumstances to answer that question without the benefit of knowing the results of the clinical trials.”—Dr. Ralph Merkle
TLDR; I want to be cryogenically preserved when I die from brain cancer but can’t afford it. I am literally begging for financial help.
I couldn’t help be moved by this. I felt a very strong sense that she is one of us, whoever “us” is. Looking at some of the negative comments and worst of all bad arguments people are using as reasons not to donate made me more upset.
I hope some here might join me in dismantling them. I’d also encourage those like me for who this buys a lot of warm fuzzies to donate. Though it might be wise to wait until we hear from CI or some other third party on the matter.
Edit: She has since made a comment on LW! The provided information has made me pretty much certain that this is a genuine plight.
redditors where willing to give her money to go skydiving, they don’t want to give her money to buy cryonics. Sometimes I can only weep.
I think it pretty clear that promoting efficient charity in that particular thread is very unlikely to result in people giving money to better causes. Also I just plain want her to be rewarded in some small way! Note the part starting in the second paragraph that I bolded, not only did she realized what she really was, but she stepped over the entire set of pro-death rationalizations and faced the social pressure people she loved exerted on her because they think she might go to heaven … its not her fault that a few cells in her brain went haywire before she could afford an insurance policy, I just don’t want people like that not having something to show after getting so much stuff right.
2n Edit:
For anyone who just realized the universe sucks and wishes to do something about that whole people dying thing, they are welcome to engage in some optimal death defeating philanthropy by donating to The Brain Preservation Prize that has been endorsed by both Robin Hanson and Eliezer Yudkowsky.
I know that there are more than 17 other people like me in the world, who really want to see the results of these attempts. A world in which brains can be cheaply preserved indefinitely is a world I want to live in—and it would just be sad if this project fizzled because it lacked the funds to verify the already-existing results.
- Update on Kim Suozzi (cancer patient in want of cryonics) by (22 Jan 2013 9:15 UTC; 68 points)
- How to get cryocrastinators to actually sign up for cryonics by (18 Aug 2012 17:57 UTC; 29 points)
- [LINK] The Cryopreservation of Kim Suozzi by (1 Feb 2013 5:39 UTC; 22 points)
- Cryonics donation fund for Kim Suozzi established by Society for Venturism by (25 Aug 2012 3:09 UTC; 13 points)
- 's comment on Open Thread, September 15-30, 2012 by (26 Sep 2012 5:25 UTC; 10 points)
- 's comment on Open Thread, September 15-30, 2012 by (26 Sep 2012 9:42 UTC; 7 points)
I find myself curious if we’d care as much about this if there were two girls who needed cryopreserving, instead of just one.
Is there any third-party or objective evidence whatsoever that this is not just another Reddit scam?
I don’t recall any third party evidence but I would say the pictures of her in the first reddit post count as weak evidence this is real, also if it was a scam isn’t it a bit silly that she didn’t go for the skydiving thing? Expected income from that seems higher no?
I suggest you make a comment on her blog or on the thread defining what you would find acceptable evidence and asking for it. Those who agree with you and want to donate can then commit to donating should she provide it. Or if you won’t do that people who would otherwise donate but are concerned about this can use the tactic to discover if that is their true objection.
Even if it was a scam deathist rants still need debunking.
Why would you donate to her, with a highly nontrivial chance of the money being wasted, spent on something else, or turning out to be just another Reddit scam—even if some iota of evidence was presented—rather than donate straight to ALCOR or CI or the Brain Preservation Prize? Especially given her claimed aim to give the money to ALCOR/CI? Why would you not cut out a highly dubious middleman? (And don’t tell me that it will help create an additional suspension at the margin: ALCOR runs at a loss, and money is fungible.)
I’m astonished that on a site that discusses charity & philanthropy all the time, anyone could think donating a good idea.
sigh
I already covered this in the OP, I felt a strong sense of kinship, I would get a lot of warm fuzzies from doing this, if it is real, that I wouldn’t from other things. It buys me more hedons than eating more ice cream this summer.
I didn’t claim this was the best thing people could do with their money, I just wanted to encourage and alert those who might feel as I do.
Also I did think the Brain Preservation Prize was worth donating to. Its just that perhaps you didn’t notice that I haven’t exactly been around on the forums here for the past month+, no?
I agree that it feels uncharitable to ask hard questions of someone claiming to go through a rough time. But gwern’s proposed suggestion- of donating the money to CI directly, and trying to earmark it for her suspension if she does sign up- feels like it should give the same fuzzies while protecting you from this being a scam. You can even send her an email saying “I donated to CI on your behalf” for some extra fuzzies.
That was in response to this not being optimal philanthropy (something I’m well aware of), not about asking for third party evidence with which I don’t have a problem.
Shouldn’t this community be tabooing this behavior (going for fuzzies rather than optimal philanthropy) even though it might be a reasonable personal decision? I think by upvoting Konkvistador’s comment and post, this community is enforcing obviously suboptimal norms and making this behavior acceptable and even appreciated (16 karma to gwern’s 0?). By tabooing this behavior, this community could enforce the opposite reaction (i.e., fuzzies for optimal philanthropy while humiliation and shame just purchasing fuzzies [actually suboptimal charity]).
I guess. But then to be consistent we should probably also make a norm against buying medicine for relatives too. This is only a half joking proposal since there are excellent arguments in favour of not spending more on last ditch attempt treatments. Also the general Hansonian argument on the uselessness of medical spending our society indulges in.
Oh and since we are on this topic we should shame everyone who uses cryonics because that clearly isn’t optimal charity. And we don’t want people to be selfish.
A strange thought has struck me, if it is de facto ok for me to be selfish for myself, why isn’t it ok for me to be selfish on someone’s else’s behalf? I’m pretty sure I’m selfish enough on say my daughters behalf that its worth at least a few lives when we do the number crunching.
I just care more about some people than others. I’m generally ok with this. I don’t recall a rule carved into the fabric of reality demanding I care about all humans equally. And if there is one… pshaw… no thanks I’m going to follow something that’s more fun and in tune with my values. I wouldn’t take objective morality that wanted me to stone adulterers seriously either, why should I treat this hypothetical one thus?
Neither do I aspire to eventually take such a rule seriously. In fact I would find a society where I couldn’t treat some people preferentially a horrible one to live in as I have pointed out in a different context. This has been my ethical stance for quite some time.
So, that was a long winded way of saying, “okay, if this community taboos buying fuzzies rather than optimal philantropy [note: there’s a lot to unpack in that], then what’s to stop this community from sliding down the undesirable slope towards ultimately tabooing any nonessential personal spending?”
The answer is simple. While completely avoiding nonessential personal spending is suboptimal in the most obvious sense it’s, as you alluded to, unmaintainable. I.e., a society like that is likely to die from emigration and stagnation.
Here’s an example of tabooing and how it works in realistic terms: Large SUVs, especially in certain areas, have become taboo for their environmental impact. Now, you could say, “if we’re going to taboo large SUVs for their negative environmental impact, why then don’t we all ride bicycles, because that’s obviously where this is leading, isn’t it?” But, no; that isn’t where it leads at all. The taboo is an communal awareness of an obviously bad thing.
On lesswrong, and in this context, we could start with tabooing pet charities, and quickly move towards your example, but I’m doubtful that we would find that we’d want to take that to dystopic levels. And this reminds me of a common criticism of consequentialism in yvain’s faq:
(also, personal objections are irrelevant in the context of a community taboo; “but I drive a hummer because I want a warmer climate!”)
Just for reference it should be pointed out that people have already attacked people spending money on medicine or buying cryonics based on this reasoning on LW.
To be clear, you mean people have attacked others for investing in cryonics for themselves rather than, e.g., a GiveWell charity. All I have to say regarding that is that it’s been, as you say, attacked rather than tabooed, and that I think it should be attacked (or without the negative connotation of attack, ‘questioned’).
The issue of cryonics being a worthwhile expenditure is currently somewhat unclear, and I don’t see it being tabooed soon. Knowingly buying fuzzies (in the context of charity) over more optimal charity is clear.
