yes actually you're right - maybe not as much as in chess due to the depth and variation involved in openings, but still a hell of a lot.
342 karma · joined July 18, 2012
Also, to suggest I'm imposing my view on other people is asinine; this is a forum for voicing opinions, and I'm voicing mine. I understand that when I'm on my death bed I might well make the same decision to preserve my body - human beings are hypocrites by nature and I'm certainly no exception. However, if you're suggesting that raising an opinion/suggestion on the subject that is different to yours is arrogance then I'd take a moment to consider the idea that it might be _you_ that is being arrogant; reread my post and maybe you'll realise that my tone was more along the lines of highlighting an alternative use for this money, and with much more viable results in objective terms. If cryonics was known (or even generally considered) to be viable then I would likely hold a different opinion.
Your second argument doesn't make sense - if no one individual could make a difference then by summation, no difference could be made by any number of individuals. You can't seriously argue that a donation of e.g. $100,000 to a life-saving charity makes no difference to anyone.
Thirdly, let me clarify that I never claimed cryonics is bad, and I do not hold that opinion. I would encourage research into cryonics in the same way that I would encourage research into cancer drugs or AIDS mitigation. However, I contend that under my personal ethical position, it would be more ethical to save many young lives than to invest in a small probability of saving one old life. Abstracting away from the specific case of cryonics, I suppose I would generally state that I believe (at this early state in life extension research) that death of/at old age is inevitable. By accepting this, instead of trying to deny it using technology that is incredibly immature and does not yet have any proof of effectiveness, one frees up one's financial resources to take care of family and friends, and if one is a wealthy individual, to attempt to save the lives of others.
[edit] just so you know, I upvoted your comment to counter a downvote from someone else. You make a strong case, regardless of the fact that it didn't address my original point.
The key points in my argument are that:
a. cryopreservation is a very expensive way to maybe save the life of one person who has already lived a full life (I don't direct my criticism at those who want to be cryopreserved due to a fatal illness at a younger age)
b. charity is an effective way to use the same amount of money to save many lives, often the lives of people would have died at a very young age and with a great deal of suffering
Even if I could force you to change your mind, I wouldn't, but I believe that the charitable option should be seriously considered by anyone looking at cryonics.
Maybe instead of having your body frozen in the off chance that you can wake up 100 years old and with no friends, family, or prospects, you should give that money to a charity who will use it to save real lives that are being ended for ridiculous reasons like having no access to clean water or being attacked by malaria-carrying mosquitoes that can be deterred with a $5 net.
I'm not usually one to be a buzzkill, but I should point out that Hacker News is largely filled with startup coders and small business owners, not trained academics - you can't set your standards too high for rational debate, especially considering the level of religious wars coders start over trivialities like text editor choice, operating system or programming languages (check out any thread that mentions PHP for a great example of group-think flaming).
Until most IE users upgrade to 11, it's not usable by those of us who can't exclude a large chunk of our users.
Of course this perspective is easy to take from the UK where we don't have to face tough financial decisions over healthcare.
I really hope this is sarcasm - pasty-faced quite obviously implies Caucasian, but specifically those with a lack of exposure to natural light i.e. being cooped up inside all day long with a computer prevents one from developing a tan.