Cryonics is usually funded through life insurance. … it doesn’t take all that much money.
Insurance is a way to avoid catastrophic losses. It is not a way to reduce costs. On the average, an insurance company’s customer will pay more in premiums than the amount paid out by the policy. If $X is too much money, $X is too much money even if paid by insurance.
I pay $180/year for more insurance than I need
If you’re paying for more insurance than you need, and it’s enough more to pay for $X worth of cryonics, it is also enough more to pay for $X of something else. Money is not free just because it comes out of waste; there is still the opportunity cost of not being able to use it for something else once you stop wasting it.
There are programs advertised to “securely erase” hard drives using many overwrites of 0s, 1s, and random data. But if you want to keep the secret on your hard drive secure against all possible future technologies that might ever be developed, then cover it with thermite and set it on fire. It’s the only way to be sure.
Hard drives don’t decay, not in the time period covered by the analogy. All that is erased is what you specifically erase. A proper analogy to what happens to the brain after death would be some process that affects all parts of the hard drive whether someone specifically chose them or not. Thermite is actually a pretty good one—death is a lot more like erasing a drive using thermite than erasing it by overwriting it with 0s and 1s.
I also see no reason why future technologies will be able to recover a drive overwritten with 0s and 1s. Erasure and recovery are asymmetrical; you can’t improve the erasure method and always be able to make up for that by improving the recovery method. If it’s really erased, it’s really erased.
Not signing up for cryonics—what does that say? That you’ve lost hope in the future. That you’ve lost your will to live. That you’ve stopped believing that human life, and your own life, is something of value.
…
The first statement is about systematically valuing human life.
…
The second statement is that you have at least a little hope in the future.
Notice something all these statements do? They imply that probabilities are irrelevant. You just need to have hope in the future—any finite quantity of hope will do, it just has to be a little. You just need to value human life; the probability of getting that value doesn’t matter. For all that proponents of cryonics claim they are not actually advocating Pascal’s mugging, suggesting that people should buy cryonics on the grounds that it has some chance of letting you live—and that the size of that chance doesn’t matter—is a recipe for Pascal’s mugging.
Thermite is actually a pretty good one—death is a lot more like erasing a drive using thermite than erasing it by overwriting it with 0s and 1s.
Just dying isn’t much like erasing a drive with thermite. Damage from ischemia takes time. It’s not like your brain instantly turns into pudding the minute the nearest doctor says “time of death”. Now, dying and then rotting in the ground somewhere for 50 years is a lot more like erasing a drive using thermite than overwriting it. That’s the point of cryonics.
Edit RE insurance:
Insurance is a way to avoid catastrophic losses. It is not a way to reduce costs. On the average, an insurance company’s customer will pay more in premiums than the amount paid out by the policy. If $X is too much money, $X is too much money even if paid by insurance.
Of course this is all true. However in the case of life insurance it is also a way to offload the expense to your future self, who presumably has more income than you. If I had to pay the whole thing upfront it would be certainly impossible for me to get cryonics at my current age.
Actually, now that I think about it, it is potentially not true that you would pay more in premiums than the payout, since insurance companies can make a profit on people who let their insurance lapse before dying (which is apparently quite frequent in life insurance). Picking two random life insurance company’s websites, it looks like a healthy human of my age could pay as little as 75% of the payout in premiums, assuming a life expectancy of 70 years.
Insurance is priced so that if you buy insurance for some period of time, the likelihood of dying (and thus the payout) during that time is balanced by the premiums. This applies just as much to people who let their insurance lapse as to people who people who intentionally buy insurance for only a limited period.
Note that someone who lets his insurance lapse will not only not get a payout, he will also not be paying premiums after he lapses. Since the post-lapse premiums are balanced against the post-lapse payout, and the no-lapse premiums are balanced against the no-lapse payout, you can subtract the two scenarios and conclude that premiums-with-lapsing are balanced against no-payout-after-lapsing.
