Are you such a Platonically ideal female that we can generalize from you to other females, who may have expressed no interest in cryonics?
Of course not, that’s an assumed “no”. I guess what you’re really asking is “What is the point of seeing whether we can convince you to sign up for cryo?” Sometimes case studies are helpful for figuring out what’s going on. Study results are more practically useful but let’s not forget how we develop the questions for a study—by observing life. If you’ve ever felt uncomfortable about the idea of persuading someone of something or probing into their motivations, you can see why being invited to do so would be an opportunity to try things you normally wouldn’t and explore my objections in ways that you may normally keep off-limits.
Even if most of my objections are different from the ones other people have, discovering even a few new objections and coming up with even a few new arguments that work on others would be worthwhile if you intend to convince other people in the future, no?
If you see it that way, it sounds like you’re already very nearly convinced.
Alicorn is right. It’s not that I am convinced or not convinced, it’s that I’m capable of interpreting it the way that you might have meant it. For the record, where I’m at right now is that I’m not convinced it’s a good way to save my life, (being the only way does not make it a good way) and I’m not 100% convinced that it’s better than donating to a life-saving charity.
I’m trying to say that I think you might already be a pretty extreme outlier in your opinion of cryonics, based on a few clues I noticed in your comment, so your reactions may not generalize much. The median reaction to cryonics seems to be disgust and anger, rather than just not being convinced. I’m sort of on the fence about it myself, although I will try to refute bad cryonics-related arguments when I see them, so on object-level grounds I can’t really say whether convincing you or learning how to convince people in general is a good idea or not.
Disgust and anger, that’s interesting. I wonder if that might be due to them feeling it’s unfair that some people might survive when everyone else has died, or seeing it as some kind of insult to their religion like trying to evade hell (with the implication that you won’t be motivated enough to avoid sinning, for instance). If that’s the case, you’re probably right that my current reaction is different from the ones that others would have. My initial reaction was pretty similar, though. My introduction to cryo was in a cartoon as a child—the bad guys were freezing themselves and using the blood of children to live forever. I felt it was terrifying and horribly unfair that the bad guys could live forever and creepy that there were so many frozen dead bodies. I didn’t think about getting it myself until I met someone who had signed up. My reaction was “Oh, you can actually do that? I had no idea.”—and it felt weird because it seemed strange to believe that freezing yourself is going to save your life (I didn’t think technology was that far along yet), but I’m OK with entertaining weird ideas, so I was pretty neutral. I thought about whether I should do it, but I wasn’t in a financial position to take on new bills at the time, so I stored that knowledge for later. Then, when I joined LessWrong, I began seeing mentions of cryo all over. I had the strong sense that it would be wrong to spend so much on a small chance of saving my own life when others are currently dying, but that was countered pretty decently by one of the posts linked to above. Now I’m discovering cached religious thoughts (I thought I removed them all. These are so insidious!) and am wondering if I will wake up as some sort of miserable medical Frankenstein.
I can’t tell you whether it’s worth it to convince me or learn to convince people, either. I’m not even sure it’s worth signing up, after all. (:
Friendly hint: you just implied my life isn’t worth saving. I am not easily offended and I’m not hurt, so that’s just FYI.
If you see it that way, it sounds like you’re already very nearly convinced.
She could know that you see it that way without seeing it that way herself. If I knew someone who believed that I would definitely go to hell unless I converted to their religion, and they didn’t seem to care if I did that or not, I might characterize that as them not thinking my soul was worth saving.
Yeah, that’s true. But still, if “they don’t think my soul is worth saving” is more salient to you than, for instance, “I’m glad I won’t have to deal with their proselytizing,” it suggests that you take the idea of souls and hell at least a little bit seriously.
To give a more straightforward example, imagine a police officer asking someone someone whether they have any contraband. The person replies, “no, officer, I don’t have any weed in my pocket.” How would that affect your belief about what’s in their pocket?
New post idea:
“Female Test Subject—Convince Me To Get Cryo”
(Offering myself for experimentation, of course.)
