5 ms·

Great way to piss away your estate for no reason.

ben_w 8y ago
It’s not like you can spend it on anything else at that point. If the odds are 1%, or 0.01%, it’s still personally worthwhile.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  ...assuming you never had children?
  - enraged_camel 8y ago
    Even if I never have children, I'd rather donate my estate to a worthy cause than spend it on cyrogenically freezing my body with the hope of eventual resurrection.
    - garmaine 8y ago
      There is this thing called life insurance which nearly all cryonicists use to fund their suspension and storage.
      - thaumasiotes 8y ago
        That doesn't make any sense. Life insurance isn't cheaper if you promise to spend it on cryonic storage. It's just a part of your estate, and there are better things you can do with that.
        garmaine 8y ago
        Well it's technically not part of the estate, but a policy held by the cryonics organization. But that's missing the point. You can pay for cryonics without writing people out of your will.
- philwelch 8y ago
  If you're wiling to take Pascal's wager like that, you could just practice a religion for free.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    Many aren’t free, but a bigger problem is that many are mutually exclusive. Which one do you go for? It’s not as easy to say “the one I grew up with” as it was in Pascal’s era.
    - philwelch 8y ago
      Declining Pascal’s Wager just because two religions are equally probable makes you Buridan’s ass (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan%27s_ass https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan%27s_ass): a donkey who starves to death because he can’t choose between two identical bales of hay. But I think there are probably decision-theoretic ways of even refining Pascal’s Wager; not every religion is mutually exclusive, or holds mutually exclusive beliefs about the afterlife, and not every set of religious beliefs is equally probable. Also, from both an EV and a pure probability perspective, I would tend to avoid religions that seem designed to extract as much money as possible from its followers.
      - ben_w 8y ago
        Good points. Can you go into more detail about “not every set of religious beliefs is equally probable”?
        philwelch 8y ago
        That would literally be a religious argument, so I won't name examples, but many religious beliefs can either be tested empirically, have implications that can be tested empirically. If the religion exists in a social or organizational context where there are obvious vested worldly interests for the leaders of an organization to further certain beliefs (money, power, etc.) and those beliefs are designed to further those worldly interests, that would be a signal of improbability as well. Furthermore, for two sets of religious beliefs that share the same base texts and doctrines, the theological and exegetical doctrines can be judged on their own logic and decide between the two. To put it bluntly (and give a contrived, fictitious example), a religion that believes in a flat earth that rests on the back of a unicorn that was created by a committee of gods 34 months ago (complete with false evidence and memories of what happened before) based on an idiosyncratic interpretation of the New Testament that demands that you give 75% of your money to The Glorious Spiritual Leader and then have sex with him, would be particularly improbable compared to almost any other religion.
garmaine 8y ago
You are misinformed. Cryonics is largely paid through life insurance.

It’s not like you can spend it on anything else at that point. If the odds are 1%, or 0.01%, it’s still personally worthwhile.

thaumasiotes 8y ago
...assuming you never had children?
- enraged_camel 8y ago
  Even if I never have children, I'd rather donate my estate to a worthy cause than spend it on cyrogenically freezing my body with the hope of eventual resurrection.
  - garmaine 8y ago
    There is this thing called life insurance which nearly all cryonicists use to fund their suspension and storage.
    - thaumasiotes 8y ago
      That doesn't make any sense. Life insurance isn't cheaper if you promise to spend it on cryonic storage. It's just a part of your estate, and there are better things you can do with that.
      - garmaine 8y ago
        Well it's technically not part of the estate, but a policy held by the cryonics organization. But that's missing the point. You can pay for cryonics without writing people out of your will.
philwelch 8y ago
If you're wiling to take Pascal's wager like that, you could just practice a religion for free.
- ben_w 8y ago
  Many aren’t free, but a bigger problem is that many are mutually exclusive. Which one do you go for? It’s not as easy to say “the one I grew up with” as it was in Pascal’s era.
  - philwelch 8y ago
    Declining Pascal’s Wager just because two religions are equally probable makes you Buridan’s ass (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan%27s_ass https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan%27s_ass): a donkey who starves to death because he can’t choose between two identical bales of hay. But I think there are probably decision-theoretic ways of even refining Pascal’s Wager; not every religion is mutually exclusive, or holds mutually exclusive beliefs about the afterlife, and not every set of religious beliefs is equally probable. Also, from both an EV and a pure probability perspective, I would tend to avoid religions that seem designed to extract as much money as possible from its followers.
    - ben_w 8y ago
      Good points. Can you go into more detail about “not every set of religious beliefs is equally probable”?
      - philwelch 8y ago
        That would literally be a religious argument, so I won't name examples, but many religious beliefs can either be tested empirically, have implications that can be tested empirically. If the religion exists in a social or organizational context where there are obvious vested worldly interests for the leaders of an organization to further certain beliefs (money, power, etc.) and those beliefs are designed to further those worldly interests, that would be a signal of improbability as well. Furthermore, for two sets of religious beliefs that share the same base texts and doctrines, the theological and exegetical doctrines can be judged on their own logic and decide between the two. To put it bluntly (and give a contrived, fictitious example), a religion that believes in a flat earth that rests on the back of a unicorn that was created by a committee of gods 34 months ago (complete with false evidence and memories of what happened before) based on an idiosyncratic interpretation of the New Testament that demands that you give 75% of your money to The Glorious Spiritual Leader and then have sex with him, would be particularly improbable compared to almost any other religion.

garmaine 8y ago

You are misinformed. Cryonics is largely paid through life insurance.