Why would it be a less charitable interpretation to claim that gwern cares more about
asking smart questions on cryonics than on most other topics discussed on this site?
It’s not like most topics have a direct bearing on the survival of billions. Is there
something about cryonics that makes you think Harry Potter fanfiction deserves equal
standards?
I think it’s because you, or gwern, are assuming that certain things are a settled matter that I’m doubtful actually are. Cryonics, it seems to me, should deserve the same status of nuclear fusion. It needs to be proven to be (1) technically possible, (2) not have serious shortcoming in implementation, and (3) efficient and cost-effective. Given its implausibility, but not impossibility, I don’t think the topic deserves a privileged status. If it meets the above criteria, then it would be very valuable, but I would want to know about some actual demonstration and not speculation.
From Wikipedia:
Cryopreservation of people or large animals is not reversible with current technology.
From the Cryonics Institute:
Note that cryonics is science-based, but cannot correctly be called current science.
Cryonics is a protoscience based on expectations of the repair capabilities of future
science. Although the projection is less, possible human habitation of Mars is
similarly a science-based concept based on projections of the capabilities of
current science.
Cryonics revival doesn’t seem to be impossible, or at least we don’t know it is impossible. But I think it is implausible given what we know right now.
I think it’s because you, or gwern, are assuming that certain things are a settled matter that I’m doubtful actually are. Cryonics, it seems to me, should deserve the same status of nuclear fusion. It needs to be proven to be (1) technically possible, (2) not have serious shortcoming in implementation, and (3) efficient and cost-effective. Given its implausibility, but not impossibility, I don’t think the topic deserves a privileged status. If it meets the above criteria, then it would be very valuable, but I would want to know about some actual demonstration and not speculation.
From Wikipedia:
From the Cryonics Institute:
Cryonics revival doesn’t seem to be impossible, or at least we don’t know it is impossible. But I think it is implausible given what we know right now.