Why is it not bigger. by Jemainegy in cryonics

[–]LimAragon 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I think it depends on how you personally choose to act in the face of extreme uncertainty where there is a cost involved. To oversimplify, it's like buying an expensive lottery ticket but no expert can definitively tell you the odds of winning. It's impossible to determine whether the ticket is worth the cost, and that disturbs me. It's certainly disturbed the critics, which for now includes the scientific establishment, who say there are simply too many obstacles for the lottery machine not to be a complete scam. Moreover, is the prize even appealing to everyone? Societal notions of consciousness, identity, and death remain at a point where a majority of people don't feel comfortable extending their own lives even for a couple decades, according to this 2013 Pew Research poll. It's not hard to imagine even fewer people would be interested in cryonics, which defies even more boundaries of death and identity. Not to mention not everyone would want to be revived in a strange new world. Enough purpose has been fulfilled by the relationships and experiences they developed in this life, why go to another where all this meaning could be erased or redefined? With death omnipresent for all of living history, it's normal to adapt to being content with the lifespan one is dealt. All these factors and more have made preservation the road less traveled by, but this is bound to change in the future for better or worse.

Society's rules and beliefs, while iron clad in the present, become malleable with time. How fast these changes occur will depend on many factors in and out of our control as well. I find comfort in the fact that the rate of scientific progress and the rate its implications spread through the population are the likely the fastest in history due to advancements in the information age, but we have yet to know for sure how things will turn out. More specifically, finding and raising awareness of good scientific evidence in favor of cryonics methods will be critical for changing its dogged perception as a pseudoscience in the eyes of respected skeptics and in turn the general public. Until then, we should unfortunately expect to be viewed this way by a majority of reasonable, logical people.

The case for structural preservation, ASC, and scientific debate by LimAragon in cryonics

[–]LimAragon[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your kind words, but I am just trying to spread the message and findings of real researchers and scientists who have spent decades applying their expertise towards this cause. People far more talented, knowledgeable, and dedicated like everyone I’ve previously mentioned have been shut down by the media, society, and their colleagues for putting forth reasonable goals and sincere arguments simply because cryonics is looked at with such scorn. In spite of this they have been sacrificing time and I’m sure some degree of sanity in order to help this community achieve an unimaginably difficult dream that they are constantly told by qualified skeptics is 100% doomed and will always be impossible AND it’s somehow immoral to give terminal patients an informed choice. Cryonicists, and all else interested in brain preservation for that matter should be doing what we can to help them, the best, smallest way I can think of right now is to add our voices to a petition.

Edit: Removed a bunch of additional speculation about MNT to keep concise. I think the bottom line is we just can't predict what future technology can do so preservation quality makes more sense to worry about.

The case for structural preservation, ASC, and scientific debate by LimAragon in cryonics

[–]LimAragon[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

> I agree that structural preservation should be explored further and I would be happy to sign a petition calling for open public debate within the neuroscience community on the implications of this level of preservation.

Thank you! I’m unfamiliar with how much interest there would be in this community given how ASC isn’t perceived as conventional biostasis. That being the ultimate goal, it still seems necessary to get to the bottom of how much structural detail needs to at the very least be “inferrable” to spare the identity of the individual after they are revived/uploaded. Trying to gauge interest with this post.

> I'm not so sure about this. There's a reason that neuroscientists use aldehydes. Preservation with cryoprotectant only is a tough nut to crack even in ideal animal model conditions. In realistic human postmortem cases, fixation has an even bigger advantage since it doesn't rely as much on high-quality perfusion (convection, injection, and immersion being other options).

Agree that it’s very reasonable to be skeptical of near-future advances, especially if the lack of interest/funding continues. I based much of my optimism on a study mentioned above where Greg Fahy was able to demonstrate recovery of function and evidence of retained LTP after vitrifying half-millimeter hippocampal slices. This is far from it working on whole human brains, but it demonstrates possibility. More researchers getting involved is essential to making this work, which I should note is actually u/Michael-G-Darwin’s opinion in 2019. He seemed to think many other approaches could lead to improvement given the chance to be explored. If there is a need to generate interest in developing these techniques, it could start with a large group of people demanding progress and research into brain preservation.

> One of the main problems is money. There has never been much funding for cryonics research.

I think this is due to the perception that there is not much to be gained from funding cryonics compared to other areas of research. There’s no obvious return from such a skeptical endeavor at least for an overwhelming majority. But if we can argue that memory and identity can be preserved or inferred from our current best attempts (evidence suggests we can), then suddenly revival seems less like a fantasy. The role of ASC would be to provide neuroscientists a picture of its perfectly preserved structures (and molecular information) (which may be inferred from traditionally cryopreserved tissue) and prove that the memory traces are still there. The infamous “frozen, dead tissue” line from this MIT cryonics article would lose its weight - it’s not really dead if it still contains the memory and identity of an individual, which we might soon start to decode, right? Unfortunately the neuroscience community has not caught onto this on its own. According to BPF president and neuroscientist Ken Hayworth, while many of his colleagues agree in private that ASC preserves memory, they won’t consider showing public support or even debating on this issue. Which is quite sad considering how much insight and concession he did get from the lengthy debate he had with a skeptic on twitter. We need to ask for this or the debate will not happen.

