POLL: Cryonics - do you want to be frozen when you die?

[daniel_the_smith]

Agree with both of the above.

Cryonics is best thought of as an ambulance ride to the future. Being cryonically suspended is the 2nd worst thing that can happen to you.

[hyperpape]

I'll look into it in around 30 years if medical technology doesn't advance as hoped. I'm expecting that in around 30 years, the increase in life expectancy per year will exceed a year, due to some sort of antisenescence technologies.

I'll bet against it. If I win, you pay me in 30 years, if you win I pay you in 100. We can negotiate an appropriate discount rate.

[Joaz Banbeck]

What's stopping the good people from cryogenics to turn off the power on your fridge after having a bash at your expense?
Its not like you gonna come back and sue them...

The behavior is monitored by the living who have already paid. They don't want to see their thousands of dollars misused, because they can't get it back. They, like any other investor, keep an eye on their investment. Right now, for every one person who is frozen there are ten paid up members who are still alive and breathing. That's ten guardian angels per person keeping the management honest.

[Joaz Banbeck]

My answer is not listed. It would be "No - why should I?"

Why do you want to be alive next week? Assuming that you do, it is really just a difference in scale. It is logically difficult to be in favor of the latter but not the former.

[Numsgil]

There was a TED talk on this, but basically it's not at all farfetched that within our lifetimes life extension science will get to a point where the average life expectancy increases by 1 year every year. We'd basically have immortality then.

Aubrey de Grey? That was a really interesting talk.

Yes. Clicky for the curious.

He's really the most articulate crazy homeless man I've ever listened to

[jts]

It all depends on what next week will bring...

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[tj86430]

My answer is not listed. It would be "No - why should I?"

Why do you want to be alive next week? Assuming that you do, it is really just a difference in scale. It is logically difficult to be in favor of the latter but not the former.

Your subject says "when you die". When I'm alive, I will probably want almost anything done to keep me alive, it is the human nature. When I have already died, I don't want to be alive next week.

If your question was "when you become terminally ill, do you want to be frozen before you die to wait they discover a cure?" I might answer differently. But I definitely don't want be frozen when I die.

[topazg]

My answer is not listed. It would be "No - why should I?"

Why do you want to be alive next week? Assuming that you do, it is really just a difference in scale. It is logically difficult to be in favor of the latter but not the former.

I don't want to be alive next week, nor do I want to be dead. I just assume I will be alive. I have no great intention in prolonging it for the sake of it. We're all going to die, putting off the inevitable is just some kind of self-denial in my opinion

[hyperpape]

My answer is not listed. It would be "No - why should I?"

Why do you want to be alive next week? Assuming that you do, it is really just a difference in scale. It is logically difficult to be in favor of the latter but not the former.

Logically, if I want one scoop of ice cream, I must want to eat a gallon tonight.

[daniel_the_smith]

1. I'll seriously consider this when hell freezes over...

Actually, I imagine you won't have a choice at that point.


(sorry, couldn't resist)

[Redundant]

We're all going to die, putting off the inevitable is just some kind of self-denial in my opinion

"There is only one God, and his name is death. And there is only one thing we say to death: 'Not today.'"

(Quote from Game of Thrones)

[daniel_the_smith]

My answer is not listed. It would be "No - why should I?"

Why do you want to be alive next week? Assuming that you do, it is really just a difference in scale. It is logically difficult to be in favor of the latter but not the former.

Logically, if I want one scoop of ice cream, I must want to eat a gallon tonight.

There's a discount curve with ice cream-- the second scoop is not as valuable as the first. The first scoop changes you physiologically, and you want a 2nd, 3rd, 4th less and less. I do not believe there is such a discount curve with life*. Do you value tomorrow less because you lived today? If not, the analogy fails.

We currently call a person dead when their body can no longer function, but this is a bad definition of death. We shouldn't call a person dead until the state of their brain becomes irretrievably corrupted. With a sufficient level of technology, death is not death until the brain decays. There's currently no conceivable way to restore someone with a sufficiently damaged brain, even with maximum technology**. IMO, humans will either attain that level of technology or destroy ourselves.

Given that we currently do everything we can to keep people alive, it makes no sense that we stop our efforts when the body becomes irreparable under current technology. IMO, being frozen should be the default***. You should have to sign papers and have people look at you funny in order to NOT be frozen. I consider it immoral that we allow the brains of "dead" people to decay.

[*] Barring tragedies and mental illnesses.
[**] Time machines do not appear to be feasible in our universe.
[***] Freezing costs scale with surface area, not volume-- the more frozen, the lower the costs per person.

[crux]

There's a discount curve with ice cream-- the second scoop is not as valuable as the first. The first scoop changes you physiologically, and you want a 2nd, 3rd, 4th less and less. I do not believe there is such a discount curve with life*.

All your family members and acquaintances over, say, 60 years old are perfectly healthy and are fit enough for any activity they would like to do or have done in the past? They all know what's going on around them?

Given that we currently do everything we can to keep people alive

Yeah. I rather hope to escape that machine once I get to that point. Modern medicine can prolong life, but it often can't maintain quality of life. A long-suffering patient is primarily seen as a paying customer by those keeping him alive.

Also, consider economics (you won't retire, ever). I see no attraction in eternal life.

[daniel_the_smith]

There's a discount curve with ice cream-- the second scoop is not as valuable as the first. The first scoop changes you physiologically, and you want a 2nd, 3rd, 4th less and less. I do not believe there is such a discount curve with life*.

All your family members and acquaintances over, say, 60 years old are perfectly healthy and are fit enough for any activity they would like to do or have done in the past? They all know what's going on around them?

"Barring tragedies and mental illnesses."

Given that we currently do everything we can to keep people alive

Yeah. I rather hope to escape that machine once I get to that point. Modern medicine can prolong life, but it often can't maintain quality of life. A long-suffering patient is primarily seen as a paying customer by those keeping him alive.

Yes, I think people should be allowed to choose to be frozen at the time when their quality of life is projected to decrease until they die. They should not have to wait until they are actually dead. I think it's somewhat immoral that modern medicine often ends up merely prolonging the suffering.

Also, consider economics (you won't retire, ever). I see no attraction in eternal life.

I'm not certain that anyone will have any work to do in a post-singularity future, which is really the only kind of future I can imagine the frozen waking up to. What could you possibly do that machines wouldn't be able to do better?

Even if there is some sort of work, I greatly prefer working to *dying*, and I'm not sure what sort of job it would take to make me change my mind...

[hyperpape]

There's a discount curve with ice cream-- the second scoop is not as valuable as the first. The first scoop changes you physiologically, and you want a 2nd, 3rd, 4th less and less. I do not believe there is such a discount curve with life*. Do you value tomorrow less because you lived today? If not, the analogy fails.

Human life is what it is because it is finite. We are born, we are young, we progress into adulthood, and we live our lives coping with that finiteness.

I don't think it's exaggeration to say that this would replace human beings with an entirely different type of creature. They'll be biologically human, but the most basic facts about their lives will be unlike ours.

Maybe that's a good idea--it was also a pretty big change when we learned to read and write, and I'm happy with that one.