lsparrish

• lsparrishJan 14, 2014, 1:33 AM

  3 points

  in reply to: EHeller’s comment on: Look­ing for opinions of peo­ple like Nick Bostrom or An­ders Sand­berg on cur­rent cryo techniques

  If you’re worried about the effects of cracking, you can pay for ITS. LN2 is only used because it is cheap and relatively low-tech to maintain.

  If you ask me it’s a silly concern if we’re assuming nanorepair or uploading. Cracking is just a surface discontinuity, and it forms at a point in time where the tissue is already in a glassy state where there can’t be much mixing of molecules. The microcracks that form in frozen tissue is a much greater concern (but not the only concern with freezing). The fact that vitrified tissue forms large, loud cracks is related to the fact that it does such a good job holding things in place.

• lsparrishJan 13, 2014, 9:35 PM

  0 points

  in reply to: Kaj_Sotala’s comment on: Why I haven’t signed up for cryonics

  It feels to me like the general pro-cryo advocacy here would be a bit of a double standard, at least when compared to general memes of effective altruism, shutting up and multiplying, and saving the world. If I value my life equally to the lives of others, it seems pretty obvious that there’s no way by which the money spent on cryonics would be a better investment than spending it on general do-gooding.

  I think the scale on which it is done is the main thing here. Currently, cryonics is performed so infrequently that there isn’t much infrastructure for it. So it is still fairly expensive compared to the amount of expected utility—probably close to the value implied by regulatory tradeoffs ($5 million per life). On a large, industrial scale I expect it to be far better value than anything Givewell is going to find.

• lsparrishDec 25, 2013, 1:32 AM

  4 points

  in reply to: John_Maxwell’s comment on: Open thread for De­cem­ber 24-31, 2013

  Sorry, I didn’t notice my wording. Fixed.

• lsparrishDec 25, 2013, 12:52 AM

  15 points

  on: Open thread for De­cem­ber 24-31, 2013

  Max More just put out a response to Michio Kaku’s video on the topic of cryonics. Seems to be getting some coverage (KurzweilAI, io9, geek.com).

• lsparrishNov 21, 2013, 3:03 AM

  2 points

  in reply to: RomeoStevens’s comment on: Effec­tive Altru­ism and Cry­on­ics, Con­test Results

  This is speculative, but I think cryonics could be useful to fix the biological body as well. Cryogenic conditions are easier for certain types of things, for example some types of molecular nanotech might not work well under warm conditions but should work fine if kept cold. Also, more finely detailed printing could be possible under cryogenic conditions. It might turn out to be the most reliable way to replace the body when it gets old—vitrify, cut out the brain, then print everything else around it. When printing in a cold state to begin with, there would be less concern of overexposure to cryoprotectants or achieving perfusion (you could use less toxic, harder to perfuse cryoprotectants such as trehalose).

• lsparrishNov 21, 2013, 1:25 AM

  6 points

  in reply to: Dentin’s comment on: Effec­tive Altru­ism and Cry­on­ics, Con­test Results

  If cryonics works in the here and now, we could in principle (with adequate PR, policies, and so forth) replace all funerals with cryonics and save almost everyone from dying today. I would expect regenerative therapies to finally get out of clinical trials after 50 years or so, even if we were to get them working right away. This represents a very large amount of expected utility (2.5 billion deaths worth, at 50 million per year) with that amount of time.

  That said, it is not such a good comparison to hold current cryonics tech up against future advances anticipated in antiaging tech. If you want to put money into future advances in life extension, generally considered, it makes more sense to consider whether meaningful antiaging (say, something significant enough to get large numbers of people to actuarial escape velocity—perhaps a 10-year improvement) is more/​less likely than the cryonics equivalent (say, reversible vitrification of the brain) to be adequately solved, and cheaply distributed to the global population, first.

  Some things to consider:

  1. Cryonics has already been pioneered to the point of reversible rabbit kidney, and the prospects for a brain are defensible (if uncertain) in patients right now, despite clinical death. By contrast, we can be pretty sure nobody currently has been rejuvenated from aging. The closest existing thing is caloric restriction, which appears not to work in primates. SENS is still speculative.

