lsparrish

14 ms·

61.
by lsparrish 15y ago
We already have a solution to overpopulation: birth control. Longer lived people have more memories and skills, so of course our capacity would increase -- if not counteracted by neurological senescence. The trick is to regenerate the perso
62.
by lsparrish 15y ago
You seem to be omitting reversible cryopreservation from the scenario. All you would need to do is freeze yourself until a cure is found for whatever is causing you pain. But this seems like a non-likely thought experiment scenario anyway -
63.
by lsparrish 15y ago
I do agree that quality of life is just as important if not more so. And yet I think I would put up with a lot of suffering for a fairly long time in exchange for a shot at being healthy for a much longer time later on. I'm not sure where t
64.
As more hackers start to die, when do we finally do something about it?(plus.google.com)
58 points by lsparrish 15y ago|121 comments
65.
by lsparrish 15y ago
I suspect in a few more decades it will be revealed that the true cause of death was failure to cryopreserve. Pretty much all our current medicine can do is buy a few decades at the most. With his wealth, Jobs could have hired his own team
66.
by lsparrish 15y ago
"If the later is as likely as the first, what exactly is the point of freezing?" More likely to happen if they have a frozen brain to scan?
67.
by lsparrish 15y ago
"if we had a bunch of frozen folks from the 1600's and we could unfreeze them and bring them back to life, would that be the right choice?" Kill someone just because they are a bit behind the times? Triage is fine, but we're talking about a
68.
by lsparrish 15y ago
The cryonics question (specifically, cryopreserved brain tissue -- the rest is more or less irrelevant) should be answered within a few centuries.
69.
by lsparrish 15y ago
"Both ideas are taken on faith, they may both be true, they may neither be true." They aren't equally true or untrue. There's more evidence cryonics will work than that afterlife-capable souls are real. The question is whether it's enough
70.
by lsparrish 15y ago
This is, as he put it, a "high class problem" :)
71.
by lsparrish 15y ago
I think people will be even more anxious to buy and hold when they find out a way loan out bitcoins. For example, convert them temporarily to tokens representing another currency.
72.
by lsparrish 15y ago
It's kind of funny to watch people trying to justify not having bought in earlier, with the logic that it's going to crash. Good old sunk costs fallacy. Yeah maybe it'll crash one day. Maybe it'll go from $1000 clean down to $100, destroyin
73.
by lsparrish 15y ago
The value of bitcoin is that it can be traded, easily, and can't be easily faked. Gold can't be easily faked, but it can't be traded so easily. For a bitcoin to be completely worthless rather stretches the imagination. At a minimum they are
74.
by lsparrish 15y ago
There's a seventh, which is that we gain complete control over the decline stage and are able to reverse it. That's the one I actually envision. (Hard to imagine it not happening in the long run, barring serious technological stagnation.) H
75.
by lsparrish 15y ago
Good point! One thing Stephen Hawking doesn't have is centuries worth of incremental advancement in technologies like say, powered exo-suits. IMHO living for centuries with the body of a 90 year old wouldn't be so bad. (Supposedly there's a
76.
Live for centuries as an old person?
2 points by lsparrish 15y ago|5 comments
77.
by lsparrish 15y ago
While better than nothing, I am skeptical that a good enough MRI or CT scan can be taken to preserve one's personality to the degree that preserving the brain physically could do. Chemical preservation is one inexpensive option that has bee
78.
by lsparrish 15y ago
I'm thinking the figure probably errs more on the pessimistic side, though the author considers it optimistic. It doesn't take into account increased technology, the benefits of assisted suicide, or the availability of cheaper labor and mat
79.
$6k per person to cryopreserve everyone?(lesswrong.com)
2 points by lsparrish 15y ago|3 comments
80.
by lsparrish 16y ago
More Mike Darwin awesomeness.
81.
Cryonics is like a startup - how / how not to start a cryonics company(chronopause.com)
2 points by lsparrish 16y ago|1 comments
82.
A proposal for a cryogenic grave for cryonics(lesswrong.com)
2 points by lsparrish 16y ago|0 comments
83.
by lsparrish 16y ago
One clue is the large percentage of people that live there instead of opting for suicide. The other clue is the fact that it is a situation they can, at least potentially, get out of. I'm not saying it is a pleasant situation. It sounds m
84.
by lsparrish 16y ago
I'm confused. Scenario (c) sounds inherently dependent on humanity losing its moral compass. So it sounds like your assessment of the risk of such an event occurring is much higher than two to one.
85.
by lsparrish 16y ago
Do a consistency check. Neanderthals might lack modern human cognition, but we lack the ability to increase their cognitive abilities for much the same reasons we can't reanimate a severed head. Further, if we did bring them back there woul
86.
by lsparrish 16y ago
You are giving two to one odds on humanity completely losing their moral compass then. If that's the case, something is seriously wrong and needs to be fixed.
87.
by lsparrish 16y ago
What I would expect is that once given an assurance of survival for a longer period of time, people would become more sensitive to death and thus feel more moral duty to bring cryonauts back and treat them with dignity. If nothing else, cry
88.
by lsparrish 16y ago
Are you seriously like that? ETA: Shouldn't it be obvious that severed heads are human in a circumstance where they can be restored to life?
89.
Cryonics As A Large Scale Enterprise(lesswrong.com)
15 points by lsparrish 16y ago|13 comments