Elevated burden of proof. As if cryonics demands more than a small amount of
evidence to be worth trying.
Well, maybe from a Pascal’s Wager’s perspective—but since cryonics cost a
significant amount of money and chances of success are, as far as I know,
small at best, one could argue that there may be better returns-on-investment
elsewhere. One could give money to, say, the SENS Foundation. Or to
researchers on brain-uploading, or other such efforts. Their chances of
success may not be very big either, but overall it’s not clear that the
expected-extra-life-expectancy-per-dollar (EELEPD) is worse than that for
cryonics.
Fair enough, but cryonics opponents who make this kind of argument don’t usually do any of those things either. Instead they point out that thesuccess of cryonics isn’t 100% certain, and use this as an excuse to ignore the whole issue.
Well, maybe from a Pascal’s Wager’s perspective—but since cryonics cost a significant amount of money and chances of success are, as far as I know, small at best, one could argue that there may be better returns-on-investment elsewhere. One could give money to, say, the SENS Foundation. Or to researchers on brain-uploading, or other such efforts. Their chances of success may not be very big either, but overall it’s not clear that the expected-extra-life-expectancy-per-dollar (EELEPD) is worse than that for cryonics.
Fair enough, but cryonics opponents who make this kind of argument don’t usually do any of those things either. Instead they point out that thesuccess of cryonics isn’t 100% certain, and use this as an excuse to ignore the whole issue.