  2. The problem of cryonics is largely brute physics (cooling, diffusion, cryoprotectant chemistry), whereas aging is predominantly a matter of the biochemistry of metabolism and regeneration. The complex biochemical technologies we uncover that we can expect to be helpful against aging may be even more effective towards cryonics, because they can be combined/​hybridized with mechanically based advances (e.g. cooling more rapidly to prevent toxicity while simultaneously mitigating toxicity with engineered biochemicals).

  3. Experimental feedback for cryonics research tends to be faster (and involve less suffering) because you do not have to wait for the animal to die of old age. The study can be done on a healthy animal, where the only relevant form of damage is the cryobiological/​toxicological damage, which occurs instantly, and after anesthetization.

  Apart from the technical advantages, it is worth considering that cryonics may be cheaper to deploy on a massive scale. Liquid nitrogen costs are much lower (per unit volume) for larger storage units. Perfusion with cryoprotectant could be worked into the existing end-of-life medical system. You wouldn’t have to experiment on healthy old people with innovative therapies as SENS would need to to, only terminal or clinically dead patients would be subject to cryonics.

Effec­tive Altru­ism and Cry­on­ics, Con­test Results

• lsparrishNov 15, 2013, 2:24 AM

  3 points

  in reply to: Ishaan’s comment on: [Prize] Es­say Con­test: Cry­on­ics and Effec­tive Altruism

  The efficient charity essay contest had a bottom line, it just wasn’t something anyone would be likely to dispute (and which had been previously argued for on Less Wrong). Qualified entries were supposed to explain, in less jargonistic terms, that you should optimize for utilions rather than fuzzies. The idea in that case was to put the existing ideas in more layman-friendly terms.

  If the bottom line we’re discussing is just “some utilitarians in some situations support cryonics”, my thinking is that it shouldn’t be controversial, since that’s pretty much already implied by the fungibility of utility. At least, if the opposite were true, I’d be surprised and want a good explanation for it. But I’m wondering if there’s a more subtle issue—perhaps it is being experienced as implying in some dark-artsy way something like “no rational utilitarian would ever oppose cryonics”, something I never intended (and don’t agree with).

  Another explanation is that there’s a real disagreement about the relative plausibility of utilitarians supporting cryonics. I have more or less implied (by the existence of the contest) that it is fairly plausible for lots of kinds of utilitarians. That is something I actually think, but is open to question. Some might be thinking it is fairly implausible for most kinds of utilitarians. It could be seen as a dark arts move on my part, that I didn’t really give the opposite perspective much consideration in composing the contest.

  However, the results of the contest should render that idea more of a testable prediction than it was before the contest. If it’s right, it should be possible to critique most of the essays produced for the contest by pointing out how implausible the scenarios are or how odd/​implausible the particular kind of utilitarianism they discuss are. If it’s wrong, at least some of the scenarios should be fairly plausible ones for realistic utilitarianisms.

• lsparrishNov 13, 2013, 7:59 PM

  0 points

  in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Buy­ing Debt as Effec­tive Altru­ism?

  Is the clock running? Loans are rarely made at zero interest rate, as the time goes by does my total obligation increase?

  It could be zero interest, if the primary purpose for holding onto it is to remind the person of their obligation and produce good feelings when they return the favor.

  Also, what is my incentive to make any payments?

  If you hold onto a debt, it shows on your credit report. Paying it off could improve your credit. But apart from that, there’s the matter that it is functionally identical to donating to effective charity.

  How is this relevant to anything?

  The subjective feeling of obligation with regards to the original debt might affect probability of repayment over time.

• lsparrishNov 13, 2013, 7:38 PM

  2 points

  in reply to: jaime2000’s comment on: [Prize] Es­say Con­test: Cry­on­ics and Effec­tive Altruism

  Okay, that is the new deadline. (Updated.)

• lsparrishNov 13, 2013, 7:26 PM

  2 points

  in reply to: jaime2000’s comment on: [Prize] Es­say Con­test: Cry­on­ics and Effec­tive Altruism

  Does Sunday ¹¹⁄₁₇ at 8pm PST sound good?

