If an American signs up for cryonics and pays their ~$300/year, what are their odds of being revived?
Don’t know, “sufficiently small” about covers it. If you have a better ~$300/year bet to gain the whole future, this question would be worth answering.
Less
“the payoff is really high
and more “the payoff is in a different class to anything else that’s within a modest salary’s reach”.
Like, if there were no computers, and everyone did math in their head, and we were still stuck bartering between villages—cryonics is not a shot at a really good deal with a neighbouring village, cryonics is a shot at procuring trucks, gasoline to run them, and a national highway network.
The research suggests that winning the lottery, etc. doesn’t tend to make you happier long-term. What makes you think that the years you spend with trucks and gasoline are going to be significantly better than the years you spent bartering between villages?
I’m not aware of any evidence that happiness has grown to a “different class to anything else” in the history of human civilization. The percent of people in seriously messed up situations may have dropped, but the standard of happiness for a well-off moderate-status individual doesn’t seem like it’s changed that extremely. (Note that I am referring to happiness, not “standard of living”; it’s easy to imagine being miserable back in 50 AD now that you’ve experienced the future, but that doesn’t mean everyone back then was miserable just because they lacked World of Warcraft)
Even if you just value years lived, we’re only talking two or three orders of magnitude here. “Cryonics will revive you” is an easier claim than “Cryonics will revive you and keep you alive for another thousand years”, which is still easier than “Cryonics will revive you and give you a perfect Fun Theory utopia where you live for $MAX_PLEASANT_LIFESPAN”
I think trying to turn cryonics in to a Pascal’s Wager really doesn’t do a lot to convince people to sign up. I also think it relies on hooks that most people don’t really have—most people seem to value “average quality of life” a lot more than the actual length.
That improvements generally do not translate to improved happiness in humans, a la
it’s easy to imagine being miserable back in 50 AD now that you’ve experienced the future, but that doesn’t mean everyone back then was miserable just because they lacked World of Warcraft
is in my mind a serious flaw, right up there with scope insensitivity. To me, arguing that cryonics isn’t worth it because humans can’t really feel improvements in quality of life is like arguing that the Make-a-Wish foundation and VillageReach are of equal value as charities because humans can’t really feel the difference. Sure, maybe we can’t, but… VillageReach is still better than Make-a-Wish, and future life (conditioned on being revived) is better than present life.
To me, arguing that cryonics isn’t worth it because humans can’t really feel improvements in quality of life
You’re committing fallacious reasoning here. Just because I’m saying “increased future happiness is not a good argument for cryonics”, does NOT mean that I think there are no good arguments for cryonics. I just think that yours is not one of them.
I’m specifically critiquing your phrasing of “the payoff is in a different class to anything else”. You can make some additional assumptions that lead to “Cryonics + Fun Theory Utopia”, but it’s fundamentally less likely to occur than just “Cryonics” by itself. Equally, million year lifespans are less likely than thousand year lifespans. Cryonics, by itself, is not in a different class; it’s just waking up from a coma after years of being clinically dead.
Don’t know, “sufficiently small” about covers it. If you have a better ~$300/year bet to gain the whole future, this question would be worth answering.
Less
and more “the payoff is in a different class to anything else that’s within a modest salary’s reach”.
Like, if there were no computers, and everyone did math in their head, and we were still stuck bartering between villages—cryonics is not a shot at a really good deal with a neighbouring village, cryonics is a shot at procuring trucks, gasoline to run them, and a national highway network.
The research suggests that winning the lottery, etc. doesn’t tend to make you happier long-term. What makes you think that the years you spend with trucks and gasoline are going to be significantly better than the years you spent bartering between villages?
I’m not aware of any evidence that happiness has grown to a “different class to anything else” in the history of human civilization. The percent of people in seriously messed up situations may have dropped, but the standard of happiness for a well-off moderate-status individual doesn’t seem like it’s changed that extremely. (Note that I am referring to happiness, not “standard of living”; it’s easy to imagine being miserable back in 50 AD now that you’ve experienced the future, but that doesn’t mean everyone back then was miserable just because they lacked World of Warcraft)
Even if you just value years lived, we’re only talking two or three orders of magnitude here. “Cryonics will revive you” is an easier claim than “Cryonics will revive you and keep you alive for another thousand years”, which is still easier than “Cryonics will revive you and give you a perfect Fun Theory utopia where you live for $MAX_PLEASANT_LIFESPAN”
I think trying to turn cryonics in to a Pascal’s Wager really doesn’t do a lot to convince people to sign up. I also think it relies on hooks that most people don’t really have—most people seem to value “average quality of life” a lot more than the actual length.
That improvements generally do not translate to improved happiness in humans, a la
is in my mind a serious flaw, right up there with scope insensitivity. To me, arguing that cryonics isn’t worth it because humans can’t really feel improvements in quality of life is like arguing that the Make-a-Wish foundation and VillageReach are of equal value as charities because humans can’t really feel the difference. Sure, maybe we can’t, but… VillageReach is still better than Make-a-Wish, and future life (conditioned on being revived) is better than present life.
You’re committing fallacious reasoning here. Just because I’m saying “increased future happiness is not a good argument for cryonics”, does NOT mean that I think there are no good arguments for cryonics. I just think that yours is not one of them.
I’m specifically critiquing your phrasing of “the payoff is in a different class to anything else”. You can make some additional assumptions that lead to “Cryonics + Fun Theory Utopia”, but it’s fundamentally less likely to occur than just “Cryonics” by itself. Equally, million year lifespans are less likely than thousand year lifespans. Cryonics, by itself, is not in a different class; it’s just waking up from a coma after years of being clinically dead.