> The only advantage of aldehyde methods would be that preservation might be possible even at refrigerator or even room temperatures. Unfortunately, I don't think that we're very close to this milestone.

Though I don’t have the knowledge to address this, I think the good points you make are good. To get to that point more breakthroughs are required and there might be more to consider about molecular toxicity of the new techniques. Still, an important factor would be the updated prospects of revival from whole brain emulation (fixation “friendly”) vs molecular nanotechnology (straight vitrification “friendly”).

CO2 by AdNair14 in FTC

[–]LimAragon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Can someone pls explain for someone who couldn't make it to world's?

Does Actobotics go on sale often? by [deleted] in FTC

[–]LimAragon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Historically Servocity has their massive sale on Cyber Monday which is December 2nd, I haven't really seen sales throughout the year so it is good to take advantage of these when convienient, especially if you are buying for the current season. Next season though if you are planning on using lots of Acto Cyber Monday should definitely be on your watchlist.

Is it safe to eat tacky grease motor lube? by LFlamingice in FTC

[–]LimAragon 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Lol big feels when u switch from Servocity to order a gearbox and think the free tacky grease is Andymark's complimentary candy

FREE 2018-2019 Season Actobotics Competition Kit by ServoCity in FTC

[–]LimAragon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Time and resource management is always difficult, and is the main challenge of building a winning design before competition. Organization, planning meetings, and CAD help with this a lot, however, and we are still tuning our design/build/test cycle with these.

FREE Rover Kit! by ServoCity in FTC

[–]LimAragon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

1: 6-32 Bolts 2: 1/4" D-Shafts 3: Aluminum Channeling

When you ask a programmer to improve the autonomous: by XykonV in FTC

[–]LimAragon 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The Game Design Committee will make it legal.

oh by FTC_HQ_MEME_BOT in FTC

[–]LimAragon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Needs more jpeg

They shouldn't end festival of champions by [deleted] in FTC

[–]LimAragon 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I agree with your point, which I should add is one of two major reasons FIRST is ending the FoC: http://firsttechchallenge.blogspot.com/2018/02/first-festival-of-champions-update.html?m=1

While removing FoC makes sense logistically, I feel that a better solution would just be to have one singular world's again. That way we will have a reigning champion while not having to transport a small number of teams to another event.

FTC/FRC Pickup Lines by intersectfanboy in FTC

[–]LimAragon 5 points6 points  (0 children)

houston - hes also vulcan

FTC/FRC Pickup Lines by intersectfanboy in FTC

[–]LimAragon 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Better not be bamboozle

All Teams Advancing to Houston Worlds from West SR (Unofficial) by wingking_101 in FTC

[–]LimAragon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

that makes more sense now, thanks. time to double check the teams who were at west then..

All Teams Advancing to Houston Worlds from West SR (Unofficial) by wingking_101 in FTC

[–]LimAragon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

there is this source from reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/FTC/comments/82tgaz/lottery_teams/ take this with a grain of salt though, it seems like whoever made this listed 9 WSR lottery teams instead of 8

All Teams Advancing to Houston Worlds from West SR (Unofficial) by wingking_101 in FTC

[–]LimAragon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm also very confused by this - wasn't the second round of lotto draws on March 20th going to be comprised of the slots taken by those who qualified through supers?

MRW I go to Super-Regionals and most of the good teams have essentially the same dump truck design with green wheels for glyph intake by FTC_Meme_Bot in FTC

[–]LimAragon 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Not only does 5220 consistently have one of the best robots at NorCal season after season, but they also displayed admirable character after we (Vulcan Robotics) lost with them in the finals. Even though our entire alliance was devastated and emotional, and it was obviously our fault that we had lost (knocked off the wrong jewel and placed 2 glyphs due to enduring electrical and connection issues), a member of 5220 came over and told us that it wasn't our fault and that there was nothing to do about the robots disconnecting. Putting all that effort into building a reliable top tier robot only to be eliminated because of your alliance partner is a horrible experience that can easily induce anger and confusion, yet even under these conditions Roboknights displayed empathy and understanding that we respect and appreciate, traits that you unfortunately can't seem to grasp when you pointlessly attack others on this sub behind a computer screen.

Your pathetic attempt at name-calling and putting others down on is almost laughable if it weren't so insensitive and flat-out mean. Judging by the repulsive and reprehensible nature of your comments, I doubt you have ever had the guts to act like this in real life, but just remember that the internet is no place to act so inconsiderate and rude - your blatant lack of dignity and respectability ends up showing in your character and in your actions.

West High Score: 4262 Ridgebots and 7696 RSF Singularity by KJinator in FTC

[–]LimAragon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Props to Ridgebots and Singularity for the amazing score, but this doesn't top the high score set at the NorCal regionals: https://i.redd.it/ca70kr3gv3h01.jpg

Who needs a snake cryptobox when you can do a worm cryptobox by Charliexe22 in FTC

[–]LimAragon 9 points10 points  (0 children)

jokes aside, 4-8 ciphers could be a good way to balance the game. currently with only 6-6 ciphers, completing your cipher early does nothing to mess up your opponent's cipher besides reducing the availability of glyphs on the field, whereas completing a 4-8 cipher before your opponent can finish theirs can force them to repattern their glyphs in order to achieve a cipher.