I have signed up with Alcor. When I suggest to other people that they should sign up the common response has been that they wouldn’t want to be brought back to life after they died.
I don’t understand this response. I’m almost certain that if most of these people found out they had cancer and would die unless they got a treatment and (1) with the treatment they would have only a 20% chance of survival, (2) the treatment would be very painful, (3) the treatment would be very expensive, and (4) if the treatment worked they would be unhealthy for the rest of their lives; then almost all of these cryonics rejectors would take the treatment.
One of the primary cost of cryonics is the “you seem insane tax” one has to pay if people find out you have signed up. Posts like this will hopefully reduce the cryonics insanity tax.
I’m almost certain that if most of these people found out they had cancer and would die unless they got a treatment and (1) with the treatment they would have only a 20% chance of survival, (2) the treatment would be very painful, (3) the treatment would be very expensive, and (4) if the treatment worked they would be unhealthy for the rest of their lives; then almost all of these cryonics rejectors would take the treatment.
It’s painful, expensive, leaves you in ill health the rest of your (shortened) life, and you’ve only got a 20% chance?
I actually had a nightmare recently where I was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer and would have preferred not to go through treatment, but felt pressured by other, more aggressively anti-death members of the rationality community. Was afraid people would think I didn’t care about them if I didn’t try to stay alive longer to be with them, etc. (I’m an ICU nurse; I have a pretty good S1 handle on how horrific a lot of life saving treatments are, and how much quality of life it’s possible to lose.)
I’ve thought about cryonics, but haven’t made a decision either way; right now, my feeling is that I don’t have anything against the principle, but that it doesn’t seem likely enough to work for the cost-benefit analysis to come out positive.
Can you describe the reasons are that make you think it is not likely enough to work? Totally understandable if you can’t articulate such reasons, but I’m just curious about what the benchmarks are that you might find useful in informing your probability estimate.
That is to say, it’s unlikely that actual reversible cryopreservation would be possible; if it were, the technique probably wouldn’t be called cryonics anymore. So, other more intermediate steps that’d you’d find informative might be good to know about.
I have signed up with Alcor. When I suggest to other people that they should sign up the common response has been that they wouldn’t want to be brought back to life after they died.
I don’t understand this response. I’m almost certain that if most of these people found out they had cancer and would die unless they got a treatment and (1) with the treatment they would have only a 20% chance of survival, (2) the treatment would be very painful, (3) the treatment would be very expensive, and (4) if the treatment worked they would be unhealthy for the rest of their lives; then almost all of these cryonics rejectors would take the treatment.
One of the primary cost of cryonics is the “you seem insane tax” one has to pay if people find out you have signed up. Posts like this will hopefully reduce the cryonics insanity tax.
It’s painful, expensive, leaves you in ill health the rest of your (shortened) life, and you’ve only got a 20% chance?
Why would someone take that deal?
This is more than slightly odd. I am considering cryonics but I would never take that cancer treatment. It seems like a horrible deal .
I find the idea of cryonics having a 20% chance of working to be orders of magnitude too optimistic.
I actually had a nightmare recently where I was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer and would have preferred not to go through treatment, but felt pressured by other, more aggressively anti-death members of the rationality community. Was afraid people would think I didn’t care about them if I didn’t try to stay alive longer to be with them, etc. (I’m an ICU nurse; I have a pretty good S1 handle on how horrific a lot of life saving treatments are, and how much quality of life it’s possible to lose.)
I’ve thought about cryonics, but haven’t made a decision either way; right now, my feeling is that I don’t have anything against the principle, but that it doesn’t seem likely enough to work for the cost-benefit analysis to come out positive.
Can you describe the reasons are that make you think it is not likely enough to work? Totally understandable if you can’t articulate such reasons, but I’m just curious about what the benchmarks are that you might find useful in informing your probability estimate.
That is to say, it’s unlikely that actual reversible cryopreservation would be possible; if it were, the technique probably wouldn’t be called cryonics anymore. So, other more intermediate steps that’d you’d find informative might be good to know about.