Actually, now that I think about it, it is potentially not true that you would pay more in premiums than the payout, since insurance companies can make a profit on people who let their insurance lapse before dying
Wait? You are using whole life? Buy a 30 year term policy (get ~5-10x the coverage benefit) and invest the difference in the premiums. You’ll be way better off. Or get some guaranteed no-lapse universal life. Whole life in is never the answer.
it is potentially not true that you would pay more in premiums than the payout, since insurance companies can make a profit on people who let their insurance lapse before dyin
Yes, but you might fall into that category as well—future is uncertain. The expected value of the payout is less than the sum of premiums (after proper time discounting).
Insurance is a way to avoid catastrophic losses. It is not a way to reduce costs. On the average, an insurance company’s customer will pay more in premiums than the amount paid out by the policy. If $X is too much money, $X is too much money even if paid by insurance.
If you’re paying for more insurance than you need, and it’s enough more to pay for $X worth of cryonics, it is also enough more to pay for $X of something else. Money is not free just because it comes out of waste; there is still the opportunity cost of not being able to use it for something else once you stop wasting it.
Hard drives don’t decay, not in the time period covered by the analogy. All that is erased is what you specifically erase. A proper analogy to what happens to the brain after death would be some process that affects all parts of the hard drive whether someone specifically chose them or not. Thermite is actually a pretty good one—death is a lot more like erasing a drive using thermite than erasing it by overwriting it with 0s and 1s.
I also see no reason why future technologies will be able to recover a drive overwritten with 0s and 1s. Erasure and recovery are asymmetrical; you can’t improve the erasure method and always be able to make up for that by improving the recovery method. If it’s really erased, it’s really erased.
Notice something all these statements do? They imply that probabilities are irrelevant. You just need to have hope in the future—any finite quantity of hope will do, it just has to be a little. You just need to value human life; the probability of getting that value doesn’t matter. For all that proponents of cryonics claim they are not actually advocating Pascal’s mugging, suggesting that people should buy cryonics on the grounds that it has some chance of letting you live—and that the size of that chance doesn’t matter—is a recipe for Pascal’s mugging.
Just dying isn’t much like erasing a drive with thermite. Damage from ischemia takes time. It’s not like your brain instantly turns into pudding the minute the nearest doctor says “time of death”. Now, dying and then rotting in the ground somewhere for 50 years is a lot more like erasing a drive using thermite than overwriting it. That’s the point of cryonics.
Edit RE insurance:
Of course this is all true. However in the case of life insurance it is also a way to offload the expense to your future self, who presumably has more income than you. If I had to pay the whole thing upfront it would be certainly impossible for me to get cryonics at my current age.
Actually, now that I think about it, it is potentially not true that you would pay more in premiums than the payout, since insurance companies can make a profit on people who let their insurance lapse before dying (which is apparently quite frequent in life insurance). Picking two random life insurance company’s websites, it looks like a healthy human of my age could pay as little as 75% of the payout in premiums, assuming a life expectancy of 70 years.
Insurance is priced so that if you buy insurance for some period of time, the likelihood of dying (and thus the payout) during that time is balanced by the premiums. This applies just as much to people who let their insurance lapse as to people who people who intentionally buy insurance for only a limited period.
Note that someone who lets his insurance lapse will not only not get a payout, he will also not be paying premiums after he lapses. Since the post-lapse premiums are balanced against the post-lapse payout, and the no-lapse premiums are balanced against the no-lapse payout, you can subtract the two scenarios and conclude that premiums-with-lapsing are balanced against no-payout-after-lapsing.
Wait? You are using whole life? Buy a 30 year term policy (get ~5-10x the coverage benefit) and invest the difference in the premiums. You’ll be way better off. Or get some guaranteed no-lapse universal life. Whole life in is never the answer.
They also invest the money for profit, which allows them to take in less than they expect to pay.
Yes, but you might fall into that category as well—future is uncertain. The expected value of the payout is less than the sum of premiums (after proper time discounting).