I’m specifically thinking of hypothermia patients and people who have had electroshock therapy. From what I’ve read, those who avoid brain necrosis lose the last few hours of their memory before the incident but are otherwise fine.
I don’t think this is true. For example, imagine that I told you I had a magic bean that, should you eat it, will cause you to be instantly revived after death, in perfect physical and mental health; and that I will sell you this bean for $1000. Would you buy the bean ?
You’re right, what I wrote came out sounding much stronger than I intended. The point I was trying to make was that there is no real “safe option”—the choices available right now are basically cryonics or rotting. And if you value your life at, say, $10 million, the expected value of cryonics is positive even with a pretty small chance of it working.
the choices available right now are basically cryonics or rotting.
I don’t think this true; and I enumerated some other choices in my reply to lsparrish, below. There are traditional life-extension technologies (Alzheimer’s cure, cancer cure, etc.), there are transplants (and stem cell research to produce them), then of course there’s the good old Singularity. There are also other ways to spend your money, period. For example, if it is the case (hypothetically speaking) that all of these life extension solutions have a very low expected utility, you might as well forget about it and spend your money on something that will make what little time you have left a little more pleasant (which includes things like donations to charity).
I’m specifically thinking of hypothermia patients and people who have had electroshock therapy. From what I’ve read, those who avoid brain necrosis lose the last few hours of their memory before the incident but are otherwise fine.
You’re right, what I wrote came out sounding much stronger than I intended. The point I was trying to make was that there is no real “safe option”—the choices available right now are basically cryonics or rotting. And if you value your life at, say, $10 million, the expected value of cryonics is positive even with a pretty small chance of it working.
I don’t think this true; and I enumerated some other choices in my reply to lsparrish, below. There are traditional life-extension technologies (Alzheimer’s cure, cancer cure, etc.), there are transplants (and stem cell research to produce them), then of course there’s the good old Singularity. There are also other ways to spend your money, period. For example, if it is the case (hypothetically speaking) that all of these life extension solutions have a very low expected utility, you might as well forget about it and spend your money on something that will make what little time you have left a little more pleasant (which includes things like donations to charity).