[dpark]

Obviously you do not personally pay after death, but you set aside money for a trust before hand, which amounts to the same thing.

I disagree with your assertion that you can get the company to live thousands of years. How many human organizations have lasted that long? Even the Catholic church has only been around for 2k (so they claim at least) and I can't think of anything else that approaches that longevity, not even nations. And there are way too many cases for potential failure to calculate real probabilities so arguing about getting them low enough is moot.

[lsparrish]

We don't need the specific organization to survive thousands of years in its original form, we just need cryonics patients to be passed ahead peacefully to another organization in the event of failure. But yeah, religions are an example of something organized lasting thousands of years, under historical conditions.

We haven't yet had a chance to experiment with things under conditions of universal literacy, the absence of much armed conflict, and other amenities of the modern world. Certain things (fashions, cultural memes) seem to get replaced quickly under such conditions, but that doesn't seem likely to extend to something like a trust fund.

Cryonicists certainly have more motive than the average person to promote stability, literacy, and nonviolence.

[dpark]

> We don't need the specific organization to survive thousands of years in its original form, we just need cryonics patients to be passed ahead peacefully to another organization in the event of failure.

And how do you believe you'll accomplish this? The second, third, etc. companies are not going to sign up for this responsibility for free. Nor is there any guarantee that they won't also fail, or be merged into one conglomerate that fails.

> We haven't yet had a chance to experiment with things under conditions of universal literacy, the absence of much armed conflict, and other amenities of the modern world. Certain things (fashions, cultural memes) seem to get replaced quickly under such conditions, but that doesn't seem likely to extend to something like a trust fund.

I don't understand how this is at all relevant. I see no compelling reason to believe that the US will not experience natural disasters, wars, failed companies, or any number of other incidents that could cause cryo-failure. The fact that the population is fairly educated is almost completely irrelevant.

> Cryonicists certainly have more motive than the average person to promote stability, literacy, and nonviolence.

Frozen people are not in a position to promote anything. And the people keeping them frozen don't have an incentive to do anything except collect paychecks.

[lsparrish]

> And how do you believe you'll accomplish this? The second, third, etc. companies are not going to sign up for this responsibility for free.

Yes it costs more money and it has to be done in advance.

> Nor is there any guarantee that they won't also fail, or be merged into one conglomerate that fails.

You could put it in the bylaws that they cannot merge into a conglomerate, or mandate that they split every so often.

> I don't understand how this is at all relevant. I see no compelling reason to believe that the US will not experience natural disasters, wars, failed companies, or any number of other incidents that could cause cryo-failure.

Sure those are a constant risk. The solution is to put money and resources towards reducing the risks, starting with the worst ones and/or the cheapest to fix. This likely has enormous positive externalities for the population as a whole.

> The fact that the population is fairly educated is almost completely irrelevant.

Are you sure? Education is an important element of what sustains civilization.

> Frozen people are not in a position to promote anything.

They are now when they aren't frozen yet.

> And the people keeping them frozen don't have an incentive to do anything except collect paychecks.

They do if they a) expect to be frozen themselves, b) see the patients as fellow humans, or c) see the patients as priceless historical artifacts. But yes they are also motivated by whatever keeps getting them their paychecks -- obviously it is best to stack things so that the paychecks are dependent on things that are desirable for the patients.

[dpark]

> Yes it costs more money and it has to be done in advance. ... You could put it in the bylaws that they cannot merge into a conglomerate, or mandate that they split every so often. ... Sure those are a constant risk. The solution is to put money and resources towards reducing the risks, starting with the worst ones and/or the cheapest to fix. This likely has enormous positive externalities for the population as a whole.

This is a whole lot of ifs. If you could institute enough failovers (how many is enough, when we don't know the average lifespan of a cryo-company?), and if you could stop them from merging, and if you could avoid natural disasters, and if, if, if. There are so many ifs here it's ridiculous, especially given that you haven't provided any hows. This is just hand-waving. Yes, if you could solve all the problems, then there would be no problems. How, though?

> Are you sure? Education is an important element of what sustains civilization.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that an educated population has little or nothing to do with natural disasters, or company failures, or even war.

> They are now when they aren't frozen yet.