To put in within my previous analogy, cryonics is on the slope towards driving a prius rather than a bike, and you’re more towards driving a hummer than a prius.
This is more than purchasing fuzzies to me. I’m counting on people sufficiently like me to cooperate on cases of this nature. It’s the superrational thing to do.
If you have the time, could you elaborate on an issue? That is, if you were acting rationally in this particular scenario, and not super-rationally, how would your behavior differ?
If you were acting “rationally” and not “super-rationally” in this context—you would declare this an absurd expense of fuzzies, which can be obtained much more cheaply, and not dare divert your resources from the much more effective things you’re already doing.to maximize your goal system
This is missing the point, assuming you a somewhat comparable person here (and if this doesn’t really apply to you, then there is no “superrational” justification for this), that cooperating and encouraging cooperation on cases of this nature increases your chances that, should you yourself (or anyone else you care about for that matter) be caught in a situation like this, there will be a safety net to catch you.
Granted it would be improbable for me personally to end up in this situation, but it’s much the same economy as insurance for me—I pay for health insurance and cryonics (my life insurance) despite the long odds I’ll ever need them in anywhere near as much quantity as I’m paying in the next 25 years, at least, so a hundred bucks or whatever one-time is just a drop in that budget.
Call me paranoid, but for me there is a clear superrational justification here.
Right this however doesn’t apply to me since there isn’t a cryonics provider where I live.
Personally, I am not in a financial position to engage in philanthropy. I contributed $100 to her (and I contributed $100 to thefirstimmortal on the immortality institute forums, who did get cryopreserved with the Cryonics Institute after dying of cancer shortly thereafter), because I will always help someone who is terminal and begging for cryo. This girl is literally begging for her life. I hope to meet her someday in the distant future...
(As a side note, everyone should get started signing up for cryonics BEFORE anything bad happens—like now! I highly recommend just giving Rudi Hoffman a call. He makes it easy.)
Of course you are, you just gave away $200. Good grief.
Not to pick on you… Well actually yes, to pick on you: What the hell is wrong with you people? If this were religious-oriented—for a pilgrimage to Mecca or buy Mormon underpants or pay for one last course of Scientology auditing—you’d be laughing your ass off hysterically! But because it’s cryonics...
How could you fail and compartmentalize so epically? This is like, fractally bad: at every level, donating is a bad idea. It’s probably a scam, so donating is a bad idea; if it weren’t a scam, you still have no idea what she would really do with it or how close to the cryonics fee she’d come, so donating is a bad idea; even if she would collect enough, donating to ALCOR or the Brain Preservation Prize is a better idea; even if you wanted to donate to them, they’re still almost certainly not as good as Givewell’s best charity; and so on.
As Konkvistador points out, I don’t think people are being philanthropic, they’re purchasing fuzzies.
Well they’re going to lose a whole lot of fuzzies when the scam is exposed.
Would you care to give a probability?
A scam like this is hard to expose if done right. How would you expose it in the absence of specific actionable information like a name, whose omission can be justified on privacy grounds? (Even a frontal photograph would give you little to go on unless you were lucky.)
As NancyLebovitz asked MileyCyrus… would you care to put odds on this being a scam? I see three broad outcomes: exposed as scam, confirmed by CI as not a scam (or similar strong evidence), and something inconclusive. A prediction on all three options (or more, if you see interesting ones) would be nice, or feel free to lump any two together.
I’ll give an informal prediction: 5% of scam exposed, more likely confirmed by CI than not.
Before Hank’s claim about the Facebook profile (for which I will take his word), I would’ve given 75% chance of an underlying fraud. With the years of Facebooking up front, I’d revise downwards to 5-10%. Will CI confirm or will everyone be left hanging? That’s harder… She might just be too lazy or events could intervene. I don’t have a good guess about that sort of thing, so I’d too only give around >60% odds of CI confirming her.
Still hoping she might get some cryo-financial assistance from her Christian family could have inhibited her from making her identity completely transparent. Becoming a cryonics cause-celebre could also be the last straw in her relations with her parents.
So, let’s take bets, given those odds: 5% chance of a confirmed scam, 50% chance confirmed not a scam, and 45% chance that evidence is inconclusive.
So, you would gladly accept cash bets where you lose $5 if it is confirmed not a scam and gain $1 if it confirmed a scam. Anyone willing to bet against those odds?
I think you got the numbers backwards.
I would take a bet where I lose $5 if it is confirmed a scam and gain $1 if it is confirmed not a scam. (I’m assuming the bet is off if there is no confirmation either way.)
At $5 vs $1, I’m not sure the bet is worth the hassle. Make it $25 vs $5, and I’m in. I’m happy to work with payment via paypal or mailed cash or check.
Myself, I judge the odds differently: I’d call it about a 20% chance of a scam, but a .2% chance of what I would call confirmation of that; and about an 80% chance that it is confirmed not to be a scam (such as by a independent verification from the CI. I can’t describe the criteria which, if met, would result in a inconclusive result, so I won’t take any bets on that outcome; I also won’t take the small bet, and can’t afford the large bet.
Assuming this is not a scam, I would donate for practical reasons (and not only fuzzies) - for those who plan to be frozen, we want cryonics to be popular. A public incident like this might make it into news, etc., and make a difference. Plus Reddit has gotten quite big.
There are a lot of things I’d like to say, but you have put forth a prediction
I would like to take up a bet with you on this ending up being a scam. This can be arbitrated by some prominent member of CI, Alcor, or Rudi Hoffman. I would win if an arbiter decides that the person who posted on Reddit was in fact diagnosed with cancer essentially as stated in her Reddit posts, and is in fact gathering money for a her own cryonics arrangements. If none of the proposed arbiters can vouch for the above within one month (through September 18), then you will win the bet.
What odds would you like on this, and what’s the maximum amount of money you’d put on the line?
As I said in my other comment, I’m now giving 5-10% for scam. I’d be happy to take a 1:10 bet on the CI outcome risking no more than $100 on my part, but I think 1 month is much too tight; 1 January 2013 would be a better deadline with the bet short-circuiting on CI judgment.
Done. $100 from you vs $1000 from me. If you lose, you donate it to her fund. If I lose, I can send you the money or do with it what you wish.
Wait, I’m not sure we’re understanding each other. I thought I was putting up $100, and you’d put up $10; if she turned out to be a scam (as judged by CI), I lose the $100 to you—while if she turned out to be genuine (as judged by CI), you would lose the $10 to me.
Well I still accept, since now it’s a much better deal for me!
Um, the way I’m reading this it looks like gwern is taking the position you were originally trying to take?
Yes, that’s my take too… I’m not sure what mtaran is doing here—maybe he doesn’t care at all about the odds or which side he’s taking? I don’t mind betting, but I do insist that—when it’s for real sums of money like $100 - that my counterparty knows what he’s agreeing to. And I’m not sure mtaran does.
For what it’s worth, I too haven’t understood what side you are taking. Usually people bet on outcomes which they think are more probable than their opponent thinks.
I spent way too much time thinking about the same thing. It seems to me, if mtaran believes chance of scam is lower than Gwern’s, they should both agree that Gwern take the larger payout for smaller chance of being correct about it being a scam.
For what it’s worth I do not think that mtaran’s original bet is was that great for Gwern to begin with. A $1,000 to $100 bet implies odds of scam is at 9.1%, however Gwern stated his probability is 5%-10% putting the odds at the higher end of Gwern’s estimate. If Mtaran is truly confident he needs to offer at least $1,900 to $100 payout for as this will match Gwern’s lowest percentage for being a scam (5%).
Ok, I misread one of gwern’s replies. My original intent was to extract money from the fact that gwern gave (from my vantage point) too high a probability of this being a scam.
Under my original version of the terms, if his P(scam) was .1:
he would expect to get $1000 .1 of the time
he would expect to lose $100 .9 of the time
yielding an expected value of $10
Under my original version of the terms, if his P(scam) was .05:
he would expect to get $1000 .05 of the time
he would expect to lose $100 .95 of the time
yielding an expected value of -$45
In the second case, he would of course not want to take that bet. I’d thus like to amend my suggested conditions to have gwern only put $52 at stake against my $1000. For any P(scam) > .05 this is a positive expected value, so I would expect it to have been satisfactory to gwern[19 August 2012 01:53:58AM].