What do you think? Should I post it? [pollid:110]
Sounds like a good idea to me. Cryonics could definitely use more female-audience-targeted arguments.
What’s the point?
To practice on me before something happens to your female family members and you’ve got to convince them…
Friendly hint: you just implied my life isn’t worth saving. I am not easily offended and I’m not hurt, so that’s just FYI.
Are you such a Platonically ideal female that we can generalize from you to other females, who may have expressed no interest in cryonics?
If you see it that way, it sounds like you’re already very nearly convinced.
Of course not, that’s an assumed “no”. I guess what you’re really asking is “What is the point of seeing whether we can convince you to sign up for cryo?” Sometimes case studies are helpful for figuring out what’s going on. Study results are more practically useful but let’s not forget how we develop the questions for a study—by observing life. If you’ve ever felt uncomfortable about the idea of persuading someone of something or probing into their motivations, you can see why being invited to do so would be an opportunity to try things you normally wouldn’t and explore my objections in ways that you may normally keep off-limits.
Even if most of my objections are different from the ones other people have, discovering even a few new objections and coming up with even a few new arguments that work on others would be worthwhile if you intend to convince other people in the future, no?
Alicorn is right. It’s not that I am convinced or not convinced, it’s that I’m capable of interpreting it the way that you might have meant it. For the record, where I’m at right now is that I’m not convinced it’s a good way to save my life, (being the only way does not make it a good way) and I’m not 100% convinced that it’s better than donating to a life-saving charity.
I’m trying to say that I think you might already be a pretty extreme outlier in your opinion of cryonics, based on a few clues I noticed in your comment, so your reactions may not generalize much. The median reaction to cryonics seems to be disgust and anger, rather than just not being convinced. I’m sort of on the fence about it myself, although I will try to refute bad cryonics-related arguments when I see them, so on object-level grounds I can’t really say whether convincing you or learning how to convince people in general is a good idea or not.
Disgust and anger, that’s interesting. I wonder if that might be due to them feeling it’s unfair that some people might survive when everyone else has died, or seeing it as some kind of insult to their religion like trying to evade hell (with the implication that you won’t be motivated enough to avoid sinning, for instance). If that’s the case, you’re probably right that my current reaction is different from the ones that others would have. My initial reaction was pretty similar, though. My introduction to cryo was in a cartoon as a child—the bad guys were freezing themselves and using the blood of children to live forever. I felt it was terrifying and horribly unfair that the bad guys could live forever and creepy that there were so many frozen dead bodies. I didn’t think about getting it myself until I met someone who had signed up. My reaction was “Oh, you can actually do that? I had no idea.”—and it felt weird because it seemed strange to believe that freezing yourself is going to save your life (I didn’t think technology was that far along yet), but I’m OK with entertaining weird ideas, so I was pretty neutral. I thought about whether I should do it, but I wasn’t in a financial position to take on new bills at the time, so I stored that knowledge for later. Then, when I joined LessWrong, I began seeing mentions of cryo all over. I had the strong sense that it would be wrong to spend so much on a small chance of saving my own life when others are currently dying, but that was countered pretty decently by one of the posts linked to above. Now I’m discovering cached religious thoughts (I thought I removed them all. These are so insidious!) and am wondering if I will wake up as some sort of miserable medical Frankenstein.
I can’t tell you whether it’s worth it to convince me or learn to convince people, either. I’m not even sure it’s worth signing up, after all. (:
She could know that you see it that way without seeing it that way herself. If I knew someone who believed that I would definitely go to hell unless I converted to their religion, and they didn’t seem to care if I did that or not, I might characterize that as them not thinking my soul was worth saving.
Yeah, that’s true. But still, if “they don’t think my soul is worth saving” is more salient to you than, for instance, “I’m glad I won’t have to deal with their proselytizing,” it suggests that you take the idea of souls and hell at least a little bit seriously.
To give a more straightforward example, imagine a police officer asking someone someone whether they have any contraband. The person replies, “no, officer, I don’t have any weed in my pocket.” How would that affect your belief about what’s in their pocket?