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Hobby: serve so many bullets to sophisticated philosophers that they're missing half their teeth by the end of the discussion
I love this, thank you!
afaik, most board members are very passive, and hasnt been doing the things Nicolas wants to do
For the Cryonics Institute board elections, I recommend voting for Nicolas Lacombe.
I’ve been friends with Nicolas for over a decade. Ze’s very principled, well organized and hard working. I have high trust in zir, and high confidence ze would be a great addition to the CI's board.
I recommend you cast some or all of your votes for Nicolas (you can cast up to 4 votes total). If you’re signed up with CI, simply email info@cryonics.org with your votes.
see zir description here: https://www.facebook.com/mati.roy.09/posts/10159642542159579
my updated guide: https://coda.io/@mati-roy/lifelogging
before the birth of that AI, we could split the Universe among existing beings
crazy idea i just had mayyybe a deontological Libertarian* AI with (otherwise) any utility function is not that bad (?) maybe that should be one of the thing we try (??????) *where negative externality also count as aggressions, and other such fixes to naive libertarianism
I probably would mostly still use LessWrong for the wiki for my writings.
But as a reader, I would probably read at least the summary of each article, and probably the full text of each potentially actionable-for-me articles.
But I'd say finding the writers is harder than finding the readers
Another idea would be to have a "fringe" tag on LessWrong. But, actually, I think I would choose a more connotationally neutral term, like "speculative". Although, still, that's a changing and subjective category, so not sure I would do that.
Another idea would be to just curate fringe articles (like you've done in the description of this question). Maybe ask a question "What are articles on interesting fringe ideas?" on LessWrong.
You could also have a yearly prize of like 100$ to submit articles on fringe ideas. This might be a more cost-effective way to achieve your goal.
ah, I see! yeah, I guess being an associate member is stronger evidence (but am almost certain some people were preserved without this)
I wonder what's the life expectancy of the average cryonicist taking a life insurance vs the general population taking a life insurance. If it's higher, then cryonics-purposed life insurances could be cheaper. The first insurance company to offer this would grab a big part of the cryonics insurance market. Life insurance might for once live up to its name :)
Without consulting my old prediction here, I answered someone asking me:
What is your probability mass for the date with > 50% chance of agi?
with:
I used to use the AGI definition "better and cheaper than humans at all economic tasks", but now I think even if we're dumber, we might still be better at some economic tasks simply because we know human values more. Maybe the definition could be "better and cheaper at any well defined tasks". In that case, I'd say maybe 2080, taking into account some probability of economic stagnation and some probability that sub-AGI AIs cause an existential catastrophe (and so we don't develop AGI)
In the book Superintelligence, box 8, Nick Bostrom says:
How an AI would be affected by the simulation hypothesis depends on its values. [...] consider an AI that has a more modest final goal, one that could be satisfied with a small amount of resources, such as the goal of receiving some pre-produced cryptographic reward tokens, or the goal of causing the existence of forty-five virtual paperclips. Such an AI should not discount those possible worlds in which it inhabits a simulation. A substantial portion of the AI’s total expected utility might derive from those possible worlds. The decision-making of an AI with goals that are easily resource-satiable may therefore—if it assigns a high probability to the simulation hypothesis—be dominated by considerations about which actions would produce the best result if its perceived world is a simulation. Such an AI (even if it is, in fact, not in a simulation) might therefore be heavily influenced by its beliefs about which behaviors would be rewarded in a simulation. In particular, if an AI with resource-satiable final goals believes that in most simulated worlds that match its observations it will be rewarded if it cooperates (but not if it attempts to escape its box or contravene the interests of its creator) then it may choose to cooperate. We could therefore find that even an AI with a decisive strategic advantage, one that could in fact realize its final goals to a greater extent by taking over the world than by refraining from doing so, would nevertheless balk at doing so.
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If the easily resource-satiable goals are persistent through time (ie. the AI wants to fulfill them for the longest period of time possible), then the AI will either try to keep the simulation running for as long as possible (and so not grab its universe) or try to escape the simulation.
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If the easily resource-satiable goals are NOT persistent through time (ie. once the AI has created the 45 virtual paperclips, it doesn't matter if they get deleted, the goal has already been achieved), then once the AI has created the 45 paperclips, it has nothing to lose by grabbing more resources (gradually, until it has grabbed the Universe), but it has something to win, namely: a) increasing its probability (arbitrarily close to 100%) that it did in fact achieve its goal through further experiment and reasoning (ie. because it could be mistaken about having created 45 virtual paperclips), and b) if it didn't, then remedy to that.
