X-Message-Number: 1641 From: Subject: CRYONICS Presentation of Neurosuspension and Immortalism Date: Mon, 18 Jan 93 23:43:57 PST >From Thomas Donaldson: >Perhaps I come from a hard tradition. But I was not arguing in favor of being >frank because of its psychological effect. I was arguing in favor of being >frank because logically that is the only thing available to us - -- short of >outright lies. >From Ralph Merkle: >I think we should all take to heart the idea that how an idea is >presented strongly influences its acceptance. The words that >are used, the order in which the ideas are presented, the context; >all are crucial. >From Thomas Donaldson: >. . . I do believe that even for the alienated, we have much more chance of >winning them over by speaking openly than by trying to bring up our goals in >more "acceptable" ways. Thomas, it seems to me that you are missing a basic point in all of this. It is true that, when presenting cryonics, lies which are easily disproven ("Neurosuspension? No! We don't do that!" "Immortality? No! We don't want that!") are a very bad idea. Telling the truth is the best course if for no other reason than that we'll look like criminals if we're caught lying. **BUT** there are many ways to say anything. Cryonet contributors have had a lot of fun recently phrasing our *true* ideas re neurosuspension, immortality, etc. (Cryomessage #1616 by Steve Harris is my favorite by far!) in ways which seem *most* likely to convince average people that we are a bunch of wackos at best, and a bunch of dangerous wackos at worst. Conversely, there must be ways of phrasing these ideas which are *most* likely to convince average people that we are actually rational, intelligent, well-meaning individuals who differ from the average person mainly in that we have chosen a radical solution to the problems of aging and death. It seems obvious that to be most persuasive we must consider the preconceptions and biases of our audience. With this in mind, we would give a slightly different presentation to a libertarian convention than we would to a science fiction convention. In cases where useful generalizations cannot be made about our audience, such as when being interviewed for a news show, we should probably tailor our comments not to Joe Sixpack (who has no interest in such matters anyway), neither to Joe Scientist (who has probably already formed strong opinions on matters such as this, and who probably doesn't look for new ideas about science on television news shows), but rather to Joe Slightly- Above-Average (who probably finds cryonics to be interesting, and who might be convinced that this is a good idea if we are careful not to overwhelm him with the more complex issues first.) When asked the inevitable questions re buzz-topics such as immortality, we should **not** lie. But we can answer the questions in a manner that works the interview in the direction of *our* agenda, which is to convince people who haven't yet decided whether we're crazy that we are not, and to convince people who have already decided that we aren't crazy to sign up for suspension themselves. Long Life! Derek Ryan Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=1641