Links to advice for prospective cryonics signups?

[ciphergoth]

WARNING: Comments counter to the policy at the end of this post will be removed.

I've now handed over the contracts; I'm Cryonics Institute member #1039. My next step is going to be to help other people who've expressed an interest to sign up. From those of you who don't consider signing up advisable, I'd like your recommendations on what you'd want them to read before they sign on the dotted line. I've asked something similar before.

If someone were to ask me this about Scientology, I'd point them to Operation Clambake. For homeopathy I'd go to 10²³. For global warming, I might start with the New Scientist guide. But as best I can tell, there doesn't seem to be a similar resource for cryonics. Some have tried to argue that writing such a thing is impossible, that cryonics is simply too vague to coherently attack, but it frankly seems a bit of a stretch to say that of all the wrong ideas in history, cryonics is unique in that nothing useful can actually be written in opposition to it, despite the volumes written in favour that are ripe for attack (eg this); if there's enough to convince someone, there must surely be enough to challenge that conviction. Others say that there are simply bigger skeptical fish to fry, and that may be so, but given all the anger that seems to pour out when this topic comes up, it's a shame that so little of that energy goes into doing what would be most useful to challenge it.

However, I may be wrong about this; you may know of something I haven't found yet, or you may feel that an existing resource -- perhaps the RationalWiki article, or something else -- is better than I give it credit for. Either way, I welcome your links here, and when I'm talking to someone about signing up I'll be sure and direct them to read this post before they do.

Remember, you're not writing to address me; you're writing to address the people I'm going to point this article out to.

COMMENT POLICY: What I'm not interested in is direct discussion here of whether or not cryonics is advisable. It seems like every post that touches on cryonics gets used as a general discussion forum for anything and everything people think that relates to the subject, but I've had lots of discussions like that already both in this journal and elsewhere, and in this post, I'd like to keep some focus. This post is not for the argument - it's for the argument about the argument. Comments that insist on directly discussing the advisability of cryonics, without explicit linked reference to articles specifically about cryonics elsewhere, will be screened so that no-one but me and the commenter can see them. If you feel you have to make some direct argument, please post about it in your own journal and post a link here.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lj_sucks_/]

But as best I can tell, there doesn't seem to be a similar resource for cryonics.

That's probably because unlike the other things you mention, cryonics isn't harmful to other people and doesn't really make things any worse for the victim. The only real risk is that you're wasting your money and your heirs get less of it, which isn't a big deal. It falls into the same category as the lottery; I don't know of any central anti-lottery sites either.

[djm4]

...it frankly seems a bit of a stretch to say that of all the wrong ideas in history, cryonics is unique in that nothing useful can actually be written in opposition to it,

That seems to me to be an exaggeration. For example, I don't think there's anything that can be usefully written against the possibility of us encountering extraterrestrials in the near future, either. There are several hypotheses with a Drake-equation-like core, where very high and very low probabilities with huge margins of errors attached might or might not cancel out, and cryonics seems to me to be one of those.

That's not to say people don't try to argue the toss. People certainly try to argue the toss on cryonics. But informed scientific opinion seems to me to be firmly in the 'we don't have enough data to make a guess now' camp.

Cryonics is not like homeopathy or 'global warming denialism', in that it doesn't contravene any currently known laws of science (AFAIK, and accepting that it has its lunatic fringes like any other discipline). Expecting it to have the same level of scientific evidence ranged against it as those do it is therefore wrong, IMO.

Hope this isn't too much of a digression

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I'm a bit confused by what you're asking - you want something that is critical/skeptical of cryonics, so you can give it to people you're hoping to convince to sign up? That seems counter-intuitive to me - particularly if, as you've mentioned before, there are huge economies of scale involved.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

The discussions you've had on here (?and on someone else's LJ), plus the stuff on your other blog, would certainly
suffice to see duty done so far as I can see. I've seen far less informed and far less constructive debates elsewhere.

Also, people you're talking to may well be interested in what your friends and contacts think particularly, or might know their POVs so would find arguments expressed by them particularly helpful.

Sorry I haven't written a "why I am not, on balance, at the moment, an active supporter of cryonics, but have little or no problem with people who take a different view" article, which would play something of the role you are looking for. The main reason is time. I have very limited time to do that sort of writing and - given my conclusion - there are many other things I want to write that I think are more important for me to write. Also, while I might enjoy writing it up, I have no appetite at all for the sort of vigorous arguments (never mind the risk of upsetting ad hominems and such) that would ensue. If I ever change my mind - on writing it up, or indeed on the subject itself - I'll be sure to let you know.

I am impressed by your efforts to be even-handed here.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

What did your legal advisers tell you about the workability of insurance, in the end? I might be tempted to write up something on why I don't think paying for cryonics via life insurance works, but if other insurance lawyers have looked at it and come up with the opposite answer, I'd like to know their reasoning first.

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

My guess is that if cryonics became very popular there would more criticism of it written. Therefore you should try to get as many people as possible to sign up, so it becomes popular and you'll finally have something to engage with!

[reddragdiva]

Good luck with it! Erm, here's to someone showing the information is recoverable ... presumably in 40 years or whatever the techniques will have improved.

[reddragdiva]

Oh, and the RW article is currently getting a pile of kicking, a current link would be better than an old diff.

[blackmetalbaz.livejournal.com]

Do you by any chance have PDF copies of these (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5970120) papers (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4821065)? I don't currently have Uni access, but they seem to get cited a fair bit. Obviously, they're worryingly old, but I can't form an opinion on their contents without reading them, and Ben Best does seem to claim that various papers say things that they don't appear to...