It seems to me (as a utilitarian) that allowing people to effectively die and then be brought back to life later is approximately morally equivalent to allowing people to die and then creating entirely new people later.
Could you please flesh out your reasoning for this a little bit more?
It seems to me that there is a large difference between your two scenarios, with much larger utility going to extending existing people’s life rather than creating new ones.
This is because an extremely large cause of disutility for current people is the fact that they will inevitably die. This prevents them from making long-term investments in their own happiness, their local communities, and the world at large. Evidence for this abounds, and includes strong rationalizing behavior towards death. Atul Gawande also discusses it in his book Being Mortal.
That’s actually not what I am saying; rather, I am questioning your claim that human life is exchangeable. Because most people intensely dislike the prospect of death and it makes life a lot more difficult in many ways, it seems much better (to me) to have one person live for 100 years than to have two people live for 50, given the same healthspan.
Separately, I expect that any increased expected chance of an increased lifespan, including cryonics, would increase the average person’s propensity to make long-term investments in themselves and in their communities.
Could you please flesh out your reasoning for this a little bit more?
It seems to me that there is a large difference between your two scenarios, with much larger utility going to extending existing people’s life rather than creating new ones.
This is because an extremely large cause of disutility for current people is the fact that they will inevitably die. This prevents them from making long-term investments in their own happiness, their local communities, and the world at large. Evidence for this abounds, and includes strong rationalizing behavior towards death. Atul Gawande also discusses it in his book Being Mortal.
Are you saying that cryonics could improve current people’s ability to make long-term investments in the world? I don’t see that that’s true.
That’s actually not what I am saying; rather, I am questioning your claim that human life is exchangeable. Because most people intensely dislike the prospect of death and it makes life a lot more difficult in many ways, it seems much better (to me) to have one person live for 100 years than to have two people live for 50, given the same healthspan.
Separately, I expect that any increased expected chance of an increased lifespan, including cryonics, would increase the average person’s propensity to make long-term investments in themselves and in their communities.