site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

5
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Most of the early cryo-patients didn't survive, the most notable incident being the Chatsworth disaster.

Cryonics has learned from those mistakes. In particular, cryonic orgs now absolutely refuse to preserve a patient unless he has already provided enough money to cover both his preservation and his upkeep, in perpetuity. This is important, because most cryonics failures happened partly or wholly due to financial problems.

From "Suspension Failures: Lessons from the Early Years", first published in Cryonics, February 1992:

One important lesson to be drawn from this tale of woe is that cryonic suspensions should only be maintained by those who have a strong personal interest in being cryopreserved themselves and have made arrangements. This includes the financial backers as well as those in charge of daily care. Those who are personally committed generally have superior judgment and realize the advisability of the neuro option (head-only preservation) in cases where funds are limited. Such people will fight hard to maintain even someone they hardly knew, who is not a relative, as happened at Alcor during the Dora Kent crisis for instance. They are not afraid to take measures others squeamishly shun, when a patient’s survival is at stake. Neuroconversions carried out by such people have saved several patients whose funding ran out [28]. Not one of the many suspension failures was a neuro.

Of seventeen documented freezings through 1973, all but one ended in failure, while maybe five or six later cases, some of them privately maintained, were later terminated (or were continued under questionable circumstances, such as attempted permafrost interment). In most of these cases, finances were a factor.

And from "Don’t Ask, But Do Tell" by Mike Darwin:

Your statement “(CSNY) underestimated the costs associated with maintaining the leaky Cryo-care capsules (sound familiar?)” is incorrect. The estimates for the cost of cryopreservation presented to the public ranged from $8,500 posited by Bob Ettinger in THE PROSPECT OF IMMORTALITY in 1964 to the $10,000 widely quoted by the media as being the cost of indefinite cryopreservation at both CSC and CSNY during the period from1969 to 1972. Of that $10,000 no less than $8,000 was to be invested for long-term care. $8,000.00 in 1969 had about the same buying power as $44,561.80 in 2006, or roughly twice what CI currently budgets for long-term storage for Option One Members ($23,000 per patient). The problem was that this money was never set aside, and indeed never existed in the first place. What’s more, with the exception of Paul Hurst, Sr. (and later Herman Greenberg), CSNY was not consistently paid, or in the case of Steven Mandell, paid at all. Steven’s life insurance was applied for after he was already (terminally) ill and did not pay out. Pauline Mandell never paid Cryo-Span for the CC dewar, the charges for “encapsulating” Steven, or for liquid nitrogen or facility floor space (rent). The $4,500 for the CC dewar, the $1,100 for the Sergeant-Welch vacuum pumps, and the costs of welding, transportation, and miscellaneous hardware were paid for by Curtis Henderson.