[dpark]

It is not "supernatural shit", but it is Pascal's Wager. It takes the same form and has the same flaws. It is an invalid argument.

By paying $25k to be frozen, you also get a nonzero chance that you'll be revived and live through thousands of years of torture.

[burgerbrain]

Eh, I'll give you part of Pascal's Wager. The other part of it is the logical absurdity of thinking that someone who doesn't already believe can be blackmailed into believing. Pascal's Wager can only be used to defend belief, not create. (But every time I've heard someone IRL use it they seem to not understand that). That's a big part of what Pascal's Wager "is" to me.

[dpark]

I think that argument applies to cryonics. :) The people who invoke the wager are trying to defend their belief, not actually convert others. To anyone who doesn't believe in cryonics, the wager is pretty absurd.

[lsparrish]

Sure, thousands of years of torture are possible for you if you're a cryonicist -- but in such a world the same risk would apply to trillions of other sentients. If you aren't completely selfish, you're better off investing your energy in preventing such a world instead of trying to dodge the bullet personally.

[dpark]

> If you aren't completely selfish, you're better off investing your energy in preventing such a world

How is getting your head frozen investing in preventing such a world? If you want to improve the future, maybe you should invest your $25K in humanitarian efforts instead of a desperate attempt at personal life extension.

[lsparrish]

> How is getting your head frozen investing in preventing such a world?

It isn't, directly. It is an investment in something else which makes that a more important issue to an individual. That affects the probability of the individual taking actions that favor the given outcome. The main purpose of getting your head frozen is saving the individual's life directly, but it does have this positive externality.

> If you want to improve the future, maybe you should invest your $25K in humanitarian efforts instead of a desperate attempt at personal life extension.

How does passively letting yourself die increase your incentive to plan for a better world in the distant future?

[dpark]

> It isn't, directly. It is an investment in something else which makes that a more important issue to an individual. That affects the probability of the individual taking actions that favor the given outcome. The main purpose of getting your head frozen is saving the individual's life directly, but it does have this positive externality.

No, it doesn't. This is all feel-good silliness. You've said stuff like this in numerous replies, but you've given no reason for anyone to believe that cryonics has any positive impact. A 25K donation for Malaria treatment would probably do a lot more. That provides concrete benefits, rather than intangible hopes that cryonists will somehow work toward a better tomorrow.

> How does passively letting yourself die increase your incentive to plan for a better world in the distant future?

How does spending money on snake oil do more for the world than spending that same money on solving real problems?

For your argument to make any sense, we have to accept that no one cares about the state or fate of the world after their own deaths, which is absurdly cynical.

[lsparrish]

People usually have a limited amount they will give to charity and will generally spend the rest on something selfish. Cryonics feels selfish, so they will spend money on it that they would not have given to charity anyway.

People who care about the state of the world after their deaths are not in the same position as those who actually expect to experience it. They are not as likely to care as much or to employ rational means to that end, because their concern is a more altruistic and abstract one, the sort of emotion which evolves for signaling/tribal purposes rather than personal survival. Entirely different neural machinery is employed when evaluating the problem differently.

I don't know how you reached the conclusion that my argument relies on no one caring about the future in spite of death. My argument is that you can increase your rational, self-interested incentives to care about the future by planning to be cryopreserved.

[dpark]

So you're saying that people interested in cryonics will not actually give more money to charities? Doesn't that go counter to the assertion that you've repeatedly made that cryonists are more likely to invest in improving the future?

People who care about the state of the world after their deaths are more likely to donate. How much have charities benefited from posthumous donations? A cryonist who does not expect to "die" has no incentive to donate in their will. At least religions say "you can't take it with you". Cryonics says "sure you can; put it in the bank".

You're also making a false connection between the desire for self-preservation and rational behavior. People do all kinds of stupid crap because they think it will keep them alive. They go to faith healers, they take dangerous or useless substances, they engage in pointless rituals, etc. I would say "pursuing cryonics" belongs to that list.