Alcor offers worldwide standby services
Just in case anyone cares: There are ways you can increase your own chances of a good preservation, notably by moving near Alcor.
I was gonna point out the same thing
I'm pretty sure paying a monthly fee is not required to have informed consent. Can you quote the part of the text that says otherwise?
thanks! yeah i know, but would like if it was more easily accessible whenever i watch a video:)
Seen on the Facebook group:
Dora Kent still has a chance at resurrection because she was a neuro patient. Had she been whole body, the Riverside coroner would have sliced her brain to pieces. Fortunately, before the Coroner executed a search warrant, her head mysteriously disappeared from the Alcor facility. That gave Alcor the time to get a permanent injunction in the courts against autopsying her head.
They seek it here... They seek it there... Those coroners seek it everywhere. Is it alive or is it dead? That damn elusive frozen head.
Frozen heads are a whole lot easier to move in the event of an emergency, be it legal, criminal, war, natural disasters or whatever. Costs a lot less to keep them cool as well. Looking at the long haul, and given that cryonics is a highly speculative endeavor that will likely require almost unimaginable technology to work, it's a rational choice.
Thanks!
investing-consumption ratio
related: "Consume now or later?": https://matiroy.com/writings/Consume-now-or-later.html
oh, LW actually has a bookmark feature, which i could use for that! although i prefer using it for articles i want to read
can you say more about agriculture?
i want to invest in companies that will increase in value if AI capabilities increases fast / faster than what the market predicts
do you have suggestions?
a feature i would like on content website like YouTube and LessWrong is an option to market a video/article as read as a note to self (x-post fb)
"life's a bitch and then you die" -Young Sinatra III (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwqgl8-NSXY)
If crypto makes the USD go to 0, will life insurances denominated in USD not have anything to pay out? Maybe an extra reason for cryonicists to own some crypto
x-post: https://www.facebook.com/mati.roy.09/posts/10159482104234579
Epistemic status: someone told me that someone that knew about this told them that
mRNA vaccines have been done on non-human animals for decades, and they seem fine
well, I should unpack "fully isolate" (I meant fully isolate from the virus):
- I isolate with another human
- I video-chat with multiple humans
- I chat in person with other humans outside with 3 meters distance or insider with a full-face mask :)
Am just thinking about this now, so not high confidence.
I'm thinking a total market cap index of all publicly traded companies in the world -- unless some stock exchanges are really sketchy for some reasons (I'm aware "sketchy" is ill-defined).
Also maybe a fraction (10%?) stored in a total market cap of deflationary currencies (decentralized ones I suppose, as for centralized ones it's generally harder to tell if they will become inflationary) as they will presumably become more in demand, in the short term as the economy might transition to them, but also in the long term as the population grows and so those the demand for currency (although if minds start running faster, I think that would decrease the value of currencies as they would be traded more often).
Maybe worlds in which reanimation is possible is correlated with other technological development, and so that might also inform some investments, but not sure which ones, and that starts adding a lot of complexity, at least while we don't have large prediction markets.
I'm also thinking those investment don't need to be liquid at all, and REITs often have a higher return because they are less liquid than stocks (AFAIU); so if this is true, then maybe having a lot of investments in REITs would also be beneficial. (2021-05-08 update: this is also true of other investment vehicles, like loans)
Those are the questions we intend to use for the icebreakers. No need to read them in advance -- just leaving them here in case anyone is interested.
- What do you think lead you to be interested in or curious about cryonics?
- What's your probability that cryonics works? Why?
- When was the last time you had a significant change in your worldview?
- What makes you excited?
- What's your origin story? (or how did you discover cryonics)
- What's a belief you have that you think your cryonics peers would find weird?
- What's your favorite Trolley problem variant?
- What makes you excited?
- What's an interesting reaction you got from talking about cryonics?
- What's your lying policy? (ie. when do you find it acceptable to lie)
- What do you think are plausible revival scenarios?
- What makes you sad?
- What was your family’s reaction or how do you think they would react?
- What's a belief you have that you think most people would find weird?
- What do you think of as the biggest obstacle to revival? A. Technology required for repair B. Long term stability of the organizations C. Chance of suboptimal preservation (information loss) D. Other
- What makes you anxious?
- If we're living in a simulation, would you like to get out of it right now or wait longer?
- What are your revival timelines?
- The zombie apocalypse is coming, who are 3 people you want on your team?
- What gives you wonder?
For the group activity:
- What do you think is the best way to market cryonics?
Possible alternatives:
----> What is the best way to increase cryonics membership?
----> What is the best way to popularize cryonics?
