I can tell you a reason I’ve cryocrastinated. I don’t expect the reason to hold up under scrutiny. It held up under my half-hearted scrutiny, but so what? I have low confidence in my own ability to be rational. In fact, I’d be grateful if someone can eliminate this worry for me.
So, the reason is concern about dystopian or hellish scenarios. For a cartoon of such a scenario, think I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.
One thought I had was that these scenarios are so unlikely that if I felt they warranted avoiding cryonics, I’d also feel they warranted preventative suicide. I’m confused about where I stand on this, but in any case preventative suicide is an action I am absolutely unable to take, whereas not signing up for cryonics is easy.
So, the reason is concern about dystopian or hellish scenarios.
The standard response to this is that you’d be much more likely to be revived by good people than bad ones—in a dystopia, cryonics would probably fail anyway, and why would they want to torture you in particular?
I can’t give you actual math but I’ll wave my hands at it and say expected utility is much higher for living forever in a good place. I imagine someone else is going to step up to the plate on this one.
And hey, you’re going to die anyway, do you expect it to really be worse than that?
I can tell you a reason I’ve cryocrastinated. I don’t expect the reason to hold up under scrutiny. It held up under my half-hearted scrutiny, but so what? I have low confidence in my own ability to be rational. In fact, I’d be grateful if someone can eliminate this worry for me.
So, the reason is concern about dystopian or hellish scenarios. For a cartoon of such a scenario, think I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.
One thought I had was that these scenarios are so unlikely that if I felt they warranted avoiding cryonics, I’d also feel they warranted preventative suicide. I’m confused about where I stand on this, but in any case preventative suicide is an action I am absolutely unable to take, whereas not signing up for cryonics is easy.
Thanks if you can straighten this out for me.
The standard response to this is that you’d be much more likely to be revived by good people than bad ones—in a dystopia, cryonics would probably fail anyway, and why would they want to torture you in particular?
I can’t give you actual math but I’ll wave my hands at it and say expected utility is much higher for living forever in a good place. I imagine someone else is going to step up to the plate on this one.
And hey, you’re going to die anyway, do you expect it to really be worse than that?