Um, okay. This doesn't have much to do with the viability of cryonics. Let's assume that all the cryonists campaign for peace and are then frozen. So now they're in a peaceful world with no way to thaw them and no change in the overall risks except perhaps with regards to war.

[lsparrish]

I'm saying that cryonics implies taking a certain degree of responsibility for the future. That's not an argument in favor of it working. It is an argument in favor of it being a positive thing overall, irrespective of it working. It provides selfish incentive for caring about the fate of future generations. Since we are trying to establish betting odds and what is a fair price for cryonics, all the externalities need to be taken into account. A world with cryonics is better off than a world without it.

I disagree that company failures or war are unrelated to education levels (or quality). A well educated populace should be more resistant to and capable of avoiding war, and more capable of solving and preventing financial problems. One specific thing for cryonics trusts to do is offer scholarships to those pursuing peace and financial stability as educational specialties.

Natural disasters can be avoided to some degree by careful selection of location. Alcor is based in Arizona partly because of the lack of earthquakes. Hurricanes and tornadoes be protected against by using a monolithic dome. LN2 shortages can be protected against by having a large bulk storage tank on site, and using efficient insulation.

That said, the most desirable solution (because it addresses all the different sources of risk simultaneously) is to accelerate the development of revival technology to whatever degree is possible. Maintaining high education levels is critical to this, as is spending money on brain and body repair research. This produces a very large positive externality.

The strategy that works best is to make sure that multiple things have to go wrong in order for a critical failure at each critical point. That is how disasters are prevented in e.g. nuclear facilities. It's expensive and painstaking, but it is a case where throwing money and competent engineers at the problem actually works.

Your argument for cryonics having a low probability of working apparently assumes no one has done or will have done this, despite the obvious fact that they have an extremely strong interest in so doing. And you accuse accuse me of hand-waving?

[dpark]

I'm saying you're making an arbitrary link without substance that suits your purposes. Cryonics does not imply or require actually caring about the future in any significant way. All cryonics implies is a desperate desire for self-prolonging. The process of maintaining someone in a frozen state definitely has negative consequences for the environment. This is not the act of someone trying to help the future. It's the act of someone who puts his own desires over the well-being of the future.

You're crazy to think that a well-educated populace will avoid war. Americans are well-educated and we've been involved in wars nearly non-stop since we were founded. As for companies failing, the last several years have shown us that educated people will happily destroy companies for personal gain (not that we didn't already know this).

Natural disasters can be made less probable by choosing an appropriate location, not avoided entirely. An asteroid can hit Arizona as easily as New York. And earthquakes can basically strike anywhere. They're simply more likely in certain areas.

My argument for cryonics' low probability is based on the fact that so many things can go wrong over such a long time frame (we don't engineer nuclear facilities to last for thousands of years). The fact that some people have pursued cryonics is in no way proof or even evidence of it's feasibility. How many billions of people pursue religion for the same reasons? The desire for self-preservation often results in irrational behaviors.

[lsparrish]

> Obviously you do not personally pay after death, but you set aside money for a trust before hand, which amounts to the same thing.

This is a good point, but it bears stressing that the bulk of the trust fund is there for reanimation and as protection against economic instability. Only a very tiny fraction gets used for ongoing expenses, at least in the current Alcor situation.

[dpark]

Except that the fraction for reincarnation is likely not nearly enough, given that simple surgeries routinely cost tens of thousands of dollars and building a new body is something we can't even do.

[lsparrish]

You seem to be assuming an absence of compound interest, overfunding, external funding sources, and future advances that make things cheaper.

[dpark]

You seem to be assuming that a lot of random things will somehow come together to make cryonics work.

Compound interest? Depends on how the trust is managed. Once you're dead, you're obviously not going to be able to influence that. It also depends on the economy, and we've seen some pretty long runs lately with no cumulative gains.

Overfunding? That doesn't even make sense. We're talking about there no being enough funds, and you pipe in with "what if there's too much!".

External funding? What makes you think someone in the future is going to drop a million to reanimate your head?

Future advances? Sure, but it seems pretty farfetched to say that future advances are going to make body reconstruction affordable. I mean, how long have we been waiting for affordable flying cars?