I don’t think it’s a matter of whether you value your life but why. We don’t value life unconditionally (say, just a metabolism, or just having consciousness—both would be considered useless).
if they were put in a near-mode situation where many of their close friends and relatives had died, but they had the option to make a new start in a society of unprecedentedly high quality of life, they wouldn’t choose to die instead.
I wouldn’t expect anyone to choose to die, no, but I would predict some people would be depressed if everyone they cared about died and would not be too concerned about whether they lived or not. [I’ll add that the truth of this depends upon personality and generational age.]
Regarding the medieval peasant, I would expect her to accept the offer but I don’t think she would be irrational for refusing. In fact, if she refused, I would just decide she was a very incurious person and she couldn’t think of anything special to bring to the future (like her religion or a type of music she felt passionate about.) But I don’t think lacking curiosity or any goals for the far impersonal future is having low self-esteem. [Later, I’m adding that if she decided not to take the offer, I would fear she was doing so due to a transient lack of goals. I would rather she had made her decision when all was well.]
(If it was free, I definitely would take the offer and feel like I had a great bargain. I wonder if I can estimate how much I would pay for a cryopreservation that was certain to work? I think $10 to $50 thousand, in the case of no one I knew coming with me, but it’s difficult to estimate.)
I don’t think it’s a matter of whether you value your life but why. We don’t value life unconditionally (say, just a metabolism, or just having consciousness—both would be considered useless).
I wouldn’t expect anyone to choose to die, no, but I would predict some people would be depressed if everyone they cared about died and would not be too concerned about whether they lived or not. [I’ll add that the truth of this depends upon personality and generational age.]
Regarding the medieval peasant, I would expect her to accept the offer but I don’t think she would be irrational for refusing. In fact, if she refused, I would just decide she was a very incurious person and she couldn’t think of anything special to bring to the future (like her religion or a type of music she felt passionate about.) But I don’t think lacking curiosity or any goals for the far impersonal future is having low self-esteem. [Later, I’m adding that if she decided not to take the offer, I would fear she was doing so due to a transient lack of goals. I would rather she had made her decision when all was well.]
(If it was free, I definitely would take the offer and feel like I had a great bargain. I wonder if I can estimate how much I would pay for a cryopreservation that was certain to work? I think $10 to $50 thousand, in the case of no one I knew coming with me, but it’s difficult to estimate.)