Careful, someone else just gave me the “dumb question” lecture.
Yeah, I saw that, and thought it was unjustified.
Anyway, I can see where “it’s our job” angle is just as good an answer to “why won’t you ditch the body first chance you get?” as it is to “why won’t you just store the body indefinitely rather than revive it?”
And I can see where it isn’t a very confidence-inspiring answer, as you say.
That said, I’m not sure there’s a better answer to be had. We do all kinds of things that depend on the assumption that legal and financial arrangements will remain more or less as they are; signing up for cryonics is no less justified on that basis than setting up a trust fund for my grandchildren.
For alcor atleast, the people in charge of the money are REQUIRED to be signed up for cryonics and I believe 3 of them need to have close relatives or significant others already in cryonics. This means that’s it’s in the interest of the people in charge to not screw themselves or the people they love, instead of not screwing random frozen strangers.
Of course, if I run a cemetery and I have close relatives buried in that cemetery I’m probably motivated not to plow the whole thing over to put up condos, and I’m probably motivated to ensure that my own relatives aren’t disinterred to make room for new paying customers, but that doesn’t necessarily make me equally motivated to ensure the same for people I don’t know.
(Caveat: I keep using the cemetery analogy, not because I think it’s particularly close, but because I suspect that if I raise these sorts of questions directly about cryonics I’ll get interpreted as someone who just wants to reject cryonics and is looking for reasons to do so, whereas if I raise the same questions about cemeteries the focus has a higher chance to be on the questions instead of speculations about my psychology.)
Yeah, I saw that, and thought it was unjustified.
Anyway, I can see where “it’s our job” angle is just as good an answer to “why won’t you ditch the body first chance you get?” as it is to “why won’t you just store the body indefinitely rather than revive it?”
And I can see where it isn’t a very confidence-inspiring answer, as you say.
That said, I’m not sure there’s a better answer to be had. We do all kinds of things that depend on the assumption that legal and financial arrangements will remain more or less as they are; signing up for cryonics is no less justified on that basis than setting up a trust fund for my grandchildren.
For alcor atleast, the people in charge of the money are REQUIRED to be signed up for cryonics and I believe 3 of them need to have close relatives or significant others already in cryonics. This means that’s it’s in the interest of the people in charge to not screw themselves or the people they love, instead of not screwing random frozen strangers.
(nods) I know, and I think that’s cool.
Of course, if I run a cemetery and I have close relatives buried in that cemetery I’m probably motivated not to plow the whole thing over to put up condos, and I’m probably motivated to ensure that my own relatives aren’t disinterred to make room for new paying customers, but that doesn’t necessarily make me equally motivated to ensure the same for people I don’t know.
(Caveat: I keep using the cemetery analogy, not because I think it’s particularly close, but because I suspect that if I raise these sorts of questions directly about cryonics I’ll get interpreted as someone who just wants to reject cryonics and is looking for reasons to do so, whereas if I raise the same questions about cemeteries the focus has a higher chance to be on the questions instead of speculations about my psychology.)