Cryonics: peace of mind vs. immortality

I don't want Cryonics companies to focus on selling fantasies, I want them to focus on making the technology work.

The value of giving people 'peace of mind' is low, and there are already tons of religions out there that do that. The value of actually letting people live again after death would be immense.

Focus on reality.

Cryonics will definitely fail if the peace-of-mind cryonicists dominate it instead of the serious adults who want to survive.

You can see most cryonicists' fundamental lack of seriousness from the fact that they talk a good game about how much they believe in scientific, technological and medical progress. So what happens when you try to draw their attention to the many correctible shortcomings in the real, existing practice of cryonics? They usually shrug those off as if these problems don't matter.

Uh, hello?

This fundamental lack of an evidence- and reality-orientation in many cryonicists goes a long way towards explaining why mainstream people don't find the cryonics idea credible, much less its haphazard implementation. I just have no patience these days with cryonicists who invoke Eric Drexler's discredited fantasies from the 1980's, or who make fallacious comparisons between cryonicists and the Wright brothers. Cryonics falls into the overlap between neuroscience and cryobiology, and progress in it will have to come from the application of those real sciences.

If I remember right the estimation of successful revival via cryonics by LW people who are signed up for cryonics is <0.2. I don't see how that is supposed to produce peace of mind.

I've always been afraid of dying: every lurch of a plane in turbulence gets my palms sweaty; every nearly-avoided mishap I encounter while driving makes me vow to drive even less than I currently do. I won't even consider going on a cruise until I learn to swim.

Cryonics or not, if you die in a plane crash, car crash or ship sinking you will not come back.

I get the sense that many of the people who have signed up have done it less for the increased survival chances or the sense of comfort, but as a sort of flag waving. It is pretty good signalling that you are opposed to death and part of the ingroup that is opposed to death. Those little medallions are badges of a refusal to submit to the awful thing.

Signing up didn't bring me peace of mind, except for brief relief at not having the paperwork on my to-do list.

I've heard other cryonicists report feeling something like peace of mind as a result of signing up, but they appear to be a minority.

Someone at dinner used the phrase "when the worms get me" and I immediately reached under my collar to make sure I was wearing my magical anti-death amulet. So glad I'm signed up for Cryonics.

Sounds about right.

I don't understand the distinction being made. The chance of revival and peace of mind aren't separate things: it is the former that causes the latter.

If you are not a cryonics member, what would make you decide that it is a good idea?

I don't think it's a crazy idea, but I'm not signed up. I might reconsider after some leaps and bounds in the technology, like successful short-term freezing and revival of humans. I am not expecting to see that within my expected lifespan.

I have a regular life insurance a small portion of which could be used to buy a cryonic burial (there are ways to get an advance on one's life insurance while you are still kicking) should I want one.

I have guesstimated the odds of the eventuality where a preexisting cryo coverage would be better than buying it when actually needed, and they seem very low:

• any disease or accident resulting in brain damage renders cryo useless
• any accident resulting in quick death renders cryo useless
• any situation where end of life is not immediate but expected within a short time frame (e.g. aggressive incurable disease) without affecting mental faculties leave time to make cryonic arrangement through savings or existing insurance if desired.

The only reason I see to buy cryo insurance is more of an altruistic nature: to financially support a cryobank before I need their services so that they can freeze some of those who cannot afford it.

There is also the potential issue of their business model relying on people paying for but not being able to use the coverage, but if they actually do that, I cannot expect them to last long enough to attempt a successful revival.

From the title of the post, I thought it would be about how not signing up gives you certainty. I've read someone who doesn't want to sign up say that dying in a normal way would give their family peace of mind.

In terms of whether it's a benefit, if it does motivate you then it's a good Dark Arts way to stop putting off signing up. However, cryonics companies changing their image to take advantage of it strikes me as a really bad idea for the reasons in Ander's post.