Pascal's wager boils down to "vanishingly small likelihood, but nearly infinite reward." It's fascinating because it's difficult to get to a reasonable answer i

Pascal's wager boils down to "vanishingly small likelihood, but nearly infinite reward." It's fascinating because it's difficult to get to a reasonable answer in a way that is consistent with normal utility-maximizing behavior. Comparing probabilities and expected costs and benefits is normally an extremely useful thing to do, and it doesn't just automatically stop being useful when the probabilities get small (consider that many people choose to buy insurance even when only a small percentage end up benefiting from their decision). Fundamentally this boils down to a pretty simple question: what's the likelihood that cryonics will "pay out"? If your answer is 0.00001%, sure, don't sign up. But if your answer is, say, 2%, then maybe it's worth it.