The main thing I don’t understand is what incentive does anyone have to keep me plugged in after I passed away?
I could answer this, but this question can be easily answered by yourself by thinking a little more and doing some googling and reading of cryonics literature—your question is obvious and so, since cryonics advocates are not known for their stupidity or for simply ignoring obvious problems, you should expect them to have at least tried to answer it.
I don’t understand the downvotes on this. It looks like an appropriate answer to a confused newbie question to me. The financial and moral incentives for not pulling the plug are all well represented in the cryonics literature.
For my part, my takeaway from the downvotes is this: if I respond to a question by saying RTFM, and I bother to include a link in my response, but instead of choosing to include a link to the actual FM I include a link to an etiquette guide about how not to ask dumb questions, it ought not surprise me if some folks take this as evidence that I’m being snotty rather than being helpful and appropriate.
I don’t think it’s fair to characterize gwern’s post (or the excellent ESR article he linked to, for that matter) as simply saying RTFM. The fact is that the question(s) posed by Grey are rather layered and multifaceted, i.e.. have fairly deep explanations that xe probably isn’t ready for yet. But the fact that it was all jammed together into a simple-sounding question tends to obscure that. It’s a common heuristic (frequently exploited by e.g. creationists) that when you ask a simple sounding question there should be a simple sounding answer. There has to be some way of providing people with the negative feedback they need to update on how little they really know on a topic—linking to a well-written ESR essay on how to ask more epistemically useful questions is hardly the most offensive way of so doing if you ask me.
I certainly agree that it’s far from the most offensive way of encouraging someone to “update on how little they really know.”
I sympathize with the difficulty of being asked simple-sounding questions that conceal a lot of complexity. And I agree with you that this is often maliciously exploited. Of course, it is also often the genuine consequence of being new to and interested in a subject.
I’m intrigued by the notion that Grey’s question can be so obvious that he should have obtained an answer via a simple web search without wasting anyone’s time here (which is what I understood gwern to be saying) and at the same time so layered and multifaceted that Grey probably isn’t ready for the answer. I suspect I’ll have to think about that some more before I fully understand it.
I didn’t get the impression that gwern was implying that it could be solved quickly and easily with a google search, so much as that it’s the kind of question you are better off flexing your intellectual muscles a bit and at least trying fairly hard to find an answer before offering an opinion, given the high probability that lots of smart cryonics advocates have had a similar experience already.
I didn’t provide any useful links beyond ESR’s excellent guide because I didn’t have the energy to go looking at the time. (I only had enough energy to point out why one should expect there to be a resource answering the question and that the general comment was not very thoughtful.)
I also thought that there was at least 1 obvious reason why the corpses would be kept vitrified that a person should be able to think of in a few seconds with only a passing familiarity with cryonics organizations: because that’s what the trust fund/organization is paying for!
So I was also little disgusted that Gray was ignorant, did nothing to remedy his ignorance—that involved work on his part—and didn’t even think about it a little. Which destroyed whatever was left of my motivation to make a good, as opposed to snarky, comment by doing the research he should’ve. (And cryonics is an important issue, too. If you aren’t willing to even google about a technique that plausibly promises to transport you into the distant awesome future and save your life, that says a lot.)
EDIT: Although lsparrish is quite correct when he points out that it can be dangerous to try to quickly answer a deceptively simple question. We all know that if someone argues for a position, they can brainwash themselves into believing the position more than they did before. So what happens if you fail to link the authoritative industrial-strength explanations and instead post a few quick flawed arguments, which your interlocutor then knocks down? You may have done them a deep disservice.
I’ve put in a couple of replies into this text box, and deleted them because I realized I was responding defensively. (Although it’s clear to me that “the answer is obvious” is a rather underhanded way of calling me an idiot.)
But you’re right I’m new here. The most charitable interpretation of the response I received is that the standard of discourse on this site is that I shouldn’t discuss any topic until I have familiarized myself with the literature on that topic. I know that most of the discourse that I’ve seen so far on this site doesn’t live up to this standard, and I think the character of my response has more to do with the subject matter (“cryonics”) than the standard of my discourse.
That said, on reflection, I think this standard is a laudable thing. I know that scholarship is considered a virtue on this site. If some of the discussion on this site doesn’t meet this standard, this doesn’t excuse lowering the standard. Seeing people discuss a topic on this site that I’m not familiar with (even if I’m not particularly interested in cryonics) is a great excuse to learn something about that topic, if only to earn the right to partake in that discussion.
The most charitable interpretation of the response I received is that the standard of discourse on this site is that I shouldn’t discuss any topic until I have familiarized myself with the literature on that topic.
This is still coming across as kind of defensive. Logically extrapolating from your assertion that most of the discourse on this site doesn’t live up to the standard, it doesn’t follow that cryonics should not be given a privileged status, e.g. as one of perhaps a select few topics where we insist on holding oneself to an ultra-high standard of discourse. 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’m not saying scholarship isn’t laudable in all forms, but surely it’s okay to have priorities.
