Yes, a hansonian future looks appalling. Anything that gets us back into a Malthusian trap is a future that I would not want to experience.
I’m not sure that active measures to prevent oneself from being revived in such a future are necessary. If extreme population growth makes human life of little value in what are currently the developed nations, who would revive us? Cryonics has been likened to a four-dimensional ambulance ride to a future emergency room. If the emergency rooms of the 22nd century turn out to only accept the rich, cryonicists will never get revived in such a world anyway.
I find it bizarre that Robin Hanson himself both endorses cryonics and actively endorses population growth—both in the near term (conventional overpopulation of humans) and in the long term (explosive growth of competing uploads/ems).
@2: Most of it was humour, indicating excessive paranoia. Under that was basically a mix of being humble (might have reasons we would never think of to do it), and the implication that it’s not only bad but so bad every little trace of probability must be pushed as close as possible to 0.
A couple of comments:
Yes, a hansonian future looks appalling. Anything that gets us back into a Malthusian trap is a future that I would not want to experience.
I’m not sure that active measures to prevent oneself from being revived in such a future are necessary. If extreme population growth makes human life of little value in what are currently the developed nations, who would revive us? Cryonics has been likened to a four-dimensional ambulance ride to a future emergency room. If the emergency rooms of the 22nd century turn out to only accept the rich, cryonicists will never get revived in such a world anyway.
I find it bizarre that Robin Hanson himself both endorses cryonics and actively endorses population growth—both in the near term (conventional overpopulation of humans) and in the long term (explosive growth of competing uploads/ems).
@2: Most of it was humour, indicating excessive paranoia. Under that was basically a mix of being humble (might have reasons we would never think of to do it), and the implication that it’s not only bad but so bad every little trace of probability must be pushed as close as possible to 0.