Alright then, I accept. The wager is thus:
on 1 January 2013, if CI confirms that she is really dying and has or is in the process of signing up with membership & life insurance, then I will pay you $52; if they confirm the opposite, confirm nothing, or she has made no progress, you will pay me $1000.
In case of a dispute, another LWer can adjudicate; I nominate Eliezer, Carl Shulman, Luke, or Yvain (I haven’t asked but I doubt all would decline).
For me, paying with Paypal is most convenient, but if it isn’t for you we can arrange something else (perhaps you’d prefer I pay the $52 to a third party or charity). I can accept Paypal or Bitcoin.
This isn’t fair. She probably can’t get life insurance with a terminal diagnosis. She’s more likely to pay for the suspension outright.
Oh right; I’m so used to cryonics funding always being life insurance I forgot it wouldn’t apply here. Hm… I was trying for some sort of verification of financial commitment to being preserved. Suggestions on wording?
My understanding is that if CI confirms this, they’re likely to set up a fund, which is what I plan to donate to.
I’m not sure at what point during the process CI would take the suspension money, so I don’t know.
Genius, I should have thought of that ^_^
From a hedonistic point of view, what would you propose to be a better way to buy warm fuzzies for those already moved by and emotionally invested in the story?
Maybe a charity specializing in Africans which will send you pictures of little kids? Another option might be to go to the local pound, play with some of the kittens, and then donate; if warm fuzzy kittens and cats don’t get you warm fuzzies, I dunno what will!
(Best of course would be to not fall for the trap in the first place.)
You’re missing the similarity drive. Pictures of smiling Africans is different from “this girl thinks like me”- the former are just kindred bodies, the latter are kindred spirits.
Not to fall into the “trap” of buying warm fuzzies? Do you advocate a policy of never buying yourself any warm fuzzies, or just of never buying warm fuzzies specifically through donating to charity (because it’s easy to trick your brain into believing it just did good)?
Yes, I am deeply suspicious of Eliezer’s post on warm fuzzies vs utilons because while I accept that it can be a good strategy, I am skeptical that it actually is: my suspicion is that for pretty much all people, buying fuzzies just crowds out buying utilons.
For example, I asked Konkvistador on IRC, since he was planning on buying fuzzies by donating to this person, what utilons he was planning on buying, especially since he had just mentioned he had very little money to spare. He replied with something about not eating ice cream and drinking more water.
I was going for how this increase in fuzzy spending would be counteracted by me specifically cutting out fuzzy spending elsewhere, so total fuzzy spending remains unchanged by this particular decision.
Also me loosing weight does bring me utility.
So now you’re passing the buck twice: you’re passing the buck from donating to her to actually cutting down on the ice cream, and from there, you’re passing the buck to having increased hedons to at some point buying more utilons. Do you see why this sort of reasoning makes me go all -_- ?
More rationalizing doesn’t make me feel better either!
You’ve shamed me not currently donating much to optimal charity. This has caused me to want to lower my current warm fuzzies spending increasing my available financial resources and give more to SIAI (which I currently think is the optimal charity). Thus I’ve decided to cut the last thing on the list of stuff I enjoy: Ice cream and sweets. The loosing weight comment was indeed searching for a silver lining to cutting it off my list.
If you hadn’t shamed me I’d still be happily enjoying my large supply of warm fuzzies from ice cream and other things, but you’ve unfortunately devalued it depriving me of that fun. That’s probably worth it for you since its more than offset by gains in other people.
I am however pretty bothered by how worked up some people where getting over this. I’m pretty certain that if I shared a good deal for buying a huge collection of anime on LessWrong and said that some people might find this valuable and they should totally check it out, no one would bring up optimal charity. I explicitly put this in the same bin as buying anime yet people attack it nevertheless.
I can see why.
Looking at myself from the outside I think I’m clearly defending an emotional attachment to a course of action. But I don’t remember deceiving myself or anyone else into thinking this was something worth doing on efficient charity grounds for the good of the world. This was framed as personal expenditures spending and talking about such spending. We do this all the time, check out the fictional book and other media recommendation threads we have running. I don’t see optimal charity advocates stomping there haranguing people for consuming such media. Indeed I can take this comparison further in this case and point out she is producing media (videos, writing), lots of people consume media that is available for free yet still donate to the authors for creating such content.
I didn’t even expect as many people as have to donate or feel inclined to donate on LessWrong, I was actually hoping more for people here to go and engage the pro-death arguments on reddit than donate themselves. I also made the argument that efficient charity advocacy in that thread (thought perhaps not here) won’t result in more efficient charity, but anti-cryonics or pro-death memes might be impacted in a way we’d all like.
Fuzzies are utilons.
Personally, I prefer Kickstarter projects for my fuzzies, because they typically also come with direct physical rewards.
Not sure if your suggestion would work at this stage. This dying (assuming it’s not a scam) person is already real and embedded in their hearts, especially if they read her older posts. They would have to pick cute kittens or sad pictures over a cancer girl, not an obvious decision. Like Murder-Gandhi, they have been irreversibly changed and would require a sobering pill to snap out of it, which they would probably refuse to take.
Assuming her story is not a scam, ponder why I find the idea of donating for cute kittens instead of helping another human being facing death and begging for help repugnant.
I have; now please ponder why I might find repugnant the idea of donating towards something as inefficient and low-probability as cryonics rather than the very high probability charities identified by GiveWell, based solely on some identity politics and a Reddit post.
If everyone is going to justify donating to her on fuzzies, then have the guts to defend fuzzies. Fuzzies are not a good way of helping human beings ‘facing death’: that’s the point. Don’t equivocate between arguing that donating to her is a good way of making you feel better, and arguing that donating to her is a utilitarianly optimal sort of donation.
You make an interesting assumption that we care about other people in general. If you assume that we model the human species as a group of people with the bell curve split fifty percent above and below the zero value line symmetrically, then it’s perfectly rational to give only to people who are familiar enough with to rank in the positive half.
Note: I do not believe this.
Also, if you actually believe in optimal charity for utilitarian reasons, then abusing people for sub-optimal charity is ridiculous. It does not make them more likely to engage in optimal charity, it makes them more likely not to engage in charity at all. You’re shooting your cause in the foot at least as much as they are.
It may make them overall less likely to engage in charity, yes, but if they do, it also makes them more likely to engage in optimal charity*. Since optimal charity is something like 2-3 orders of magnitude better than this particular instance of fuzzy charity, I should be willing to cause a lot of overall drops in charity in exchange for diverting a small fraction of that to an optimal charity.
* If it doesn’t even do that, though, then I have some serious problems on my hand.
The next time people are presented with an opportunity for charity(any opportunity), their last memory is now changed from ‘hey, I was charitable a couple of months ago, and that was nice’ to ‘hey, I was charitable a couple of months ago, and this optimal-charity jerk made me feel terrible about it.’
You’re making them less likely to give in general, and, by being rude about it, you’re also damaging the PR brand of your cause, which will hurt you more than you think. I don’t know of any corporation that advertises its product by abusing its customers.
This is likely to be the case if gwern were to act in such a way in the vast majority of environments. However, in this particular online community, criticizing people for publicly donating to suboptimal charity may well be a fairly good method for gwern to produce utilons.
Indeed. Consistent with this situational point, I also recently advised not attempting to go over the The Oatmeal and related forums and evangelizing for optimal charity.
http://xkcd.com/871/
Which doesn’t address my point, but just reiterates the argument of the first comment.
I have. You know what, you’re perfectly right, there are better ways to help people, and that’s even if you’re selfish and wish to help groups in which you’re likely to find yourself, for instance setting a precedent of people helping needy, terminally ill cryonics patients because “someday I could be in her shoes”.
