I’m going to stick out my neck. Eliezer wants everyone to live. Most people don’t.
People care about their and their loved ones’ immediate survival. They discount heavily for long-term survival. And they don’t give a flying fuck about the life of strangers. They say “Death is bad.”, but the social norm is not “Death is bad.”, it’s “Saying “Death is bad.” is good.”.
If this is not true, then I don’t know how to explain why they dismiss cryonics out of hand with arguments about how death is not that bad that are clearly not their true rejection. The silliness heuristic explains believing it would fail, or that it’s a scam—not rejecting the principle. Status quo and naturalistic bias explain part of the rejection, but surely not the whole thing.
And it would explain why I was bewildered, thinking “Why would you want a sucker like me to live?” even though I know Eliezer truly values life.
People care about their and their loved ones’ immediate survival. They discount heavily for long-term survival. And they don’t give a flying fuck about the life of strangers. They say “Death is bad.”, but the social norm is not “Death is bad.”, it’s “Saying “Death is bad.” is good.”.
If this is not true, then I don’t know how to explain why they dismiss cryonics out of hand with arguments about how death is not that bad that are clearly not their true rejection. The silliness heuristic explains believing it would fail, or that it’s a scam—not rejecting the principle. Status quo and naturalistic bias explain part of the rejection, but surely not the whole thing.
If this is true, then I still don’t know how to explain it, do I? If bias isn’t enough to explain not being horrified at the lack of universal cryonics, so you must resort to “they secretly don’t care”, then you still have to explain not being horrified by the deaths of their loved ones. Or rather, being visibly horrified, but not taking this option to prevent it. Why would bias be enough to explain this but not the latter?
And you have to explain how they got so good at lying, too.
I think the earlier post doesn’t interpret what people say charitably enough—what the LW jargon would describe as failure to steelman.
Someone who dismisses cryonics by saying that death isn’t bad probably doesn’t literally mean that death isn’t bad at all. What he is likely to mean is that death is not comparatively bad to cryonics. This can happen either because death isn’t that bad or because cryonics isn’t that good—in other words, it’s just another way to express believing that it would fail, believing that it’s a scam, etc. after all.
Well, I probably don’t evangelise as much as I should with cryonics being such a low-hanging fruit and all, but I’ve still had conversations where people argued against living forever/ immortality isn’t as good as life on Earth, as a counter argument to cryogenics—this being after I’ve explained that yes, it exists and has a decent chance of working, in at least the most recent and fresh in my memory case (today, halfway through writing this comment.)
Does that answer your question? I’m not sure if I parsed your comment correctly.
I’m going to stick out my neck. Eliezer wants everyone to live. Most people don’t.
People care about their and their loved ones’ immediate survival. They discount heavily for long-term survival. And they don’t give a flying fuck about the life of strangers. They say “Death is bad.”, but the social norm is not “Death is bad.”, it’s “Saying “Death is bad.” is good.”.
If this is not true, then I don’t know how to explain why they dismiss cryonics out of hand with arguments about how death is not that bad that are clearly not their true rejection. The silliness heuristic explains believing it would fail, or that it’s a scam—not rejecting the principle. Status quo and naturalistic bias explain part of the rejection, but surely not the whole thing.
And it would explain why I was bewildered, thinking “Why would you want a sucker like me to live?” even though I know Eliezer truly values life.
If this is true, then I still don’t know how to explain it, do I? If bias isn’t enough to explain not being horrified at the lack of universal cryonics, so you must resort to “they secretly don’t care”, then you still have to explain not being horrified by the deaths of their loved ones. Or rather, being visibly horrified, but not taking this option to prevent it. Why would bias be enough to explain this but not the latter?
And you have to explain how they got so good at lying, too.
I think the earlier post doesn’t interpret what people say charitably enough—what the LW jargon would describe as failure to steelman.
Someone who dismisses cryonics by saying that death isn’t bad probably doesn’t literally mean that death isn’t bad at all. What he is likely to mean is that death is not comparatively bad to cryonics. This can happen either because death isn’t that bad or because cryonics isn’t that good—in other words, it’s just another way to express believing that it would fail, believing that it’s a scam, etc. after all.
Well, I probably don’t evangelise as much as I should with cryonics being such a low-hanging fruit and all, but I’ve still had conversations where people argued against living forever/ immortality isn’t as good as life on Earth, as a counter argument to cryogenics—this being after I’ve explained that yes, it exists and has a decent chance of working, in at least the most recent and fresh in my memory case (today, halfway through writing this comment.)
Does that answer your question? I’m not sure if I parsed your comment correctly.