First, they must be convinced to play the game

The point is not what people have said, but what people have not said.

They believe that if they die -- permanently, without hope of revival -- while being "right with God" (the precise meaning of which varies by sect), then they get to go to Heaven.

I don't see where the "permanently" part comes from. It may be the layman's interpretation, but I don't think it's Biblically motivated.

It really depends on which sect of Christianity they are members of and their own personal views of the matter. Mormonism for example does not officially take a stance but strongly encourages burial vs cremation whenever possible. Catholicism "earnestly recommends" burial, and actively forbid cremation until the sixties; also, even though they tolerated it, they would not perform any ceremonies for cremated deceased until the eighties. According to my understanding, Eastern Orthodox still doesn't allow cremation, but my knowledge of that branch is a bit more sketchy. As an aside, I believe cremation is banned by Judaism and Islam (though I assume this varies by branch, and my knowledge is even less comprehensive for these cases).

In my case I already knew they were against cremation, so this was just tailoring the message of cryonics to what they'd accept. It shifted them from thinking cryonics was 'unnatural' to thinking it was 'nice but too expensive'. Hopefully one day they'll shift even more to 'hey I can afford that'.

Christians of my parents' variety tend to believe that when they die, their soul will instantly go to heaven. This causes a bunch of confusion: If your soul is in heaven, and your body is reanimated, what happens? Do you get sucked back out of heaven?

I had similar problems with a relative. I resolved(?) them by saying that while what actually happens may be a complete mystery to us right now, it is obvious that the omnipotent sovereign of reality could not have his will thwarted by my puny human freezing technologies. If I am revived it will be his will, and if it is his will that I not be revived then I won't be, and either way he'll figure it out and make sure everything works out ok.

Aren't there a number of movies where god decides that someone's work on Earth isn't done yet, so he gives them another lease on life when they were at death's door? Or in some cases literally sends them back to Earth after having a brief chat in heaven? How do your parents feel about those movies? Could that sort of scenario be called up and used for support?

This causes a bunch of confusion: If your soul is in heaven, and your body is reanimated, what happens? Do you get sucked back out of heaven?

You could bring up the example of induced hypothermia, and then suggest that in that case, the person isn't actually dead, but just in a state of suspended of animation. (They have to be - after all, the opposite would imply that their soul would get sucked back from heaven, and that's absurd, right?) If you can establish that, you can go on to suggest that being cryogenically frozen is a similar state as well.

If you can do this in a way that doesn't suggest you're starting a debate, but rather are curious about their beliefs, that would help. "Say, I ran across this article about something they call induced hypothermia, and I'm a little unsure about whether I should think the patient is alive or dead while he undergoes the treatment. I mean, if he comes back afterwards, he can't really be dead, but the article says that the patient is indistinguishable from someone who is. What do you think?" If they reach the conclusion that the patient is actually alive, agree with that or possibly challenge the position a bit (to make them think of more justifications for it and thus become more sure of the position), then let the issue rest. Only bring up the cryonics connection in a later discussion.

Of course, you have to be able to do this in a way that doesn't seem too uncharacteristic of you - if you've never asked for their thoughts in such a manner before, doing it now is probably a bit suspicious.

Wouldn't God know whether a frozen person is going to be revived? No revival, soul goes wherever. Revival, soul stays in body, possibly doing soul stuff that won't be remembered, possibly just quiescent.

What do they believe happened in past cased where people were briefly brain dead and then recovered? Look up the details of a specific case and ask them about that specific case without revealing it's related, just making it seem like you're curious.

Quite a few Christian denominations don't think that souls go to heaven immediately after death. Seventh-Day-Adventists, for example, believe that you're basically dead until Judgment Day, when you will be resurrected in a version of your previous material body. You might want to look into the biblical textual support that SDAs and similar denominations use to justify these beliefs.

This is totally off-topic, but I don't get the point of the AI game at all.

The point is that Eliezer succeeds convincing a person who was formerly unconvinced, and he also helps convince other people at a ratio proportional to the level they trust Eliezer and the other participant to have told the truth about the results.

If EY and myself were playing the game, EY could just say, ""I'll pay you $X in real-world money to let me win. "

Well, sure, but having now admitted that, this means that your testimony about both this and other similar scenarios constitutes very weak evidence. Eliezer himself and the other participants in question may have more credibility than you do.

This conversation is completely private, so if we break the rules, no one will ever know, and you'll be $X richer

If the dishonesty of the participants in question is to be treated as a scenario of significant probability, then surely it would be much easier to not play the game at all, just find someone that claimed to have played it with you. Why risk playing it with someone who may simply reject doing any such cheating?

Certainly if I was playing the game, and Eliezer suggested out-of-character cheating in this fashion, I'd almost certainly consider the former agreement of confidentiality null-and-void, and I would tell everyone that he tried to bribe me into cheating. He'd probably have to bribe me with more than I make in two years to even consider cheating in this fashion; and I doubt my testimony would be nearly as highly valued as that.

Lastly I think some people here may be forgetting that after the initial 2 successes by Eliezer, he repeated the AI-Box game another 3 times with raised stakes -- and his ratio of success then was 1 victory and 2 defeats. This somewhat lowers the probability that he's just finding people willing to lie on his behalf. (unless that's what he wants to make us think)

EY then will point out, "This conversation is completely private, so if we break the rules, no one will ever know, and you'll be $X richer".

He will know, and you will know, so someone will know. But besides that, I have difficulty imagining EY bribing his experimental subjects to fake the result of a scientific experiment. The point of the game is to actually conduct the game, and actually see what happens.

Only pay them if they're clearly thinking about it.

The only real problems are that you have to be able to tell the difference between them actually thinking about it and basically just pretending to, and they have to trust you to know the difference.

Also, there is the question of whether I want to be the sort of person who would do that kind of manipulation, even if I had the capability.

According to EY, rationality is all about winning. Or, to quote a quote within a quote, "The Way of the Ichi school is the spirit of winning, whatever the weapon and whatever its size."

If your moral dilemma is between your parents dying and your using a bit of manipulation to keep them (potentially) alive and happy forever, and you are in doubt, maybe you should consider reexamining how cryonics fits into your personal utility function.

Here are examples of my go-to technique.

It's a sub-type of the rhetorical method of getting a debater to agree to seemingly innocuous statements, and then piecing them together to show how consistency demands those who agree with the small assertions must agree with your conclusion as well.

Instead of leading someone off a rhetorical cliff one step at a time, one constructs an analogous argument with an entirely different, non-emotionally charged subject. The other person will often make the connection without one raising the subject one is concerned with.

That is an amazing result! I guess the whole idea that losing faith is a sin, that questioning god is a sin comes in here. Also, the idea of "shunning" people who have placed themselves outside the current fantasy about what is true and false. A fierce shared belief in something stupid may be the best way to create a highly loyal organization. Perhaps the thing believed in doesn't have to be stupid, but presumably the belief in it must be far beyond what is justified by facts alone in order to have it serve any purpose of group-binding.

I know I have heard Mormons talk about their sadness over losing all their friends and family as they came close to losing their faith, or perhaps more to the piont, acknowledging out loud to themselves and perhaps others that they had lost their faith.

So what would allow a person who thinks he needs to be part of some group the freedom to consider ideas that would set him apart from that group? You'd have to make a strong case that there is some really fantastic payoff to get them to want to do that.

Well that's... honest of them, at least.

And yeah, I haven't experienced a great deal of success with that technique myself. Though, my failures are usually along the lines of "divine revelation".