You’re also too good at rhetoric for your own good. I wouldn’t have been so distracted from the content of your message if you hadn’t been acting so aggressive, indignant and grandiloquent in the comments from the beginning on. Why did you have to? Do you feel like the strength of your arguments alone wouldn’t suffice? Or were you too engrossed in the game of putting your ideas forward and destroying those on the other side?
That’s exactly it. This page is stuffed with identity politics, prewritten bottom lines, base-rate neglect, likely sexism, sheer abandonment of optimal charity, scope insensitivity, equivocation & abuse of fuzzies vs utilons, and so on.
This is all LW orthodoxy to the extent there is such a thing, yet even so, the pull of ‘dying cute girl wants cryonics! MUST HELP!’ is so strong that LW orthodoxy + good rhetoric* still earns me a mix of heavy down and upvotes with the flow of donations apparently unabated.
* I don’t think I’m very good at rhetoric, but I’ll take your word for it.
Do you think your strategy is channeling more money to efficient charities, as opposed to random personal consumption (such as a nice computer, movies, video games, or a personal cryonics policy)?
A more positive approach might work well: donate for fuzzies, but please extrapolate those feelings to many more utilons. I just used this technique to secure far more utilons than I have seen mentioned in this thread, and it seems like it might be the most effective among the LW crowd.
Great textbook example of the biases affecting charitable giving, isn’t it? People will give more to a single, identifiable person than to an anonymous person or a group. People want to feel like they actually changed something they can directly see, rather than contributing a small amount to a big goal; etc.
As a counterpoint to your generalization, JGWeissman has given 82x more to SIAI than he plans to give to this girl if her story checks out.
And how many JGWs are there in the world?
More and more, if I can do anything about it. (Edit since someone didn’t like this comment: That’s a big if. I’m trying to make it smaller.)
I think what hankx means is that (s)he’s not in a position to donate large amounts of money (as in large enough to save 50 or more life-years). However, $100 is still enough to buy warm fuzzies.
No, I mean this is not just about fuzzies for me.
FYI, I’m now friends with this girl on facebook. She has posts going back to 2005 and ample evidence that she is legit. But I did not need to see this to know she was legitimate. I highly recommend you re-evaluate whatever cognitive process you were using that led to such over-skepticism… you obviously need to update something.
I’m glad your blind faith in this ‘hot’ girl seems to have been rewarded, but I stand by my comments: it had many characteristics of a scam, and even if not, is suboptimal on multiple levels.
Well I wasn’t going to dignify this with a response, but since you’re getting up-votes for some reason...
You’re right gwern, you caught me. My enthusiasm for supporting this girl’s cause has nothing to do with life and death issues and my ability to wisely judge the context and available evidence, but rather is better explained by the hypothesis that this is all a bunch of motivated cognition on my part deriving from my secret fetish for cancer girls...
There’s a fetish for everything. You laugh, but Neon Genesis Evangelion was so successful in part because of bandaged Rei, and we recently saw an entire fan-made English visual novel (_Katawa Shoujo_/”Cripple Girls”) on this sort of thing. Fight Club also comes to mind.
Of course, you don’t need a fetish to want to help out a girl. As I commented yesterday on The Last Psychiatrist - ‘organisms are adaptation-executers, not fitness-maximizers’.
I do hope you cited the aphorism rather than taking credit for it as original. But seeing it repeated once again forced me for once to pay attention to its meaning: to find it vacuous. The point should be stated Don’t confuse functional and mechanistic explanations. Organisms don’t “execute” their adaptations, this being just another confusion of kinds of explanation, at least if taken literally. And organisms can be said to be fitness maximizers, once it is realized that functional generalizations are always riddled with exceptions.
I presented it as a quote, and it’s very easily googleable, so I didn’t provide a full cite or anything, no.
One of the exceptions is exactly the point of the quote.
Ugh. The top comment seems to fall into all the traps of someone rationalising their mortality, and it has received so much positive feedback too! :(
(And also they clearly don’t properly know what they are talking about: calling it “cryogenics” and saying the vague and awkwardly phrased “it’s been debunked by science”.)
I felt somewhat phygish when I went into that little chain and started down-voting with a passion after following your link. I guess I would have done the same if I had found such blatant deathism on my own, but it feels weird. Eh, it’s an emotional problem, not a logical one.
Look at the evidence:
Her Reddit account is only five months old, and most of her posts are about her cancer.
Her blog is less than a year old, and contains only six posts (all about cancer).
She won’t share any serious proof, not even with the Reddit mods.
She’s using a Paypal account that doesn’t identify her real name.
If pizzarules1000 (that’s what we have to call her, since she won’t share her real name) is desperate for her life, she could have fooled me. Why didn’t she PM the reddit mods, so that they could verify her information? Why didn’t she ask the Cyrogenics Institute to handle preservation fund? Why won’t she videoblog? The whole think looks like a lazy attempt to make a few bucks, rather than a desperate attempt to preserve her own life.
There is a conversation going on about her on the CI Facebook page that seems to indicate that she has been in contact with them. According to info there, her name is Kim Suozzi. Also they will set up a fund at CI for her, once she becomes a member and they vet her story. So If you are considering donating, but worried its a scam, it might be best to hold off until then.
This needs to be at the top of this page or linked in the main post.
I agree with this, this is why I’ve decided to wait with my donation.
Hey guys, you may know me as pizzarules1000, but I want to formally introduce myself to the community. My name is Kim Suozzi. Here’s a link to my Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/kimsuozzi), a video I made today (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW3peOK1X9E), and Twitter, which you might enjoy (https://twitter.com/dblchb). I’d be happy to upload some documents confirming my identity/that I have cancer. I’ll be at Duke tomorrow and can have my medical records sent to whomever. I also could upload a pathology report today, or have one of my doctors email you guys a document confirming my condition/treatment. I always have my driver license to show you as well. I just made a payment to CI (http://imgur.com/VVdoU) and asked them if they could help with handling the fund. I don’t blame you for wanting to be careful.
Anyway, now that I have all of that out of the way (sort of), I want to express how deeply I appreciate everyone’s support so far in donating, spreading my story, and otherwise advocating for me. I’m so glad that there’s this robust community of intelligent and compassionate people that have come to my aid. As much as it sucks to die now, I’m goddamned lucky to live in the place and time that I do. You guys are giving me hope that I can achieve my goal. Again, it’s hard to describe how much that means to me; people like you are offering me the most peace that can feasibly be found with knowledge that I’m going to die.
Kim, I am so sorry about what has happened to you. Reading your post was heartbreaking. Death is a stupid and terrible thing.
Like JGWeissman, I planned to donate $500.
Stephan has been a close friend of mine for the past decade, and when he told me he was planning to donate $5,000, I wrangled a commitment from him to do what I do and donate a significant and permanent percentage of his income to efficient charities. There are many lives to save, and even though you have to do some emotional math to realize how you should be feeling, it’s the right thing to do and it’s vital to act.
He wrangled a commitment from me too: when CI manages a fund for you, I will donate $5,000.
Hi Kim, I’m Stephan. Your story hit me harder than probably anyone else here—I’m 29, I intend to sign up for cryonics in the next few years, and glioblastoma multiforme has killed two of my ancestors: my maternal grandmother when I was very young, and my dad in 2010. If I were diagnosed with GBM now, much less at 23, I’d be mewling like a kitten in terror. I am truly sorry to hear of the shitty hand that nature has dealt you.
I will donate $5,000 when CI manages a fund for you (like JGWeissman said).
While some people have been offering you terrible “advice” on Reddit, I swear that this is completely different—I want to point out two important things that you may have missed. (Obviously, you haven’t had a ton of time to look into your options here!)
CI’s fee structure is confusing. I’ve been looking at Alcor, so I’m not very familiar with CI, but you appear to have created a Yearly membership ($75 one-time initiation fee, plus $120 per-year membership). With this membership, you need $35,000 for cryopreservation. There’s another kind of membership, the Lifetime membership. That has a $0 initiation fee and a $1,250 one-time membership fee, after which cryopreservation is $28,000.
The Yearly membership makes sense for people who can’t scrape together $1,250 at the beginning. But for your purposes, the Yearly membership is significantly more expensive.
