I’m seeing a disturbing amount of groupthink here. We’re all assuming that cryonics is a good thing, and that the only thing in dispute is whether the amount of good that cryonics generates is worth the cost. However, given that no one who has been cryogenically frozen has yet been revived, how do we know that cryonics is a good thing at all? I mean, what if the freezing process somehow changed neurochemistry so that everyone who came back was a psychopath? Given that we don’t have any evidence either way, why are we all jumping to the conclusion that cryonics is something that we’d all sign up for if only we had the means?
I’m only posting this to play devils advocate, if not to stir up the debate a bit. I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors. English isn’t my first language.
To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink (1977).
(My interpretations may be flawed, feel free to point out any flaws in my logic)
> 1. Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
Cryonics = eternal life in the future, relatively high financial risk, relatively low risk of being revived. The risk is still worth if if you could possibly be alive again.
> 2. Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.
Reanimation in the future might be expensive, reanimation might not be possible, Alcor may go bankrupt, Consciousness may not be transferable, reanimation is not possible now.
> 3. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
The diehards of the group seem to take no hesitation to call another person outside of their name if they simply do not agree with those who support cryonics.
>4. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
“If you don’t sign your child up for cryonics you’re a lousy parent”
> 5. Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”.
Not so much pressure as people questioning those who aren’t yet sold on cryonics just yet, or those who don’t believe in it all together.
>6. Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
This obviously can’t be proven, I’m assuming some have omitted statements from their replies to this article to avoid conflict.
>7. Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
I’m not so sure if there is an illusion of unanimity, seems that everyone is in agreement that cryonics is a logical/rational choice. This maybe be an illusion, I don’t know.
>8. Mind guards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
Hello Eliezer.
I’d like to state that I have no intentions of attacking anyone discussing this topic. I’m only trying to stir up friendly debate.
Actually, devil’s advocacy is probably the best way to prevent group think (outside of earnest dissent). So well done.
It also occurs to me that some people holding a belief as a result of group think is entirely consistent with the belief being true and even justified—which is an interesting feature that isn’t always be obvious. I think I represent a partial data point against group think in this case because I have a something of a revulsion against the aesthetics of cryonics, some of the social implications and some of the arrogance I see in it’s promotion but nonetheless conclude that it is probably a worthwhile gamble.
Re: Groupthink symptom #1 - illusions of invulnerability or infallibility
The fact that the subject matter of cryonics is about an extended lifespan or second lifespan does not automatically confer this symptom of groupthink.
An example of groupthink often given is the decision process of the Bush Administration which led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Much of the information used to come to that decision was ‘slam dunk’ pre-invasion, but ultimately spurious or unverifiable.
I’d like to state that I’m neutral on the subject of cryonics, I’m only posting this to play devils advocate, if not to stir up the debate a bit. I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors. English isn’t my first language.
To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink (1977).
(My interpretations may be flawed, feel free to point out any flaws in my logic)
Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
Cryonics = eternal life in the future, relatively high financial risk, relatively low risk of being revived. The risk is still worth if if you could possibly be alive again.
Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.
Reanimation in the future might be expensive, reanimation might not be possible, Alcor may go bankrupt, Conciousness may not be transferable.
Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
The diehards of the group seem to take no hesitation to call another person outside of their name if they simply do not agree with those who support cryonics.
Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
“If you don’t sign your child up for cryonics you’re a lousy parent”
Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”.
Not so much pressure as people questioning those who aren’t yet sold on cryonics just yet, or those who don’t believe in it all together.
Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
This obviously can’t be proven, I’m assuming some have omitted statements from their replies to this article to avoid conflict.
Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
I’m not so sure if there is an illusion of unanimity, seems that everyone is in agreement that cryonics is a logical/rational choice. This maybe be an illusion, I don’t know.
Mind guards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
Hello Eliezer.
I’d like to state that I have no intentions of attacking anyone discussing this topic. I’m only trying to stir up friendly debate.
Well, aren’t you privileging the hypothesis that cryonics works? I mean, I look at Eliezer’s argument above, and the unstated assumption is, “Cryonics works and has no ill side effects.” Well, lets question that assumption. What if cryonics doesn’t work? What if it works, but leaves you disabled? I know several people who have “living wills”—they’d rather be dead than disabled. Unless you’re saying that your hypothetical thawing process will be nearly perfectly safe, I’d argue that there is a risk of disability, an outcome which may rank below death (depending on your individual value function, of course).