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 could answer this, but this question can be easily answered by yourself by thinking a little more and doing some googling and reading of cryonics literature—your question is obvious and so, since cryonics advocates are not known for their stupidity or for simply ignoring obvious problems, you should expect them to have at least tried to answer it.
You might benefit from reading http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
I don’t understand the downvotes on this. It looks like an appropriate answer to a confused newbie question to me. The financial and moral incentives for not pulling the plug are all well represented in the cryonics literature.
For my part, my takeaway from the downvotes is this: if I respond to a question by saying RTFM, and I bother to include a link in my response, but instead of choosing to include a link to the actual FM I include a link to an etiquette guide about how not to ask dumb questions, it ought not surprise me if some folks take this as evidence that I’m being snotty rather than being helpful and appropriate.
I don’t think it’s fair to characterize gwern’s post (or the excellent ESR article he linked to, for that matter) as simply saying RTFM. The fact is that the question(s) posed by Grey are rather layered and multifaceted, i.e.. have fairly deep explanations that xe probably isn’t ready for yet. But the fact that it was all jammed together into a simple-sounding question tends to obscure that. It’s a common heuristic (frequently exploited by e.g. creationists) that when you ask a simple sounding question there should be a simple sounding answer. There has to be some way of providing people with the negative feedback they need to update on how little they really know on a topic—linking to a well-written ESR essay on how to ask more epistemically useful questions is hardly the most offensive way of so doing if you ask me.
I certainly agree that it’s far from the most offensive way of encouraging someone to “update on how little they really know.”
I sympathize with the difficulty of being asked simple-sounding questions that conceal a lot of complexity. And I agree with you that this is often maliciously exploited. Of course, it is also often the genuine consequence of being new to and interested in a subject.
I’m intrigued by the notion that Grey’s question can be so obvious that he should have obtained an answer via a simple web search without wasting anyone’s time here (which is what I understood gwern to be saying) and at the same time so layered and multifaceted that Grey probably isn’t ready for the answer. I suspect I’ll have to think about that some more before I fully understand it.
I didn’t get the impression that gwern was implying that it could be solved quickly and easily with a google search, so much as that it’s the kind of question you are better off flexing your intellectual muscles a bit and at least trying fairly hard to find an answer before offering an opinion, given the high probability that lots of smart cryonics advocates have had a similar experience already.
I didn’t provide any useful links beyond ESR’s excellent guide because I didn’t have the energy to go looking at the time. (I only had enough energy to point out why one should expect there to be a resource answering the question and that the general comment was not very thoughtful.)
I also thought that there was at least 1 obvious reason why the corpses would be kept vitrified that a person should be able to think of in a few seconds with only a passing familiarity with cryonics organizations: because that’s what the trust fund/organization is paying for!
So I was also little disgusted that Gray was ignorant, did nothing to remedy his ignorance—that involved work on his part—and didn’t even think about it a little. Which destroyed whatever was left of my motivation to make a good, as opposed to snarky, comment by doing the research he should’ve. (And cryonics is an important issue, too. If you aren’t willing to even google about a technique that plausibly promises to transport you into the distant awesome future and save your life, that says a lot.)
EDIT: Although lsparrish is quite correct when he points out that it can be dangerous to try to quickly answer a deceptively simple question. We all know that if someone argues for a position, they can brainwash themselves into believing the position more than they did before. So what happens if you fail to link the authoritative industrial-strength explanations and instead post a few quick flawed arguments, which your interlocutor then knocks down? You may have done them a deep disservice.
Thanks for the clarification.
My impression was different from yours, but I agree that your impression doesn’t contradict the text.
I’ve put in a couple of replies into this text box, and deleted them because I realized I was responding defensively. (Although it’s clear to me that “the answer is obvious” is a rather underhanded way of calling me an idiot.)
But you’re right I’m new here. The most charitable interpretation of the response I received is that the standard of discourse on this site is that I shouldn’t discuss any topic until I have familiarized myself with the literature on that topic. I know that most of the discourse that I’ve seen so far on this site doesn’t live up to this standard, and I think the character of my response has more to do with the subject matter (“cryonics”) than the standard of my discourse.
That said, on reflection, I think this standard is a laudable thing. I know that scholarship is considered a virtue on this site. If some of the discussion on this site doesn’t meet this standard, this doesn’t excuse lowering the standard. Seeing people discuss a topic on this site that I’m not familiar with (even if I’m not particularly interested in cryonics) is a great excuse to learn something about that topic, if only to earn the right to partake in that discussion.
This is still coming across as kind of defensive. Logically extrapolating from your assertion that most of the discourse on this site doesn’t live up to the standard, it doesn’t follow that cryonics should not be given a privileged status, e.g. as one of perhaps a select few topics where we insist on holding oneself to an ultra-high standard of discourse. 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’m not saying scholarship isn’t laudable in all forms, but surely it’s okay to have priorities.
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.
Your point is good, and I upvoted gwern—not because his comment was particularly good, but because it didn’t deserve to be in the negatives.
To add on to what you said: I don’t think people on LW should be punished for telling confused newbies to do some web searching.
Edit: BTW, gwern, thanks for posting the ESR link. I found it interesting and probably useful.