I’m curious as to how you calculate that >95%. I ask because I, personally, overestimated the threats from what amounts to unfriendly AI at two points in time (during the Japanese 5th generation computer project, and during Lenat’s CYC project), and I overestimated the threat from y2k (and I thought I had a solid lower bound on its effects from unprepared sectors of the economy at the time). Might you be doing something similar?
Full disclosure: I have cryonics arrangements in place (with Alcor), but I’m unsure whether the odds of actually being revived or uploaded justify the (admittedly small) costs. Since I’ve signed up (around 1990 or so) I’ve revised my guess as to the odds downwards for a couple of reasons: (a) full Drexler/Merkle nanotech is taking much longer to be developed than I’d have guessed—“never” is still a distinct possibility (b) If we do get full nanotech, Robin Hanson’s malthusian scenario of exploding upload replication looks chillingly plausible (c) During the Bush years, biodeathicists like Leon Kass actually got positions in high places. I’d anticipated that life extension might be a very hard technical problem—but not that there would be people in power actively trying to stop it.
Japan and China have huge aging populations. Their incentive to develop life extension treatments will be much greater than the biodeathicists ability to impede the same in the United States.
China is facing a huge aging problem. They are probably the first country to get old before getting rich. if i were in the chinese politburo, I’d be POURING money into life extension research.
Though why Japan already hasn’t done so seems surprising from this viewpoint. Any ideas Why Japan hasn’t poured money into healthspan extension?
As far as I can tell, this so-called Beijing Yong Sheng Academy or Beijing Immortality-Era Economic Research Institute (北京永生时代经济研究院) does not exist either.
The saddest thing about all this is that this guy’s antics have probably poisoned the water for cryonics in China.
I’m curious as to how you calculate that >95%. I ask because I, personally, overestimated the threats from what amounts to unfriendly AI at two points in time (during the Japanese 5th generation computer project, and during Lenat’s CYC project), and I overestimated the threat from y2k (and I thought I had a solid lower bound on its effects from unprepared sectors of the economy at the time). Might you be doing something similar?
Full disclosure: I have cryonics arrangements in place (with Alcor), but I’m unsure whether the odds of actually being revived or uploaded justify the (admittedly small) costs. Since I’ve signed up (around 1990 or so) I’ve revised my guess as to the odds downwards for a couple of reasons: (a) full Drexler/Merkle nanotech is taking much longer to be developed than I’d have guessed—“never” is still a distinct possibility (b) If we do get full nanotech, Robin Hanson’s malthusian scenario of exploding upload replication looks chillingly plausible (c) During the Bush years, biodeathicists like Leon Kass actually got positions in high places. I’d anticipated that life extension might be a very hard technical problem—but not that there would be people in power actively trying to stop it.
Think Global Soreff.
Japan and China have huge aging populations. Their incentive to develop life extension treatments will be much greater than the biodeathicists ability to impede the same in the United States.
China is facing a huge aging problem. They are probably the first country to get old before getting rich. if i were in the chinese politburo, I’d be POURING money into life extension research.
Though why Japan already hasn’t done so seems surprising from this viewpoint. Any ideas Why Japan hasn’t poured money into healthspan extension?
Chinese cryonics? There are rumors, but nothing concrete. http://www.cryonics.org/immortalist/january05/letters.htm
There are better results searching for “人体冷冻法 ”, “人体冷冻学” or “人体冷冻技术”: An article about Alcor (“ah-er-ke”) http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2005-12/13/content_3913137.htm
On a related note, prospects for AGI research in China: http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/ai/chinese-singularity
Someone with working knowledge of hiragana/katakana might try the same for Japanese cryonics?
So who is this “Zheng Kuifei (郑奎飞), President of the Beijing Yong Sheng Academy” from the cryonics.org archives?
One investigative article from the Chinese media is not too flattering. (http://paper.people.com.cn/hqrw/html/2006-11/16/content_12065967.htm) Quite a colorful character—claims to be ‘secretly engaged’ to a famous actress. Right… His interview is also interesting (http://www.people.com.cn/GB/paper447/16692/1469113.html). Google translate should get you the gist of it. He’s filed for lots of singularity-relevant patents too. (http://www.ipexl.com/directory/en/APPLICANT_Zheng_Kuifei.html)
As far as I can tell, this so-called Beijing Yong Sheng Academy or Beijing Immortality-Era Economic Research Institute (北京永生时代经济研究院) does not exist either.
The saddest thing about all this is that this guy’s antics have probably poisoned the water for cryonics in China.
For reference, Alcor in Japanese is (predictably) ｱﾙｺﾙ, according to ja.wikipedia.org.
ETA: relevant resource: http://www.cryonics.jp/index-e.html