lsparrish

9 ms·

31.
The dark side of computing's future... And what to do about it(ustream.tv)
1 points by lsparrish 14y ago|0 comments
32.
by lsparrish 14y ago
In space, things tend to glow in infrared, a phenomenon called black-body radiation. So you could cover the side of the sat facing away from the sun in graphite, and the heat would dissipate naturally until it reaches equilibrium with incom
33.
Startup idea: Mine bitcoins using space based computing(plus.google.com)
3 points by lsparrish 14y ago|2 comments
34.
So... When will they get around to reading the wiki?(plus.google.com)
1 points by lsparrish 14y ago|0 comments
35.
Clouds of very thin computer satellites(lesswrong.com)
1 points by lsparrish 14y ago|0 comments
36.
Cryonics: More Compassionate(lukeparrish.rationalsites.com)
1 points by lsparrish 15y ago|0 comments
37.
by lsparrish 15y ago
That's not a premise of it at all, if you ask me. For all we know reanimation may in fact be much less costly to the given future society than current medical efforts are to current society. Anyway the default expectation should be that i
38.
Cryonics reduces suffering(plus.google.com)
4 points by lsparrish 15y ago|3 comments
39.
by lsparrish 15y ago
Dying sooner than one would like is a form of severe disutility just like pain is. While I do accept that prolonging misery can be a bad trade-off (especially for a cancer patient where near-term demise is inevitable), adding a possibility
40.
Hitch's Blunder(plus.google.com)
5 points by lsparrish 15y ago|2 comments
41.
by lsparrish 15y ago
I doubt it was specifically the painfulness of the particular death that he was trying to escape (by that particular action), as cancer treatment itself is painful. It seems to me more likely he was trying to escape preventable death, whi
42.
by lsparrish 15y ago
How are you assigning the probability here? Some of his arguments (which are actually standard pro-atheism arguments) seem to be based on life extension, i.e. science leads to longer lifespans therefore it is superior to religion. His dismi
43.
by lsparrish 15y ago
Um. Why doesn't it? Because when you think about it, that's a surprising thing about humans in general. Why do people who do not believe in immortality (as an ideal, I'm saying) still go in for cancer treatment?
44.
by lsparrish 15y ago
You seem to be assuming an absence of compound interest, overfunding, external funding sources, and future advances that make things cheaper.
45.
by lsparrish 15y ago
If you were to find out that there are well defined solutions for every single easily identifiable problem, would that convince you to invest?
46.
by lsparrish 15y ago
People usually have a limited amount they will give to charity and will generally spend the rest on something selfish. Cryonics feels selfish, so they will spend money on it that they would not have given to charity anyway. People who care
47.
by lsparrish 15y ago
I'm saying that cryonics implies taking a certain degree of responsibility for the future. That's not an argument in favor of it working. It is an argument in favor of it being a positive thing overall, irrespective of it working. It provid
48.
by lsparrish 15y ago
Chemical fixation would be the second in line, but the quality sucks compared to cryonics. Freeze-dried brains are even worse.
49.
by lsparrish 15y ago
I don't expect to survive with my memories all intact unless I am very lucky. However the complete regeneration of missing parts and restoration of lost functions seems like a very solvable problem. The fact that a large portion of cryoni
50.
by lsparrish 15y ago
> How is getting your head frozen investing in preventing such a world? It isn't, directly. It is an investment in something else which makes that a more important issue to an individual. That affects the probability of the individual t
51.
by lsparrish 15y ago
> And how do you believe you'll accomplish this? The second, third, etc. companies are not going to sign up for this responsibility for free. Yes it costs more money and it has to be done in advance. > Nor is there any guarantee tha
52.
by lsparrish 15y ago
> Obviously you do not personally pay after death, but you set aside money for a trust before hand, which amounts to the same thing. This is a good point, but it bears stressing that the bulk of the trust fund is there for reanimation a
53.
by lsparrish 15y ago
Sure, thousands of years of torture are possible for you if you're a cryonicist -- but in such a world the same risk would apply to trillions of other sentients. If you aren't completely selfish, you're better off investing your energy in p
54.
by lsparrish 15y ago
We don't need the specific organization to survive thousands of years in its original form, we just need cryonics patients to be passed ahead peacefully to another organization in the event of failure. But yeah, religions are an example of
55.
by lsparrish 15y ago
If you think a person can be reanimated from their writings, even a tiny piece of carefully preserved neural tissue should be extremely valuable for making sure the person is simulated accurately. You should probably stop using the terms "d
56.
by lsparrish 15y ago
You don't pay $50/month after you die (that would be a unworkable business model for obvious reasons), rather the $100k or so goes mostly into a trust which pays for your maintenance (more like $100/year, could be far lower on a larger scal
57.
by lsparrish 15y ago
There's an astronomically high probability that you're saying this to make a point, not because you have secret information. That fits perfectly with my model of expected human behavior. The question would be why your model of expected cryo
58.
by lsparrish 15y ago
Brain slices have really high cell survival rates (normal electrical activity), and rabbit kidneys have been reanimated with full functionality. At a minimum there should be a very large and prestigious prize (like the X-Prize) for mileston
59.
by lsparrish 15y ago
Most of the money goes into an investment account, and eventually to biotech/nanotech research to reanimate the patient. Most of the work in reanimating the patient is repairing extreme brain damage (from cold and ischemia). Repairing brain
60.
by lsparrish 15y ago
Good question. Here are some possible answers: * Better social networking for cryonics participants. * More persuasive essays on the topic. * New blood in the movement. * Stronger associations to stronger movements. * Different or more aggr

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