The good news is that you can reduce the amount you’ll need to raise from $35,195 to $29,250: “Yearly Membership members may switch to Lifetime Membership at any time, by paying the $1,250 Lifetime membership fee. If Yearly Member decides to covert to a Lifetime Membership, all Yearly Membership payments paid in the year prior to the conversion date can be counted toward the one-time Lifetime Membership fee of $1,250.00. This means that the $75.00 Initiation Fee can only be applied to the Lifetime Membership fee during the first year of Yearly Membership.”
Unlike Alcor, CI’s basic membership doesn’t include “Standby”—CI presents it as a significantly more expensive feature that you can add for $88,000 (in fact, you must set it up with a separate organization, Suspended Animation). CI has a pros/cons page about this. Alcor’s $80,000 neurocryopreservation includes Standby. If your fundraising is wildly successful, you should definitely consider it.
Why not sign up now? To get started, just fill out this form and Rudi Hoffman will find insurance policies for you and walk you through the rest of the process. (You have clearly put some research into this, so if you have some other path, take it, but “the next few years” is too vague of a time frame for you to ever decide “now is the time to do it”.)
I’m not completely irrational. The primary roadblock is not my paperwork allergy (which is admittedly intense) but the fact that I like to completely think through major decisions. My financial situation is unlike most people’s, and insurance may not be optimal for me. While researching Kim’s options, I looked at Alcor’s funding methods closely for the first time, and a trust may be best for me. I try to collect other data, like this found today. Then it all goes into my brain, I heavily weight whatever Luke thinks, and bam—decision. Then I procrastinate on paperwork.
LOL
I think I will have to trust Luke to make sure you get going on the paper work after you make your decision.
I’ll be in Seattle in two weeks, and I’ll take care of it (final three paragraphs).
I contributed twenty dollars. I wish I could help more, but… college student. You seem like a cool person, and I wish you long life and prosperity, current inconveniences aside. With prompt cryopreservation, your odds (in my estimation) are actually pretty good. The big risk is that either a major, civilization-disrupting disaster will occur in the next century, or CI will suffer economic failure, and be unable to afford containment costs. With chemo-preservation as a backup option in the latter case, you may take some comfort in knowing that if you die the real death, as Zelazny would say, odds are pretty good you’re taking western civilization down with you.
Best of luck to you on your fundraising, and subsequent vacation from the mortal coil.
Welcome.
I plan to donate when CI manages a fund. I appreciate your understanding that I want to be careful. (And set up the right incentives for future cases. I’m pretty confident you are legit.) (ETA: There is now a fund set up by the Society for Venturism, and I have made my donation through them.)
You had mentioned on your Reddit post that your boyfriend is supportive of your decision to pursue cryonics. Is he interested in cryonics for himself? Cryonics is much more affordable when you set things up when you are young and healthy, he may be able to do it on his own. I have been figuring out ways to get interested people to actually do this (and it turns it to be really easy), and I’m sorry I didn’t figure this out and meet you earlier, when you were thinking about cryonics but not yet diagnosed. You actually inspired me to post about that now instead of waiting to see how many people I got to start made it through the whole process.
Dear Kim,
I donated $25. (I’m broke, okay?) I hope and pray[1] that you’ll make it to the future, and look forward to meeting you there. You are smart for finding a path to life, brave for doing what you must in the face of death, and sensible for worrying about that instead of how smart and brave you sound. You have earned peace and joy and praise; may you enjoy them now, and enjoy them later.
Love,
Leo.
[1] PayPal counts as a higher power, right?
Not going to donate myself (makes no sense unless I set up my own cryo plans first), but I’ll be quite happy for you if you reach your goal of $35k or so charged by CI. Good luck!
If you’re planning on it, you should get on it now. Cryonics is much more affordable if you don’t have a terminal illness and can cover it with a policy.
Do you want to set up your own cryo plans?
I suspect that I can probably borrow enough against a regular life insurance if and when the time comes.
The time might come with a car crash, nullifying this strategy.
Yes indeed. As I said in the original reply, I have no cryo plans set up. Then again, the odds of your brain being in a good enough shape for cryo long enough after a bad car crash are not good. Consider that for the cryo measures to be triggered on time, you have to end up in a hospital alive, with an intact brain, but fatally injured otherwise, and live long enough for the cryo team to negotiate with the hospital to get a hold of your body right after you die, but not long enough to be able to make cryo arrangements from scratch, should you wish to.
If you die in a car crash, your brain will most likely suffer massive damage (from traumatic injury or ischemia or both) long before any attempt at cryopreservation could be made. I suppose this also applies to all the most common causes of death before 45 − 50.
I understand the point, but do you have any stats on this or just guessing? Esp. for adult drivers buckle in and such.
Guessing.
I’m not a doctor so I may be missing something important, but I can’t think of any type of predictably fatal traumatic injury that leaves you alive with an essentially intact brain for at least 1 − 2 days.
Some statistics
Notably: “In the western world, the most common cause of death after trauma is severe brain injury.”, “In modern day civilian trauma centres, thoracic injury directly accounts for 20-25% of deaths due to trauma; thoracic injury or its complications are a contributing factor in a further 25% of trauma deaths”
Death in the vast majority of cases entails general ischemia due to the cessation of circulation, trauma or no. How sensitive your brain is to a lack of oxygen is easily tested by having someone compress both your carotid arteries for 60 seconds. (The exception to the death-ischemia link would be brain death with circulation upheld for a variety of reasons, most commonly viability for organ transplantation.)
The killer consideration with fatal traumatic injuries is their unpredictability. Such an event will most probably drastically prolong the time to cryopreservation, at least by hours. Where are you? Which hospital are you announced dead in? Where’s the nearest cryopreservation team? When in the process are they notified? How long is their travel time? How much damage is done while you’re not yet announced dead?
The delay, hours of ischemia (while being dead), is what will degrade your brain tissue to a microscopically garbled mess, regardless of the specific type of trauma.
It bears repeating: Even the penumbra of neurons = the peripheral neurons that after a stroke still get some measure of oxygen are given up upon after 4-5 hours (no benefit from further treatment). The central neurons most affected by an ischemic event are considered lost within an hour.
Interesting strategy. It would be a good idea to validate this possibility now rather than when you suddenly need it.
(ETA: I am confused by the parent being downvoted. I don’t think it is effective to punish people for honestly answering questions.)
I know that it is possible, but no, I haven’t looked into the details.
Awesome. Welcome here! I have updated the main article to link to this.
I just donated, and seems like quite a few people are doing same. Please post something here to see how you’re doing on your target and CI formalities. (more can be done at a later point)
magfrump points out that you should mention this in an edit to the main post.
I think that one of the strongest pieces of evidence against this being a scam is that she picked cryonics, which seems low payout even in the demographics of reddit. Not saying that it’s not a scam, but if I were designing a scam, I’d pick something else.
This is a significant point against picking cryonics, but on the other hand, it does give a convenient excuse for the person to do away with the online persona afterwards without raising additional suspicions and needing to answer any further questions.
Also, the more potential donors you attract, the more investigators you’re also likely to attract. If I were designing a scam, I probably wouldn’t pick cryonics, but I also wouldn’t go for something that attracted as many benefactors as possible because it would increase my risk of being found out.
This is compelling.
I’ve added the following disclaimer.
I have donated $1000, and I really do believe that our community can get her fully funded. I understand how CI has to be cautious about these sorts of things, but I’ve seen enough evidence to be more than convinced.
She posted her first vlog on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW3peOK1X9E
Also per facebook, she’s working on setting up a more official donation route with CI or Alcor. I expect donations will pour in once that gets established.
A few of my favorite posts in this thread:
http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/ydsy5/reddit_help_me_find_some_peace_in_dying_young_im/c5uxrjq
http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/ydsy5/reddit_help_me_find_some_peace_in_dying_young_im/c5v2e64
http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/ydsy5/reddit_help_me_find_some_peace_in_dying_young_im/c5uxk4j
Also
http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/ydsy5/reddit_help_me_find_some_peace_in_dying_young_im/c5uvgzw
(For context, the first two quotes you have there are from HPMoR.)
