KvmanThinking's Shortform

KvmanThinking

This is a special post for quick takes by KvmanThinking. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.

If Eliezer's p(doom) is so high, why is he signed up for cryonics?

Was his p(doom) so high back then when he signed up?

2Dagon1y

From a straight expected value case, it can still be an easy call - cryonics has a nonzero chance of working, and p(doom) is less than 100%, and cryonics doesn't cost much (for his class of worker). A low-cost, low-chance wager with an insanely high payoff (more life) is an easy lottery ticket to justify. It probably does indicate that he puts an extremely low weight on Basilisk-like futures, where he gets resurrected just to be tortured forever. I agree that this is orders of magnitude less probable than other cryonics-works scenarios.

4Vladimir_Nesov1y

(My point is more that there will probably be no natural "end of stelliferous era" at all, because the last stars that are not part of some nature reserve will be disassembled much earlier than that, and the nature reserve stars could well be maintained for much longer.)