Some folks argue that cryonics is or may be justified on EA grounds. Among these people, some go ahead and pay for a cryonics subscription. However, I have yet to find a single person in that group who has paid for someone else’s subscription, rather than his or her own. If there was indeed an EA justification for cryonics, this would be an extraordinary coincidence. The hypothesis that these decisions were motivated by self-interest and later rationalized as justified on EA grounds seems much more plausible.
It’s worth pointing out your case is weakened by the cases of Kim Suozzi and Aaron Drake, both of whom had their suspensions paid for by the community within the last few years.
It’s also worth pointing out that there has been at least one attempt to give away an Alcor membership to a random person (chosen by lottery). The person who won it ended up not going through with the sign-up process. This was discussed on Mike Darwin’s blog (I can’t easily find the link right now, but lmk if you’re curious).
Also, some in the cryonics/brain preservation community have donated to research and logistical investments that would certainly not benefit themselves only.
ETA: Another point here is that because of the tricky informed consent and possible negative outcomes following brain preservation, it’s much more difficult to choose for other people to be preserved rather than choosing to preserve oneself.
I’ve been musing about a Suspension for Historically Significant Minds movement. I don’t particularly care whether I personally get suspended, I don’t think I’m important, we can only save so many of these living biographies, others are more important, I think it’s a tragedy that the most interesting biographies are currently being burned.
I’m not sure it’s reasonable to expect a fund like this to be able to act very often, though! The figures who wont pay for their own suspension usually aren’t going to be willing to accept suspension.
The people I’d want to nominate would tend to have a deep attachment to some community of the present, they would rarely think of the far future. Most of them, on receiving their invitation would think about it for 20 minutes and then trash it, out of a sense of humility, and out of a sense that accepting such a thing would look from the outside like an abandonment of their community. I would want to say to them, “No, you were selected because you are the largest portion of that community that we’re able to save.” I’m not sure whether they’d hear it.
Maybe it would help to give them additional nominations to allocate to others, so it wouldn’t just be them. A lot of them wouldn’t want to deal with the political consequences of having to make a decision like that. It would just make things messier. The dirty work of triage.
Some folks argue that cryonics is or may be justified on EA grounds. Among these people, some go ahead and pay for a cryonics subscription. However, I have yet to find a single person in that group who has paid for someone else’s subscription, rather than his or her own. If there was indeed an EA justification for cryonics, this would be an extraordinary coincidence. The hypothesis that these decisions were motivated by self-interest and later rationalized as justified on EA grounds seems much more plausible.
Really agree with this style of reasoning.
It’s worth pointing out your case is weakened by the cases of Kim Suozzi and Aaron Drake, both of whom had their suspensions paid for by the community within the last few years.
It’s also worth pointing out that there has been at least one attempt to give away an Alcor membership to a random person (chosen by lottery). The person who won it ended up not going through with the sign-up process. This was discussed on Mike Darwin’s blog (I can’t easily find the link right now, but lmk if you’re curious).
Also, some in the cryonics/brain preservation community have donated to research and logistical investments that would certainly not benefit themselves only.
ETA: Another point here is that because of the tricky informed consent and possible negative outcomes following brain preservation, it’s much more difficult to choose for other people to be preserved rather than choosing to preserve oneself.
I intend to pay for someone else’s subscription!
Did you ever act on this intention?
I am also interested in the outcome of this.
I’ve been musing about a Suspension for Historically Significant Minds movement. I don’t particularly care whether I personally get suspended, I don’t think I’m important, we can only save so many of these living biographies, others are more important, I think it’s a tragedy that the most interesting biographies are currently being burned.
I’m not sure it’s reasonable to expect a fund like this to be able to act very often, though! The figures who wont pay for their own suspension usually aren’t going to be willing to accept suspension.
The people I’d want to nominate would tend to have a deep attachment to some community of the present, they would rarely think of the far future. Most of them, on receiving their invitation would think about it for 20 minutes and then trash it, out of a sense of humility, and out of a sense that accepting such a thing would look from the outside like an abandonment of their community. I would want to say to them, “No, you were selected because you are the largest portion of that community that we’re able to save.” I’m not sure whether they’d hear it.
Maybe it would help to give them additional nominations to allocate to others, so it wouldn’t just be them. A lot of them wouldn’t want to deal with the political consequences of having to make a decision like that. It would just make things messier. The dirty work of triage.