Also,
http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/ydsy5/reddit_help_me_find_some_peace_in_dying_young_im/c5v03b3
And to whoever just came through and down-voted every single comment of mine in this thread… really? Why?
EDIT: Wow, someone just did it again.
Cryonics was definitely a scam when the first organization was established.
Modern practitioners might be possibly motivated by self-delusion rather than fraudolent intent, but it doesn’t change the fact that the service they are offering is very much unlikely to provide any significant life extension:
The cryopreservation process causes significant brain damage, due to ischemia, cryoprotectant toxicity, mechanical stress caused by thermal contraction and possibly ice formation (its unclear whether they can achieve full vitrification of a human brain).
Even if the process was in principle capable of preserving enough information to restore the self, there are significant chances that they may not perform it properly, since it entails difficult and time-critical procedures, and they work without any independent oversight and clearly have no incentive to report errors and mishaps.
Even if the preservation process works in principle and they performed it correctly, there are no known or even realistically foreseable technologies that would allow restoration. Belief in magical nanotechnology is just blind faith.
Even if restoration technology becomes available, it is far from obvious that future people will have an incentive to restore cryopreserved people, particularly at large scale.
Last but not least, the financial structure of cryonics organization is dubious, resembling Ponzi/pyramid schemes. The long-term viability of these organizations is questionable.
You’re wrong in almost every way, and even though your post is essentially flaming rhetoric and fails to address anything in the linked-to post or make any substantive claims at all, I’ll still try to make a few points just because I have to at least say something.
I’ve listened to some of the founders talk about what it was like when they first started. They were a small group of people who righteously believed in their cause, but had no money or organization. They pulled together in many amazing ways, at one point having to keep someone on ice in someone’s bathtub before they could get a real solution, and winning amazing and unprecedented legal victories by pulling together and fighting for their cause. This is the sort of story I’ve heard. What are you even referring to? Or is your opinion just some random crap you pulled out of your ass which has no relation to reality (which is what I suspect)?
If you want to argue it’s a bad bet, fine. I would disagree, but your free to have your own opinion.
How much damage does burial or cremation cause?
The implication being that the folks running cryonics organization are frauds just out to make money and don’t give a damn about the patient? Another baseless and insulting accusation.
There is nothing magical about the prospects of nanotechnology. There are no assumptions that we will discover free energy, cold fusion, or need anything that we know violates the laws of physics. If you’re not going to point out exactly what is magical about widely held beliefs about the prospects of future technology then it’s safe to assume this is yet another opinion pulled out of your ass.
The continued existence of cryonics organizations with their current policies provides for reanimation. In addition there are many perpetual trusts that provide redundant mechanisms for insuring reanimation is provided for. Finally, what exactly does this say about your view of humanity? If you had a stable but preserved medical patient, and came up with a way to cure them, would you save their life, or just throw people away like garbage? If the latter, what the hell is wrong with you? Most people would not do that. Also see http://alcor.org/FAQs/faq07.html#today
Do you even know what a pyramid or Ponzi scheme is? A cryonics organization charges people the money required to perform the services they offer. They are very open about their financials. And yeah, the long-term viability of anything is questionable, but personally I don’t believe the long-term viability of everything is certainly doomed.
I think he was talking about Robert Nelson leaving eleven ‘patients’ out in the open to rot.
Well, there’s Robert Nelson, among other things. Trans Time once threatened to have two patients, Ray and Katherine Mills, thawed and cremated, because to them they were nothing more than paying customers, certainly not patients. They were later, thankfully, neuroconverted and transported to Alcor, which is not completely innocent either, if you read Darwin’s A Visit to Alcor. Specifically, this part made me reconsider the plausibility of cryonics, not from a scientific standpoint, but from a social/organizational one:
[Cont., original post was cut]
As for the Cryonics Institute, well, I think this says it all:
As for MNT:
By now mechanosynthesis has pretty much been proven, at least in the environment of computer simulations. The things that are extrapolated from it are not so certain: For example, the Planetary Gear and other nanomechanical wonders have only been simulated using molecular dynamics, but the only way to validate that they work (That is, that the atoms won’t clump together or bonds will be formed across gears) is with an ab-initio calculation, and to the extent of my knowledge this has not been done. The prospect of nanomedicine as described by Freitas is even more dubious, since it builds on the assumption that those machines are feasible. The scaling laws used by Drexler in Nanosystems (And subsequently by Freitas in Nanomedicine) are also flawed, as Richard Jones pointed out to Michael Anissimov:
So while the basic capabilities are beyond doubt (In the theory), the capabilities that are presumed to arise from them are not.
Not really my field of expertise, but if I understand correctly, this refers to scanning tunneling microscope tips for atom-by-atom assembly. While certainly interesting for research purposes, this doesn’t seem to be a scalable manufacturing technology.
I’m not sure about the scalability of mechanosynthesis, either (Massive parallelism gets thrown around a lot, but there may be something to convergent assembly) , but I was just talking about the basic tip chemistry.
Zyvex has a similar process called Patterned Atomic Layer Epitaxy which seems more promising as a large-scale manufacturing technology, but I have not seen designs for nanofactories of megadalton-scale products made using PALE.
Chatsworth Scandal
For reanimation purposes? Probably pretty much the same of cryopreservation. Once a bit has been deleted you can’t delete it twice.
Or they are incompetent, or they try to cut the costs to avoid bankruptcy, or they avoid reporting problems in order not to alienate current and potential new members, or because they delude themselves in order not to hurt their own perception of their effectiveness.
Why should you trust them? When someone offers to sell you the afterlife, skepticism should be the default position.
Flying pigs might not necessarily violate the laws of physics either. That’s not a good argument in favour of the claim that it will be eventually possible to create flying pigs.
If you make the claim that technology X is physically possible, the burden is on you to support that claim with a compelling argument. Attempting to reverse the burden of proof by saying “You can’t prove X is impossible” doesn’t qualify as a compelling argument. Note how close this comes to the classical religious argument “You can’t prove there is no God”.
There is no widely held belief that nanotechnology capable of restoring cryopreserved people will be developed.
“Nanotechnology” is kind of a buzzword. If by “nanotechnology” you mean artificial biochemistry, or something closely resembling that, then it is something feasible, and to some extent it already exists, but it will be subject to physical constraints probably similar to those that apply to natural biochemistry. If you mean an unspecified process that will allow us to arbitrarily control matter at atomic level, then that’s pretty much the definition of magic.
Why should they care about people frozen a long time in their past, particularly given limited resources?
That is realistic, I suppose. We currently let people die of starvation, curable diseases and violent conflict. If we found frozen corpses of 1000 years ago and it was technologically possible to reanimate them, how many would we care to restore?
They fail to cover all the per-member expenses with just the fees paid by that member, hence they rely on the continuous recruitment of new members to pay the expenses for old ones. That makes them essentially a Ponzi scheme (or pyramid, if the members actively try to recruit new members themselves, as various people on this very thead appear to be doing). Possibly that wasn’t done with fraudolent intent, but the result on the financial viability of the business model will be the same.
For the record, it will one day be perfectly possible to create flying pigs, and it will probably be done as an art project, when the science of bio-engineering is sufficiently well understood. It’s probably possible now, in fact,, if there were a substantial R&D push, and you allowed biomechanical augmentation.
EDIT: I’m right. If you bolt a jet engine and a pair of glider wings onto the skeleton of a pig, the animal will fly. And you can definitely splice enough genes to give a pig hollow bones and functional wings. The latter’s just quite a bit harder than the former. Doesn’t mean it won’t be done, eventually.
If you load a pig in the cargo hold of a Boeing 747, the animal will fly, but I meant biologically flying pigs.
While I can’t prove they are physically impossible, I don’t assign a significant probability to the claim that they will be eventually created.
I think that’s unreasonably pessimistic without an upper bound on time limit. In any case, there’s substantially less interest in an art project like that than there is in, say, bringing people back from the dead.
The claim I was considering is flying pigs being technologically possible at some time in the future, not they being actually made (which is less likely).
