Defeating Mundane Holocausts With Robots

For topics like this, I recommend making use of a unit called "quality-adjusted years of life." We can never ultimately reduce instances of death except by reducing the birth rate or breaking the second law of thermodynamics.

Where the limitation from laws of thermodynamics is a relevant idea, quality-adjusted years of life isn't.

Also, I think robotic surgery that's better than human surgery might be close to as hard as just building a general AI, so probably better to focus on that.

I think one kind of better is relatively easy and the other is close to GAI.

Robot surgeons which avoid the human mistakes which occur due to tiredness and distraction would be relatively straightforward.

Robot surgeons which are better than human surgeons at handling unusual problems-- especially if you want them to be better than the best human surgeons-- strike me as GAI territory.

I'm concerned that robot surgeons could mean that less knowledge would be accumulated because they'd be less likely to notice anomalies and possible improvements to existing procedures.

I agree that self-driving cars should be weighted higher than artificial hearts per life saved, but the number of lives (assuming we don't count the indirect economic effects of self-driving cars) could be quite a bit greater given that such a high percentage of deaths are heart-related.

The fact that they target an older population is slightly less of a factor if we consider that old age hits a mortality plateau, and assuming that this plateau rate can be reduced by such interventions. (Stroke, dementia, cancer, and so forth would definitely become higher priorities at this point.) Also the fact that the intervention occurs later in life (and hence later in time) increases the probability that it will serve as a bridge to robust rejuvenation or to more effective cryonics.

Currently, robotic surgery is teleoperated by humans. With software that learns from human interaction, automated surgery could probably be developed, starting with the most predictable operations and working towards more complex ones. It would never have to be human-level or general, narrow AI that is good at surgery should be sufficient.

I agree that more numbers would be better. However, it is worth noting that estimating probabilities for e.g. ubiquitous robotic surgery having more impact on life extension than self-driving cars is a matter of some pretty complex graphing with lots of hidden variables.

What kinds of surgery might become more popular if they were cheaper (how much?) and safer? How does it affect cryonics adoption rates, preventative surgery adoption rates, effectiveness, and so forth? What kinds of economic impacts are to be expected of self-driving cars? How much do the various approaches synergize, such that putting dollars into one is similar in effect to putting dollars into another?

Source?

Also, though morale helps, officers don't lose the will to shoot soldiers who refuse to give their lives to destroy objects.

Afterwards I assume the teenagers would then proceed to rule the territories? Perhaps employ the local humans for testing or resource extraction? That's what I would do.

Or are we observing failed states and need to procure a few more by destabilizing governments?

Not exactly a jetpack, but pretty close.

Deeming current jetpacks too stupid may be sour grapes.

What I want is a life worth living, people worth living with and a culture worth living in -- quality, not quantity

There might be differences in how to archive that, but I'm pretty sure everyone here agrees to that in general.

irrational things like religion, magical thinking and art

One of those things definitely doesn't belong in this list (hint: it's art).

Trying to maximize happiness via rationality is a fool's quest! The happiest people I know are totally irrational!

You are confusing the concept of increasing happiness by rational means and increasing happiness by teaching rationality to people. If you only care about happiness and people that engage in magical thinking are systematically happier, it would be completely rational to teach magical thinking. If you teach rationality to people it will destroy some of their irrational beliefs. Depending on whether those irrational beliefs make them happy or unhappy, the impact on happiness would (I think) depend heavily on the person.

If maximal rationality is your goal

It certainly isn't.

I'm not sure how you think this applies to anything said in my post. I never said anything about maximizing the total number of humans in existence. Your strategy for doing so sounds like a recipe for a Malthusian disaster, which would probably diminish the number of humans in existence in the long run.

Humans are rational compared to most other naturally existing entities -- rationality is one of the key aspects which sets us apart from the other animals. And while you may feel repulsion at the fact that others value rationality higher than you do, you should know that many of us feel repulsion at those who value rationality less than we do. The feeling of repulsion isn't the issue though; the fact that millions will die painfully and pointlessly because of irrational behavior is the issue.