It seems to me that, even valuing your own life and the lives of others equally, it’s not necessarily inconsistent to pay much more for cryonics than it would cost to save a life by normal altruist means. Cryonics could save your life, and malaria nets could save somebody else’s life, but these two life-savings are not equal. If you’re willing to pay more to save a 5-year-old than an 85-year-old, then for some possible values of cryonics effectiveness, expectation of life quality post-resuscitation, and actual cost ratios, shutting up and multiplying could still favor cryonics.
If this argument carries, it would also mean that you should be spending money on buying cryonics for other people, in preference to any other form of altruism. But in practice, you might have a hard time finding people who would be willing to sign up for cryonics and aren’t already willing/able to pay for it themselves, so you’d probably have to default back to regular altruism.
If you do have opportunities to buy cryonics for other people, and you value all lives equally, then you’ve still got the problem of whether you should sign yourself up rather than somebody else. But multiplying doesn’t say you can’t save yourself first there, just that you have no obligation to do so.
It seems to me that, even valuing your own life and the lives of others equally, it’s not necessarily inconsistent to pay much more for cryonics than it would cost to save a life by normal altruist means. Cryonics could save your life, and malaria nets could save somebody else’s life, but these two life-savings are not equal. If you’re willing to pay more to save a 5-year-old than an 85-year-old, then for some possible values of cryonics effectiveness, expectation of life quality post-resuscitation, and actual cost ratios, shutting up and multiplying could still favor cryonics.
If this argument carries, it would also mean that you should be spending money on buying cryonics for other people, in preference to any other form of altruism. But in practice, you might have a hard time finding people who would be willing to sign up for cryonics and aren’t already willing/able to pay for it themselves, so you’d probably have to default back to regular altruism.
If you do have opportunities to buy cryonics for other people, and you value all lives equally, then you’ve still got the problem of whether you should sign yourself up rather than somebody else. But multiplying doesn’t say you can’t save yourself first there, just that you have no obligation to do so.