Two possible suggestions could be coherently made involving the use of premortem cryonics for people who legitimately prefer to be dead rather than go on living in their current state:
“Since they are going to die anyway, it is better to euthanize them in a way that maximizes research.”
“Since they are at risk of killing themselves, it is best to cryopreserve them in a way that maximizes their chance of being reanimated and cured of their depression.”
The two positions are fundamentally distinct and optimize for different outcomes.
In the first case, the main concern is the potential research material that goes to waste every time someone kills themselves under uncontrolled circumstances. It does not concern itself with the possibility of preserving the individual patient, and focuses instead on the utilitarian gains that improving the state of the art in cryonics would bring for others.
In the second case, the main concern is the lives that are directly wasted due to people killing themselves off for good when in reality they would be fine with cryonics, and their preferences are not insistent on death. This argument does not concern itself with improving the state of the art, but is concerned with the ongoing and potentially preventable loss of life from suicide.
Either loss—the individual life, or research that could radically extend lots of lives—is a tragic one which could perhaps be avoided, if premortem cryonics were permitted by society. However, the two arguments have different strengths and weaknesses which make them hard to use.
The first makes no assumption about whether cryonics currently achieves its objectives, only that the lives of people who are committing suicide would have some use for research that might improve cryonics. On the other hand, it relies on the moral notion that people who want to commit suicide should in fact be free to do so, and that research scientists who actively participate in that event are not in some way morally tainted, threatening the basis of civilization, or otherwise losing more than they gain by doing so.
(In case it’s not already completely obvious to everyone, I’ll spell it out: The humane advantages from perfecting cryogenic suspended animation technology in humans would be HUGE, as it would bring an immediate end to death from every disease and buy many decades of pain-free time for patients to have their illnesses cured.)
The second relies on the notion that cryonics patients are not actually dead in the sense that we are worried about, that cryonics is better thought of as an alternative to suicide, and so forth. Instead of simply being dead, the patient is accepting a risk of being dead when all is said and done. This becomes a question of risk tradeoffs—the risk that you will kill yourself during a future depressive episode and/or die of aging, versus the risk that cryonics doesn’t work.
The main problem though is that if you don’t have an audience with a fairly sophisticated grasp on transhumanism and utilitarianism already, and a respect for the chances of cryonics working already, they are going to be mindkilled pretty quickly by the apparent endorsement of taking advantage of suicidally depressed people.
I agree with your reasoning on the presentation of those arguments towards the benefit of using premortem cryonics for the suicidal.
If worded well enough, we could incorporate both when the idea circulates among the masses, but it would have to be very carefully done. The second argument would most likely be more effective on the general populace, as it has more of a touchy-feely we care about the individual sound, whereas the first is very much about utilitarianism and those with little understanding of that mindset would consider it to be ‘cold’ (no pun intended?).
What seems to be the hardest sell is whether people should have the ‘right’ to supposedly end their lives. While their lives wouldn’t be considered over in cryonics, the legal implications of this would be HUGE. Not that it really affects those who truly want to die, but we would have to tread lightly here. Worst-case scenario, people refer to this as assisted suicide. Best-case scenario, people consider this intense treatment for depression (or whatever reason the person wants to die)?
Two possible suggestions could be coherently made involving the use of premortem cryonics for people who legitimately prefer to be dead rather than go on living in their current state:
“Since they are going to die anyway, it is better to euthanize them in a way that maximizes research.”
“Since they are at risk of killing themselves, it is best to cryopreserve them in a way that maximizes their chance of being reanimated and cured of their depression.”
The two positions are fundamentally distinct and optimize for different outcomes.
In the first case, the main concern is the potential research material that goes to waste every time someone kills themselves under uncontrolled circumstances. It does not concern itself with the possibility of preserving the individual patient, and focuses instead on the utilitarian gains that improving the state of the art in cryonics would bring for others.
In the second case, the main concern is the lives that are directly wasted due to people killing themselves off for good when in reality they would be fine with cryonics, and their preferences are not insistent on death. This argument does not concern itself with improving the state of the art, but is concerned with the ongoing and potentially preventable loss of life from suicide.
Either loss—the individual life, or research that could radically extend lots of lives—is a tragic one which could perhaps be avoided, if premortem cryonics were permitted by society. However, the two arguments have different strengths and weaknesses which make them hard to use.
The first makes no assumption about whether cryonics currently achieves its objectives, only that the lives of people who are committing suicide would have some use for research that might improve cryonics. On the other hand, it relies on the moral notion that people who want to commit suicide should in fact be free to do so, and that research scientists who actively participate in that event are not in some way morally tainted, threatening the basis of civilization, or otherwise losing more than they gain by doing so.
(In case it’s not already completely obvious to everyone, I’ll spell it out: The humane advantages from perfecting cryogenic suspended animation technology in humans would be HUGE, as it would bring an immediate end to death from every disease and buy many decades of pain-free time for patients to have their illnesses cured.)
The second relies on the notion that cryonics patients are not actually dead in the sense that we are worried about, that cryonics is better thought of as an alternative to suicide, and so forth. Instead of simply being dead, the patient is accepting a risk of being dead when all is said and done. This becomes a question of risk tradeoffs—the risk that you will kill yourself during a future depressive episode and/or die of aging, versus the risk that cryonics doesn’t work.
The main problem though is that if you don’t have an audience with a fairly sophisticated grasp on transhumanism and utilitarianism already, and a respect for the chances of cryonics working already, they are going to be mindkilled pretty quickly by the apparent endorsement of taking advantage of suicidally depressed people.
I agree with your reasoning on the presentation of those arguments towards the benefit of using premortem cryonics for the suicidal.
If worded well enough, we could incorporate both when the idea circulates among the masses, but it would have to be very carefully done. The second argument would most likely be more effective on the general populace, as it has more of a touchy-feely we care about the individual sound, whereas the first is very much about utilitarianism and those with little understanding of that mindset would consider it to be ‘cold’ (no pun intended?).
What seems to be the hardest sell is whether people should have the ‘right’ to supposedly end their lives. While their lives wouldn’t be considered over in cryonics, the legal implications of this would be HUGE. Not that it really affects those who truly want to die, but we would have to tread lightly here. Worst-case scenario, people refer to this as assisted suicide. Best-case scenario, people consider this intense treatment for depression (or whatever reason the person wants to die)?
Thanks for the detailed response!!