First, you are grossly underestimating people’s vulnerability to emotional levers, and second, it’s not really a manipulation, as I implied in my last sentence. One might start the conversation with “Dad, I do not want to die forever, but I cannot figure out on my own if this cryonics thing has a chance in hell. Some smart people signed up for it, other equally smart people say it’s a wishful thinking. It sounds so enticing, yet I cannot spot any con artistry. But I so do not want to waste my money on snake oil. I have always counted on your advice in life, and this seems like it could be one of the most crucial ones. Maybe we can chat about it some time.”
So, in other words, you think he should lie to his father (“I cannot figure out on my own if this cryonics thing has a chance in hell”, even though he’s said here he wants to do it and he wants to try to “sell” the idea to his father), thereby exploiting his father’s “vulnerability to emotional levers” …
… and yet you also say “it’s not really a manipulation”. The hell it isn’t. It may be a manipulation done with his best interests in mind; it may be a Good Thing overall; but it’s still a manipulation. You may well be right that there’s a vanishingly small chance that he notices, though.
(Though if his dad is at all internet-savvy, which I bet he is, there’s surely a substantial probability that he’ll try to help, do some research, run across Less Wrong (as a place where a bunch of cryonics advocates hang out and a few people have made serious-looking attempts to weigh the costs and benefits), and find this very thread. If so, EphemeralNight had better hope he’s been absolutely straight with his father about the whole thing, because otherwise it’s going to look very bad indeed.)
This is kind of a moot point anyway, since my dad would find it out-of-character for me to use those tactics, and I have a very weak skill in emotional manipulation anyway. (My sister got all of that talent, like I got all of the sanity she was supposed to get. In-joke about that is a thing.)
What I really need is a way to separate cryonics as it exists today in his mind from cryonics as he understood it in the 1990s. The problem isn’t that he’d need talking-into it. The problem is his Cached Belief that he already knows it is pointless.
First, you are grossly underestimating people’s vulnerability to emotional levers, and second, it’s not really a manipulation, as I implied in my last sentence. One might start the conversation with “Dad, I do not want to die forever, but I cannot figure out on my own if this cryonics thing has a chance in hell. Some smart people signed up for it, other equally smart people say it’s a wishful thinking. It sounds so enticing, yet I cannot spot any con artistry. But I so do not want to waste my money on snake oil. I have always counted on your advice in life, and this seems like it could be one of the most crucial ones. Maybe we can chat about it some time.”
So, in other words, you think he should lie to his father (“I cannot figure out on my own if this cryonics thing has a chance in hell”, even though he’s said here he wants to do it and he wants to try to “sell” the idea to his father), thereby exploiting his father’s “vulnerability to emotional levers” …
… and yet you also say “it’s not really a manipulation”. The hell it isn’t. It may be a manipulation done with his best interests in mind; it may be a Good Thing overall; but it’s still a manipulation. You may well be right that there’s a vanishingly small chance that he notices, though.
(Though if his dad is at all internet-savvy, which I bet he is, there’s surely a substantial probability that he’ll try to help, do some research, run across Less Wrong (as a place where a bunch of cryonics advocates hang out and a few people have made serious-looking attempts to weigh the costs and benefits), and find this very thread. If so, EphemeralNight had better hope he’s been absolutely straight with his father about the whole thing, because otherwise it’s going to look very bad indeed.)
This is kind of a moot point anyway, since my dad would find it out-of-character for me to use those tactics, and I have a very weak skill in emotional manipulation anyway. (My sister got all of that talent, like I got all of the sanity she was supposed to get. In-joke about that is a thing.)
What I really need is a way to separate cryonics as it exists today in his mind from cryonics as he understood it in the 1990s. The problem isn’t that he’d need talking-into it. The problem is his Cached Belief that he already knows it is pointless.