If you want an animal the size of an adult pig to fly under its own power, it’s going to be a very challenging problem.
Are there any naturally occurring vertebrates that can fly as juveniles but lose the power as adults? Do we have reason to believe that there are early or flightless birds that passed through a stage like that? Because that would be interesting.
‘Under its own power’ was not specified as part of the problem. But even under those conditions, a piglet is not dramatically larger than the big fruit bats. It could be done, mechanically. Actually getting that terrifying clusterfuck of a genome to work would be quite a challenge, but I have little doubt someone will do it eventually.
For a cryonics organization to have reasonable odds of long-term survival (hundreds, possibly thousands of years), it has to be in the reference class of such organizations. Other than a handful of successful religions, and maybe a handful of financial organizations out of thousands, I cannot think of any. And the latter survived more by serendipity than due to exceptionally good management. Nearly all long-term entities significantly changed their mandate during that time. It is universally agreed that making cryonics into religion is a terrible idea, so what’s left is hoping for luck and for the mandate to not deviate too far from what the founders intended.
There are some things that make historical survival rates an unreliable gauge for our purposes. Religions and other ancient organizations lacked many of various resources available to us currently, and had to cope with more violence and illiteracy than we do. We can keep track of records automatically with computers, and 24-hour surveillance of the organization’s physical properties (including patients) is possible. Eventually, there could be self-sustaining and self-repairing—even self-defending—facilities. Furthermore, if extreme longevity happens in the relatively near term (perhaps mere decades after one’s cryopreservation) this raises the possibility that the stewards of the organization will be very experienced and risk-conscious human beings. The need for an unbroken line of succession across many generations (a huge risk factor) would thus be greatly reduced if not eliminated entirely.
Organizations typically don’t fail because their site has been raided by marauders, they fail because of financial or legal problems, or because those who run them lose interests (or retire, or die and nobody replaces them).
Watching over human popsicles (for decades, centuries, millennia?), without any new subscription and without any need for someone to do the same for them in the future. They are going to need a pretty strong motivation.
“This time is different”.
Just going to add to this, there are lot of complete made up stories defaming cryonics organizations which have been found fraudulent in court. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with people that would make them want to do this, I’m guessing maybe religious nuts who want to scare people away.
Are you saying Mike Darwin is a religious nut? Because I’m not the one making up stories about on-patient experimentation, shit-covered neck stumps, unkempt and ill-equipped operating rooms, and boiling brains by drilling a burr hole without irrigation.
A specific organization (the one run by Bob Nelson in Chattsworth) was a scam. This does not imply that cryonics itself was a scam. That’s kind of like taking an example where fake shares were sold on played-out gold mines and concluding that gold mining itself was the scam.
That was the first organization to ever freeze somebody, IIUC.
It was the first to freeze somebody, but the first to be formed was the Cryonics Society of New York in 1965. CSC was founded a year later.
(If you want to nit pick, technically the first organization to freeze somebody was CryoCare Equipment Corporation who froze a still unidentified woman in 1966).
Thanks for the clarification.
I donated out of an irrational sense of kinship. I hope she makes it.
Upvoted for honesty.
I think this is more rational than you suspect.
Is it possible that she could suggest to the Cryonics Institute that they could set up an account in her name and we could donate directly to that account, cutting out the middleman but still directly contributing to this girl?
Also, I think that if it was a scam choosing cryonics is probably a bad choice since plenty of people even in an atheist forum seem to be against it, and thus its not as likely to generate as much sympathy. I think she could have said “I want to go on a safari in Africa” or some sort of trip that is moderately expensive (just like the skydiving comments claim) and received more funding.
This comment on CI’s Facebook page indicates that she and CI are in the process of setting that up.
When that is established, I plan to donate $500. (If anyone sees that it is set up, and I haven’t followed up yet, respond to this comment.)
(ETA: There is now a fund set up by the Society for Venturism, and I have made my donation through them.)
The comment is now gone (“This post has been removed or could not be loaded”). What did it say?
A 3rd party quoted what appears to be an email from CI stating that she contacted CI. In the quote, CI advised delaying donations until they set up a donation account as previously done for two members, where CI could return donations if necessary.
tarwatirno comments on the rest of the conversation.
Wow, I’d heard “live forever or die trying” before, and it came across as just a clever saying. In the context of someone facing this challenge in the immediate future, it came across as deeply emotional.
Rarely am I angry that I don’t have more money. This is one of the times. Conditional on being true.
To the people arguing for efficient charity: I prefer to help people who actually want to live forever. Helping someone who wants to die, just not right now, seems like a waste to me.
My current plan, should I be diagnosed with a terminal illness, is to immediately donate all available funds to an optimal charity so that the money canNOT be spent on treatments with extremely high costs and low (if any) benefits.
Well I have a $150 payment that I got from the Good Judgement Project. I will donate that to her on or around 15 September.
I think this is actually a very worthwhile charity, for a number of reasons, I do not really wish to enter into a discussion at this point. However, to those of you who think there is a better use for the money AND think this might be a scam: If you present evidence that this is a scam by 15th September, I will donate the money to the charity of your choice instead.
What about the brain damage her tumor is causing?
This seems important and I’m a little surprised no one’s asked. How will her brain damage impact her chances of revival? (From the blog linked in the reddit post, it sounds like she is already experiencing symptoms.) Obviously she is quite mentally competent right now, but what about when she is declared legally dead? I am far from an expert and simply would like to hear some authoritative commentary on this. I am interested in donating but only if there’s a reasonable chance brain damage won’t make it superfluous.
Jim Glennie (A-1367) had a glioblastoma multiforme, and cryoprotective perfusion achieved the best Glycerol concentration at the time (6.02M glycerol, 1992). A-2091 (name withheld) also had a glioblastoma and reportedly “target cryoprotectant concentration was reached in the brain”.
Thomas Donaldson (A-1097) had an astrocytoma (I guess Astrocytes are a kind of glial cell, but I doubt the comparison can be extended further) and his cryopreservation was very good [p.16].
Disclaimer: I am not medically trained.
EDIT: I’m not sure if you’re referring to brain damage affecting cryoprotection or brain damage affecting her mental state and making her opt out.
I was mainly worried that she would suffer information-theoretic death (or substantial degradation) before she could be cryopreserved.
It is in her brainstem. Which while that makes it very difficult to treat, it probably increases her chances of being revived intact.
Here, have some warm fuzzies.
Though I do agree that this case is probably good exposure for cryonics.
Eliezer:
To those who have donated to the girl with the express purpose of buying fuzzies: could you please name below the cost-effective charity to which you have given or will soon give at least 20 times the amount donated?
People talked about “warm fuzzies” in order to defend themselves against the criticism that they might be supporting a scam. Now that Kim is here on this site, and likely to die right in front of us in a few months’ time, I don’t think that’s what anyone is feeling.
I don’t think this is correct. People talked about warm fuzzies also to justify a donation which clearly isn’t cost-effective. For example, in his original post kokvistador writes: “I’d also encourage those like me for who this buys a lot of warm fuzzies to donate. ” See also his exchange with gwern, where he elaborates on his rationale for donating.
I didn’t know Kim was here. If you think conducting this discussion might be a cause of much pain for her, perhaps we should move it to somewhere else.
For what is worth, I’d like to stress that I empathize with Kim and I feel genuinely saddened by the situation. At the same time, I don’t think this is a valid justification for lowering the standards of argument and evidence we normally require.
OK, I missed the occurrence of the phrase in the post itself. But I think it is being employed because it is a readily available LW idiom, not because it is psychologically accurate. Donating to help someone obtain cryopreservation is not a feel-good sort of donation in any conventional sense. No-one in the history of the world has ever been revived from cryosuspension. The whole situation confronts people with their own mortality and the fact that society is not set up to save them from it. You can argue about whether donating is the “optimal” thing for anyone to do, but I don’t think “warm fuzzies vs utilons” is the right way to describe the psychology of the initial response, or to frame the subsequent debate about what to do. Wanting to donate, and then deciding not to, would be a triage decision in this case. Or even like deciding to neglect your own family in order to send money to unknown orphans on the other side of the world.
