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