• lsparrishNov 13, 2013, 7:22 PM

  0 points

  in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Buy­ing Debt as Effec­tive Altru­ism?

  So maybe hold onto the debt indefinitely and offer to forward any repayments to charity? That might work, but it seems like if their income increases later, it might not be as advantageous to forgive it then for tax reasons. Also, there might be a goodwill factor associated with debt-forgiveness that isn’t there with repayment. The person may even feel the debt was unjustly accrued (e.g. medical bills for botched procedures) and feel repayment is a bad thing overall.

• lsparrishNov 13, 2013, 6:57 PM

  2 points

  in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Buy­ing Debt as Effec­tive Altru­ism?

  I wonder if one could focus on something that often goes untapped like innate programming ability. Have the person take a test that sees if they can learn to program, and if they can, forgive their debt and enroll them in a program to train them and get them employed.

• lsparrishNov 13, 2013, 6:55 PM

  0 points

  in reply to: Lumifer’s comment on: Buy­ing Debt as Effec­tive Altru­ism?

  Yes, but having the forgiveness happen in a low-income year would result in less taxes. So perhaps the charity could forgive debt in a way that is conditional on later income being donated to effective causes.

• lsparrishNov 13, 2013, 6:36 PM

  0 points

  in reply to: RomeoStevens’s comment on: [Prize] Es­say Con­test: Cry­on­ics and Effec­tive Altruism

  That’s correct. However I will move the deadline out by a few days if anyone asks. If that happens, you will be able to use the time to edit and polish your submission further if you like.

• lsparrishNov 12, 2013, 3:11 PM

  2 points

  on: [Prize] Es­say Con­test: Cry­on­ics and Effec­tive Altruism

  Would anyone like more time to complete an essay?

• lsparrishNov 12, 2013, 2:04 AM

  0 points

  in reply to: A1987dM’s comment on: [Prize] Es­say Con­test: Cry­on­ics and Effec­tive Altruism

  What bottom line are you suggesting this contest has written into it? That cryonics is something that some utilitarians would support under some circumstances? Why is supporting cryonics more controversial than running someone over with a trolley car all of a sudden?

  The only filter I’m putting up is a small chunk of prize money, and the only filter is to stay on topic with regards to a specific set of implicitly pro-cryonics issues that I am interested in. Anyone who wants to attack cryonics in a well-written essay is free to do so—I’m simply under no obligation to pay them for it.

• lsparrishNov 11, 2013, 9:19 PM

  2 points

  in reply to: A1987dM’s comment on: [Prize] Es­say Con­test: Cry­on­ics and Effec­tive Altruism

  That is not what I’m trying to do. I put up the prize with the intent of exploring a certain class of positions that I already know exist in concept-space (utilitarian frameworks friendly to cryonics). If there are weaknesses, I expect them to be highlighted better once explicated. That isn’t the same as rejecting a fully different class of positions (utilitarian frameworks unfriendly to cryonics), although I feel no particular obligation to fund the latter.

• lsparrishNov 9, 2013, 5:05 PM

  4 points

  in reply to: jefftk’s comment on: [Prize] Es­say Con­test: Cry­on­ics and Effec­tive Altruism

  Feel free to make edits.

  Do people have the impression that signing up for cryonics makes reversible vitrification much more likely?

  I certainly assign it high probability (although not necessarily that it is the best way to accomplish this specific goal). The only scientists that I’m aware of pursuing the goal of whole organ vitrification are Greg Fahy and Brian Wowk of 21st Century Medicine, who are also cryonicists and whose main source of funding seems to be cryonics. Chana and Aschwin de Wolf are also cryonicists, and do neural cryobiology experiments—a topic that is basically unheard of outside of cryonics.

  My understanding was that the current vitrification process as used for cryonics is extremely toxic, but that’s fine because the most likely revival process would be scanning.

  I would describe it as somewhat toxic, but not on par with say fixatives. Effective toxicity is dependent on exposure time, so faster cooling is a factor there. In any case, vitrification is something we can expect incremental improvements to result in higher viability in larger organs over time.

