Hanson and Yudkowsky make the point that it's the best we've got (in one article, they put the chance of success at 5%), and that the alternative right now is nothing. Considering the relatively low cost, it's a gamble worth taking.
For the record, I've been signed up for a long time.
Edit: as for the tone, Yudkowsky has had the inspirational, secular techno-futurist new-age-ish sounding hope thing going for ages, as you probably know. It doesn't surprise me (and probably doesn't surprise him) that very reasonable people sometimes mistake it for the anti-skeptic / superstitious / actual new-age nuttery / cult types. I think part of the problem here is a kind of Poe's Law effect: if a rational, informed, intelligent person talks seriously about the likelihood of FAI, superintelligences, cryo, etc. in a positive, hopeful way, they're instantly mistaken for a nutcake.
>Hanson and Yudkowsky make the point that it's the best we've got (in one article, they put the chance of success at 5%), and that the alternative right now is nothing. Considering the relatively low cost, it's a gamble worth taking.
No, I would say that leaving money or life-insurance to my family when I die is worth more.
Besides, if someone developed a better, more evidenced "immortality treatment", I would want to have the money for that. Pascal's Wager is simply not acceptable for real life just because you wave your arms and go "Futuristic super-science!" instead of "Magic!"
>Yudkowsky has had the inspirational, secular techno-futurist new-age-ish sounding hope thing going for ages, as you probably know.
People would mistake it far less for cultishness if he didn't follow the optimistic futurist tone with prophecies of doom and requests for money in order to supposedly fund saving people from previously mentioned prophecized doom.
Which is a fucking pity, because there's so much there worth liking, but they kinda ruin it with the cult behaviors.
For the record, I've been signed up for a long time.
Edit: as for the tone, Yudkowsky has had the inspirational, secular techno-futurist new-age-ish sounding hope thing going for ages, as you probably know. It doesn't surprise me (and probably doesn't surprise him) that very reasonable people sometimes mistake it for the anti-skeptic / superstitious / actual new-age nuttery / cult types. I think part of the problem here is a kind of Poe's Law effect: if a rational, informed, intelligent person talks seriously about the likelihood of FAI, superintelligences, cryo, etc. in a positive, hopeful way, they're instantly mistaken for a nutcake.