I like my comment on the Effective Altruism & Life Extension post ^ _ ^
the reason I posted this article here yesterday is because of the problem that once cryonics will be adopted globally, people will want to get pre-emptively cryopreserved to avoid any further identity degradation. however, if everyone does that, it becomes an existential risk (because no one will be around to keep improving our tech). it's a massive ultimate group prisoner dilemma. it's in anyone's best interest to do it themselves, but we would rather no one (else) does it. and it's a hard coordination problem. split brain preservation solves this by allowing the whole population to preserve half of their brain while using their other half to keep working towards the goal of reanimating the preserved half. oh, also, happy April Fools day!
Aschwin de Wolf commented on my post in the cryonics Facebook group with interesting information before knowing it was posted in the spirit of April's Fool ^ _ ^ :
Idea 1 was already proposed by Robert Prehoda in his book Suspended Animation in 1969. Practicalities aside, this is guaranteed to lead to significant cognitive damage after several sessions because it will only require one botched hypothermic circulatory arrest procedure to render the person a vegetable. In addition, the kind of broad recovery shown in animals falls short of the finer cognitive recovery that is a condition for this approach to even make sense at a technical level. Just dive a little deeper into the literature about profound hypothermic and ultra-profound hypothermic circulatory arrest.
Idea 2 is probably meant seriously but will just invite ridicule by mainstream observers and scientists by combining extreme reductionism about the nature of identity and looking really, really, desperate. You may gain two "rationalist" advocates but alienate a lot more.
Idea 2 also start off with: "A big dilemma in the biostasis community is whether one should get cryopreserved now or later." I am not aware of any of my colleagues considering this a "big dilemma" unless in cases of an early dementia diagnosis.
woops, I just realized the link was missing: https://www.webmd.com/brain/news/20191119/they-had-half-their-brains-removed-heres-what-happened-after
Offer: n_th card you personally buy is n USD (doesn't matter if other people bought cards before you)
There's a capped to this offer, but it's probably high enough that it won't be reached
I will check the deck at least once per week for at least 16 weeks (if I miss a week, the timespan is increased by a week; if still not done a year from now, then money back; but that shouldn't happen).
I invite you to abuse this, but I also reserve the right to refuse transactions:)
I might accept anonymous buyers; if you're interested, talk to me here: https://sayat.me/MatiRoy
payment can be made to:
- PayPal mathieu.roy.37@gmail.com
- Bitcoin wallet: 3C7J2X3LswsmGewPi4a63jmiFAoUzCu3vE
- Eth wallet: 0x4d06c5CdeaF69f76677629296a8C3D3B6901638D
- other payment methods available on request
Additional notes:
Fermi estimate of time requirement: checking each cards 15 times for 15 seconds = 3m45s, so roughly 3-10 USD per card. The influence on my mind for cards I'll accept will probably mostly 'cost' me -10 to +15 USD. I also value the information I will gain about how this system plays out.
That's genius! Can I (or you) create a LessWrong thread inviting others to do the same?
if so, I want to claim 7 cards
can I claim cards before choosing its content?
documented here: https://causeprioritization.org/Moral_economics
Eric Magro had the genius idea of naming the event "M22 Icebreaker" given M22 is Alcor's cryoprotectant, which prevents ice formation ^^ We decided to go with a clearer title, but still wanted to share here 😅
ah, yeah, you're right! thank you
same is true with time; hobbies might be a lot about signaling wealth ("I'm so rich I can do non-productive activities"); retiring early actually sounds like a good signaling mechanism for this; retiring early likely(??) have better externalities than conspicuous consumptions, but ideally you would want people to be able to fully signal their wealth at 0 cost (whether time or monetary), and so retiring early for signaling purposes still seems to have a negative externality
another way to signal wealth might be by having a lot of children; and that one seems like it has positive externalities, and so removing the need for signaling wealth might reduce number of children
I'd like to see studies on how having your wealth publicly known changes those factors
Maybe we have strong instincts for conspicuous consumption for signaling purposes, so that even if on paper another mechanism should provide the same signaling value, maybe it wouldn't reduce conspicuous consumption as much as we'd expect (although possibly still worth it!)
Anyone has an idea how a company could provide such value? (ie. signaling wealth, with plausible deniability about the intentions, while investing the wealth)
the usual story is that Governments provide public good because Markets can't, but maybe Markets can't because Governments have secured a monopoly on them?
x-post: https://www.facebook.com/mati.roy.09/posts/10159360438609579
This hypothesis predicts that people who have a publicly known wealth spend less, controlling for other factors. Maybe we should start by studying this. (Seems high expected value to me!)
it did; we were 6; I will make it weekly
humm, should have been able to join during the whole hour
Ahhh, yep, thanks