  I would expect future brain preservation research to be focused on issues like getting the cryoprotectant through the whole brain as quickly as possible, test scans of cryogenically preserved brains to see what level of detail is being kept currently, and alternative methods like plastination.

  Yes, scanning is good, but viability assays are arguably better in some respects because something that doesn’t harm viability is less likely to harm things that you can’t detect with current scanning tech.

  If you vitrify a small slice of brain tissue, the cryoprotectant can be washed out and the cells will resume functioning. I expect work that improves viability in larger organs and whole brains to involve the discovery of less toxic cryoprotectants and/​or delivery of such past cell membranes and the blood brain barrier. Another approach is supercooling, which allows lower concentrations of cryoprotectant because it avoids ice formation below the freezing point.

  While reversible vitrification would clearly be valuable for both cryonics and medicine in general, I think if you want more research into it you would need to explicitly fund it and you’re not going to get much of it as a spillover from signing up for the current version.

  That seems like a reasonable position, but it could be wrong due to network effects and so forth. I don’t see any kind of public outreach designed to get people to donate money to focused cryonics research, rather I see private networking between wealthy cryonicists as being the major factor in the present environment. That’s something that can be affected indirectly by an individual signing up (by influencing wealthy people in your social network to become interested), I think.

  It’s not just “is the effect positive” but “is the effect in the same range as the current best options”. If you think it’s 1/​100th as much good for your money as donating to the best charity then you could count 1% of the spending as altruistic and the rest as self-spending, but I think you need to get up to at least 1/​10th before this bookkeeping becomes worth it.

  Perhaps, but note that the significance of x-risk overall is higher in a world where everyone lives a lot longer. So the percent to which this matters should be affected by your confidence in the soon discovery of life extension (even if you don’t personally experience life extension).

  What kind of utility are you thinking about? I was writing for someone with a vaguely hedonistic view, where death is bad because of the effect it has on those that remain and because it removes the possibility for future joy on the part of the deceased (if you’re not at malthusian limits). A preference utilitarian will see death differently, though, as a massive violation of preferences.

  I’m thinking that some kind of preference-based utility could still be considered as a total over time—the more sentient beings whose preferences are met over time, the more utility there is.

• lsparrishNov 9, 2013, 6:13 AM

  1 point

  in reply to: jefftk’s comment on: [Prize] Es­say Con­test: Cry­on­ics and Effec­tive Altruism

  The question is, how much does your signing up do to improve these? Even then, I would expect you could get these same benefits more efficiently through an organization that advocated people sign up for cryonics.

  This aspect needs to be given more focus, I think, as it shows how a person might possibly attempt to achieve cryonics-related goals more efficiently by abstaining from signing up and instead donating to a charity which advertises cryonics.

  for it to be more cost effective than giving to the AMF you would need to think it’s at least 10% likely give you 8,000 years of additional life.

  This does not apply quite so straightforwardly to more general cryonics goals like achieving reversible vitrification and thus preventing death from a broad spectrum of diseases (including aging). If such a goal were achieved, it would dramatically increase the odds of cryonics being useful for the patient, which would increase adoption rates and also decrease use of heroic measures that prolong suffering.

  Someone might hope to achieve such goals more effectively by donating to a research facility directly instead of signing up, but then again signing up does probably have a positive effect overall.

  Also, the idea that there might be significant x-risk reduction in people anticipating extended life is another source of utility to factor in. Another notion to consider is that a utilitarian might join a cryonics organization for the chance to network with a group of relatively wealthy individuals, with the goal of attracting donations to proven causes like AMF.

  If you’re a total utilitarian, caring about there being as many good lives over all time as possible, deaths averted isn’t a real metric. Instead the question is how many lives will there be and how good are they?

  You lost me there. As I understand it, a total utilitarian cares about utility for all lives over all time, but that doesn’t indicate that they don’t disvalue death in and of itself. I could perhaps be a total utilitarian, but I think death is a negative event that isn’t fully negated, utility-wise, by the creation of new people. So a world where more deaths occurred is one that I would prefer less than one where fewer deaths occurred, even if the same number of people exist in the end.