Will, the singularity argument above relies on not just the likely long-term feasibility of a singularity, but the near-certainty of one VERY soon, so soon that fixed costs like the inconvenience of spending a few hours signing up for cryonics defeat the insurance value. Note that the cost of life insurance for a given period scales with your risk of death from non-global-risk causes in advance of a singularity.
I never argued that this objection alone is enough to tip the scales in favor of not signing up. It is mostly this argument combined with the idea that loss of measure on the order of 5-50% really isn’t all that important when you’re talking about multiverse-affecting technologies; no, really, I’m not sure 5% of my measure is worth having to give up half a Hershey’s bar everyday, when we’re talking crazy post-singularity decision theoretic scenarios from one of Escher’s worst nightmares. This is even more salient if those Hershey bars (or airport parking tickets or shoes or whatever) end up helping me increase the chance of getting access to infinite computational power.
No, unfortunately, much more complicated and much more fuzzy. Unfortunately it’s a Pascalian thing. Basically, if post-singularity (or pre-singularity if I got insanely lucky for some reason—in which case this point becomes a lot more feasible) I get access to infinite computing power, it doesn’t matter how much of my measure gets through, because I’ll be able to take over any ‘branches’ I could have been able to reach with my measure otherwise. This relies on some horribly twisted ideas in cosmology / game theory / decision theory that will, once again, not fit in the margin. Outside view, it’s over a 99% chance these ideas totally wrong, or ‘not even wrong’.
I never argued that this objection alone is enough to tip the scales in favor of not signing up. It is mostly this argument combined with the idea that loss of measure on the order of 5-50% really isn’t all that important when you’re talking about multiverse-affecting technologies; no, really, I’m not sure 5% of my measure is worth having to give up half a Hershey’s bar everyday, when we’re talking crazy post-singularity decision theoretic scenarios from one of Escher’s worst nightmares. This is even more salient if those Hershey bars (or airport parking tickets or shoes or whatever) end up helping me increase the chance of getting access to infinite computational power.
Wut. Is this a quantum immortality thing?
No, unfortunately, much more complicated and much more fuzzy. Unfortunately it’s a Pascalian thing. Basically, if post-singularity (or pre-singularity if I got insanely lucky for some reason—in which case this point becomes a lot more feasible) I get access to infinite computing power, it doesn’t matter how much of my measure gets through, because I’ll be able to take over any ‘branches’ I could have been able to reach with my measure otherwise. This relies on some horribly twisted ideas in cosmology / game theory / decision theory that will, once again, not fit in the margin. Outside view, it’s over a 99% chance these ideas totally wrong, or ‘not even wrong’.