I don’t think we should move the conversation.
I challenged the “warm fuzzies” argument because it was the only prima facie plausible justification for donating to the girl that I could find on this thread. If the phrase is not being use to justify the donation but merely to explain why people donate, then I simply restate my challenge as demanding a justification of some kind for spending money on a cause whose expected benefit, whether measured in lives saved or suffering prevented, is a tiny fraction of what one can expect from a donation to the most effective charities out there, as rated e.g. by Give Well, Giving What We Can or Effective Animal Activism.
Cryonics promotion. We (I, at any rate) want cryonics to be easier to sign up for, for mostly selfish reasons. An additional patient decreases somewhat the financial and social costs of cryonics, and a case that brings publicity (Reddit is big) of an overwhelmingly positive kind (Kim is a cute girl begging for help) will directly lower the social cost and attract new patients. I took the money from my ice cream budget, not my altruistic one.
If I understand you correctly, whenever an opportunity of this efficacy is available for promoting cryonics (or plastination, or life extension) that it becomes your top-quality marginal charitable dollar. Or perhaps you’re saying merely that it’s decent charity, enough to justify rolling with the emotional attachment to an individual.
Someone on IRC suggested I fund the Brain Preservation prize Robin Hanson posted about rather than sign up for cryonics now, since I’m pretty sure current practice just won’t work at all and I want to advance the state of the art.
No, not charitable. (I said “for mostly selfish reasons” and ” I took the money from my ice cream budget, not my altruistic one.”) It’s a pampering budget, for things I want for myself but can skip buying now without any fuss, like saving for retirement and tasty food and museum visits and socks with no holes and trips to see friends. My top-quality charitable dollar is still for malaria nets.
Oh. I missed that you considered cryonics promotion selfish more than charitable. My fault.
If we accept the original framework of “you’re allowed 95% utilons and 5% non-utilons”, then it can still fall under the “allowed non-utilon” category.
If we were to take the other option and try to defend this as an optimal expenditure of money, it might be defended as an act of civilization-building. None of the charities you list will decide the fate of the world; they all depend on the existence somewhere else of a functioning self-sufficient society with spare capacity. Frankly, if you really do take the big picture, it is far from clear that any of those activities matter very much. Civilizational directions are not usually set by what happens in the most unfortunate places.
So if we swing to a different extreme and consider whether high-tech futurist activities might be the best place to spend money, then there’s a different challenge—why spend your money on helping to make a single cryonic suspension happen, rather than on FAI research, brain modeling, or wherever you think the most neglected area is.
But actions of a different kind also matter. People who are attuned to these topics need to shake off the distractions of an uncomprehending world and remind themselves of why they took the ideas seriously to begin with. One step leads to another. Unless we just have a singularity first, a day is going to come when there’s a lot more than just one desperate person, out of the 100,000 who die every day, seeking cryonic suspension.
When it really, finally dawns on the human race at large that cryonics might work, that a slightly more advanced medicine might cure most causes of death even without cryonics, etc., there is going to be mayhem. Sorting out a rational balance now between self-preservation, conventional charity, and futurist charity may do a little to alleviate that mayhem when it arrives; and it’s clear that none of these activities should be wholly absent in the right balance. So we absolutely need to figure out how to accommodate something like Kim’s situation into our “optimizing”, rather than just putting it to one side.
She might be able to afford a lower-quality alternative, but nothing other than plastination seems to show any chance of reversibility. And plastination, to the best of my knowledge, has only been shown to work on thin slices of tissue.
As an example, Thomas Sullivan’s brain was chemopreserved by his son, and was later transferred to LN2. And brain-only chemopreservation may turn out to be better for her future chances than vitrification at CI, considering the kind of errors CI has on its record.
Alternatively, people could loan her the money until she is revived and can pay back, though I’m not sure if that’s entirely legal.
Discounting over decades means that if you’re going to do it at all, you might as well just consider it a gift and not a loan.
This is disgusting.
She’s just one human. There’s no reason to think she’s exceptional. Just another average human being. Yet, she is arrogant enough to beg for money for a chance to be saved.
One dose of a pneumococcal vaccine costs $3.5.
M = Mortality due to pneumococcal disease in children under 5 years of age in Kenya is 323/100k.
Life expectancy in Kenya is 63.07.
GDP (PPP) per capita is $1,746.
Now, it’s obvious that these aren’t independent variables, but we can assume that, if anything, vaccination will increase both life expectancy and gdp pc, so, for simplicity, we can do a very conservative calculation and assume they’re going to be constant.
EP = Expected productivity of one 5 year old Kenyan children till death =
$1746*(63-5) = $101,268C = Cost per 100k vaccinated children =
100k*$3.5 = $350kReturn on vaccination =
EP*M/C = $32,709,564/$350k = 93.45 = 9345%Now, the rate of return for the freezing of this girl:
Female life expectancy in USA = 81.05
GDP (pc) is $48,386
Girl’s expected productivity =
(81-23)*$48,386 = $2,806,214Return on cryogenics ASSUMING 100% probability of success =
$2806214/$35000 = 80.17 = 8017%The real expected value is probably highly negative, but I shall abstain from estimating the cryogenics’ probability of success.This calculation is extremely conservative. Especially because the time value of money is completely ignored.
In other words, this is almost surely a bad investment. In other words, if you give her even $1, you’re a complete idiot. Excepting the case where you know her personally.
Even if you’re, for example, a white supremacist, and the idea of dying Kenyan children makes you happy, there’re many ways where you could help white people in a much, much more effective way.
I hope that this is a scam. Not because I care about some bitch, but because the less money the idiots have, the more just the world is, and the money in the scammer’s hands is likely to be used much more wisely.
There are nicer ways to put this sentiment. You ignored them in favor of sounding like a jerk. Downvoted.
If the story is true, she’s at least exceptional in knowing how to ask and what to ask for. I expect her to be top-10% by my ranking.
It’s not disgusting that she’s begging for a chance at life. I’d do the same, even knowing that I was effectively asking people to spend less on Kenyans. Perhaps you mean it’s disgusting that her asking might work?
Imputing racism is overdone. Even if you want to slap some sense into people, please don’t go there (yes, you said “even if”, but you also chose Kenya).
“bitch”. I don’t care, but you already sufficiently signaled that you care very much that others don’t agree with you.
Conditional on cryonics being successful, the present life expectancy is not that relevant in determining lifetime productivity...
Conditional on cryonics being successful, immortality for living, non-frozen people would most likely be successful too, and kids in malaria-infested area, if saved by mosquito nets, would be likely to survive to that day. (And personally I think negligible senescence is more likely to be achieved in the next half century or so than reanimation of cryonic patients to be achieved ever.)
So, unless there’s some reason to believe that 1) reanimation of cryonic patients will eventually be achieved, but 2) that won’t happen before children living today will be dead, and 3) that cryonic preservation won’t get much cheaper in the future than it is today, you are more likely to save a life forever by donating $X to the AMF than $X to this girl on Reddit (even conditional on this not being a scam).
There is nothing arrogant about trying to avoid perma-death.
This point (or similar ones) has been covered before, I believe. (Effective charity is a really big thing around here!)
IAWYC (and upvoted because I don’t think it deserves to be that low), but 1) you’re being too optimistic about the cheapest way to save lives through charity (according to GiveWell, that’s the Anti Malaria Foundation at $1600 per life), 2) the life expectancy at 23 years doesn’t equal the life expectancy at birth minus 23 years (life expectancy at birth takes into account that some people die before the age of 23, and you already know she’s not one of them), and 3) valuing someone’s life according to how much money the average person in their country makes over their lifetime sounds somewhat fucked up to me.
I believe that I would enjoy living in a world where more assholes were as honest about their priorities as you, sir or ma’am. I think the rest of us would get a lot more done.
(Of course the real problem here is your ill-gotten hope that justice exists outside either literature or state-subsidized vengeance. But it’s easier to convince someone they’ve been honest in a socially inappropriate fashion than it is to convince them their worldview is flawed and naîve.)