Given the above, would you say, “Anyone who doesn’t buy cryonics for their children is a bad parent?” After all, aren’t you imposing your value function vis a vis potential disability onto your children? Shouldn’t we let them decide their own values regarding such a significant issue?
Well, aren’t you privileging the hypothesis that cryonics works?
Making people into psychopaths would be extremely difficult even if you were trying to do it. Cryonics working is a hypothesis that I would put as ‘very slightly more likely than a desirable technological singularity’. It is worth the $300 a year because it is one of very few things that can actually save your life in the long term.
Unless you’re saying that your hypothetical thawing process will be nearly perfectly safe, I’d argue that there is a risk of disability, an outcome which may rank below death (depending on your individual value function, of course).
I count all those scenarios as ‘cryonics not working’.
I mean, I look at Eliezer’s argument above, and the unstated assumption is, “Cryonics works and has no ill side effects.”
That’s not his assumption. The assumption is that there is a non-negligible chance that cryonics will work—one chance in ten would be more than sufficient. Another assumption is that the opportunity to spend more time alive is far more desirable than death. It then follows that it’s nuts not to sign up.
Yeah, as wedrifid pointed out in a sibling post, I think Eliezer and I have different conceptions of what it means for cryonics to “work”. I was defining “works” as a having a thawing process that doesn’t kill you, but has the risk of disability. Eliezer, I now realize, has a much more stringent definition of the term.
Now, one more question, if you will humor me. What sort of incentives can we use to ensure that we are not used as guinea pigs for an experimental thawing process? For example, our descendants may want us thawed as soon as possible, even when the thawing process may not have been made sufficiently safe by our own criteria. How can we set up the incentives so that our descendants don’t thaw us using a procedure that we consider unnecessarily risky?
Only a much wealthier, more technologically advanced society would unfreeze corpses. Less technologically advanced societies couldn’t do it, and poorer societies wouldn’t bother.
Over time, wealth eventually causes the cultural changes we call “moral progress”.
Almost all bad scenarios lead to cryopreserved people never being revived. They either become “gray goo”, are eaten by roving bands of cannibals, are converted into paperclips, etc.
So anyway, I think in most scenarios reanimation will be better than death.
Over time, wealth eventually causes the cultural changes we call “moral progress”.
This seems a non-sequitur to me. There are a number of examples where wealth and moral progress are found together, but there are also examples where they are not. China and oil-rich Arab states come to mind.
Culture changes slowly, but economic growth can happen quickly. China is still quite poor, first of all, but it still seems that significant moral progress has occurred in China, and in only 30 years or so.
The wealthier Arab states are still pretty regressive, but we must consider how bad they used to be. For instance, as recently as the 1950s, 20% of the population of Saudi Arabia were slaves.
Alcor’s patient care trust board is composed of people who are signed up for cryonics. A majority of members on the board must have a cryopreserved relative or significant other. They could try to use people they don’t care about as guinea pigs, but there are also bylaws about ethically reviving people.
How can we set up the incentives so that our descendants don’t thaw us using a procedure that we consider unnecessarily risky?
I suppose extend whichever incentives that we use to make our descendants even bother with us at all. (Outside my field too I am afraid. I’m more of a ‘take direct action myself’ kind of guy than a ‘find some way to make people do stuff even when I am dead’ kind of guy.)
Well, aren’t you privileging the hypothesis that cryonics works?
We have actual object-level reasons to believe that.
What if it works, but leaves you disabled? I know several people who have “living wills”—they’d rather be dead than disabled. Unless you’re saying that your hypothetical thawing process will be nearly perfectly safe
I think it would be, since a safe process appears to be possible and you can (and presumably would) just be left frozen until it was sufficiently developed.
Shouldn’t we let them decide their own values regarding such a significant issue?
You can’t not decide. Not signing them up is still deciding.
Cryonics is a regular topic here and on OB. The conclusion that’s being “jumped to” has been argued at length elsewhere. It appears you’re mistaking inferential distance for groupthink.
It doesn’t look like a particularly strong consensus to me—the survey a while back had a sizeable minority of cryonics skeptics, and all of three people actually signed-up. And, of course, all the argument in the comments to this post.
This is one of the old standard objections; I won’t spoonfeed you, but try looking through the pro-cryonics literature. (I have yet to think of a decent argument against cryonics which hasn’t been at least discussed.)
I agree with ciphergoth (or perhaps I’m groupthinking with him/her :P). As for the part of your post that came after the first sentence: when we develop the technology to revive cryopreserved people, we will see if it has any recurring, statistically-significant undesirable effects on people’s psychology. If it does, we’ll stop reviving people until we get it sorted out.
The very small risk of accidentally turning a few people into psychopaths before we notice the pattern (I say the risk is small because we don’t have any particular reasons to privilege that or any other non-null hypothesis) is, I think, worth the large potential benefits to the individuals and to society.
I’m seeing a disturbing amount of groupthink here. We’re all assuming that cryonics is a good thing, and that the only thing in dispute is whether the amount of good that cryonics generates is worth the cost. However, given that no one who has been cryogenically frozen has yet been revived, how do we know that cryonics is a good thing at all? I mean, what if the freezing process somehow changed neurochemistry so that everyone who came back was a psychopath? Given that we don’t have any evidence either way, why are we all jumping to the conclusion that cryonics is something that we’d all sign up for if only we had the means?
Never say “groupthink” unless you have better evidence than people agreeing.
I’m only posting this to play devils advocate, if not to stir up the debate a bit. I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors. English isn’t my first language.
(My interpretations may be flawed, feel free to point out any flaws in my logic)
> 1. Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking. Cryonics = eternal life in the future, relatively high financial risk, relatively low risk of being revived. The risk is still worth if if you could possibly be alive again.
> 2. Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions. Reanimation in the future might be expensive, reanimation might not be possible, Alcor may go bankrupt, Consciousness may not be transferable, reanimation is not possible now.
> 3. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions. The diehards of the group seem to take no hesitation to call another person outside of their name if they simply do not agree with those who support cryonics.
>4. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, disfigured, impotent, or stupid. “If you don’t sign your child up for cryonics you’re a lousy parent”
> 5. Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”. Not so much pressure as people questioning those who aren’t yet sold on cryonics just yet, or those who don’t believe in it all together.
>6. Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus. This obviously can’t be proven, I’m assuming some have omitted statements from their replies to this article to avoid conflict.
>7. Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement. I’m not so sure if there is an illusion of unanimity, seems that everyone is in agreement that cryonics is a logical/rational choice. This maybe be an illusion, I don’t know.
>8. Mind guards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information. Hello Eliezer.
I’d like to state that I have no intentions of attacking anyone discussing this topic. I’m only trying to stir up friendly debate.
Actually, devil’s advocacy is probably the best way to prevent group think (outside of earnest dissent). So well done.
It also occurs to me that some people holding a belief as a result of group think is entirely consistent with the belief being true and even justified—which is an interesting feature that isn’t always be obvious. I think I represent a partial data point against group think in this case because I have a something of a revulsion against the aesthetics of cryonics, some of the social implications and some of the arrogance I see in it’s promotion but nonetheless conclude that it is probably a worthwhile gamble.
Re: Groupthink symptom #1 - illusions of invulnerability or infallibility
The fact that the subject matter of cryonics is about an extended lifespan or second lifespan does not automatically confer this symptom of groupthink.
An example of groupthink often given is the decision process of the Bush Administration which led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Much of the information used to come to that decision was ‘slam dunk’ pre-invasion, but ultimately spurious or unverifiable.
I’d like to state that I’m neutral on the subject of cryonics, I’m only posting this to play devils advocate, if not to stir up the debate a bit. I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors. English isn’t my first language.
Cryonics = eternal life in the future, relatively high financial risk, relatively low risk of being revived. The risk is still worth if if you could possibly be alive again.
Reanimation in the future might be expensive, reanimation might not be possible, Alcor may go bankrupt, Conciousness may not be transferable.
The diehards of the group seem to take no hesitation to call another person outside of their name if they simply do not agree with those who support cryonics.
“If you don’t sign your child up for cryonics you’re a lousy parent”
Not so much pressure as people questioning those who aren’t yet sold on cryonics just yet, or those who don’t believe in it all together.
This obviously can’t be proven, I’m assuming some have omitted statements from their replies to this article to avoid conflict.
I’m not so sure if there is an illusion of unanimity, seems that everyone is in agreement that cryonics is a logical/rational choice. This maybe be an illusion, I don’t know.
Hello Eliezer.
I’d like to state that I have no intentions of attacking anyone discussing this topic. I’m only trying to stir up friendly debate.
This appears to be a duplicate posting, and you should probably delete it.
Or not.
Well, aren’t you privileging the hypothesis that cryonics works? I mean, I look at Eliezer’s argument above, and the unstated assumption is, “Cryonics works and has no ill side effects.” Well, lets question that assumption. What if cryonics doesn’t work? What if it works, but leaves you disabled? I know several people who have “living wills”—they’d rather be dead than disabled. Unless you’re saying that your hypothetical thawing process will be nearly perfectly safe, I’d argue that there is a risk of disability, an outcome which may rank below death (depending on your individual value function, of course).
Given the above, would you say, “Anyone who doesn’t buy cryonics for their children is a bad parent?” After all, aren’t you imposing your value function vis a vis potential disability onto your children? Shouldn’t we let them decide their own values regarding such a significant issue?
Making people into psychopaths would be extremely difficult even if you were trying to do it. Cryonics working is a hypothesis that I would put as ‘very slightly more likely than a desirable technological singularity’. It is worth the $300 a year because it is one of very few things that can actually save your life in the long term.
I count all those scenarios as ‘cryonics not working’.
That’s not his assumption. The assumption is that there is a non-negligible chance that cryonics will work—one chance in ten would be more than sufficient. Another assumption is that the opportunity to spend more time alive is far more desirable than death. It then follows that it’s nuts not to sign up.
Yeah, as wedrifid pointed out in a sibling post, I think Eliezer and I have different conceptions of what it means for cryonics to “work”. I was defining “works” as a having a thawing process that doesn’t kill you, but has the risk of disability. Eliezer, I now realize, has a much more stringent definition of the term.
Now, one more question, if you will humor me. What sort of incentives can we use to ensure that we are not used as guinea pigs for an experimental thawing process? For example, our descendants may want us thawed as soon as possible, even when the thawing process may not have been made sufficiently safe by our own criteria. How can we set up the incentives so that our descendants don’t thaw us using a procedure that we consider unnecessarily risky?
Only a much wealthier, more technologically advanced society would unfreeze corpses. Less technologically advanced societies couldn’t do it, and poorer societies wouldn’t bother.
Over time, wealth eventually causes the cultural changes we call “moral progress”.
Almost all bad scenarios lead to cryopreserved people never being revived. They either become “gray goo”, are eaten by roving bands of cannibals, are converted into paperclips, etc.
So anyway, I think in most scenarios reanimation will be better than death.
This seems a non-sequitur to me. There are a number of examples where wealth and moral progress are found together, but there are also examples where they are not. China and oil-rich Arab states come to mind.
Culture changes slowly, but economic growth can happen quickly. China is still quite poor, first of all, but it still seems that significant moral progress has occurred in China, and in only 30 years or so.
The wealthier Arab states are still pretty regressive, but we must consider how bad they used to be. For instance, as recently as the 1950s, 20% of the population of Saudi Arabia were slaves.
Alcor’s patient care trust board is composed of people who are signed up for cryonics. A majority of members on the board must have a cryopreserved relative or significant other. They could try to use people they don’t care about as guinea pigs, but there are also bylaws about ethically reviving people.
Dammit quanticle, I’m an engineer/biochemist/statistician, not an economist!
I suppose extend whichever incentives that we use to make our descendants even bother with us at all. (Outside my field too I am afraid. I’m more of a ‘take direct action myself’ kind of guy than a ‘find some way to make people do stuff even when I am dead’ kind of guy.)
COool manWe have actual object-level reasons to believe that.
I think it would be, since a safe process appears to be possible and you can (and presumably would) just be left frozen until it was sufficiently developed.
You can’t not decide. Not signing them up is still deciding.
Cryonics is a regular topic here and on OB. The conclusion that’s being “jumped to” has been argued at length elsewhere. It appears you’re mistaking inferential distance for groupthink.
It doesn’t look like a particularly strong consensus to me—the survey a while back had a sizeable minority of cryonics skeptics, and all of three people actually signed-up. And, of course, all the argument in the comments to this post.
This is one of the old standard objections; I won’t spoonfeed you, but try looking through the pro-cryonics literature. (I have yet to think of a decent argument against cryonics which hasn’t been at least discussed.)
I agree with ciphergoth (or perhaps I’m groupthinking with him/her :P). As for the part of your post that came after the first sentence: when we develop the technology to revive cryopreserved people, we will see if it has any recurring, statistically-significant undesirable effects on people’s psychology. If it does, we’ll stop reviving people until we get it sorted out.
The very small risk of accidentally turning a few people into psychopaths before we notice the pattern (I say the risk is small because we don’t have any particular reasons to privilege that or any other non-null hypothesis) is, I think, worth the large potential benefits to the individuals and to society.
Not as drastic, but there are other negative possibilities.