X-Message-Number: 16981
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
Subject: Educating public perceptions
Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2001 16:37:03 +0100

From: 
 >Query: What public perceptions should we focus on
 >changing in a pro-cryonics public relations campaign?
>
> I vote for this one:
>
>  It's selfish to use the insurance money for
> cryopreservation instead of giving it to your family.
>
This may be the idea of some folks, mostly created by Alcor's prices. If you
can finance a suspension using insurance, it don't holds. So the argument
seems simple to debug.

I do not understand this statement. In the post most days people get
mailings from some charitable organisation requesting "only" UKP10 a
week/month or whatever in aid of their projects. In addition, they often ask
for bequests in your Will. People who run these charities, if they are
deathists, would say that any premiums you are paying to life insurance to
fund your cryopreservation would be better spent on giving it to them. They
would suggest that the chances of their being able to help lots of people
with your money are far greater than the chances of you being able to help
yourself using cryopreservation.

Of course the real competition is between people who collect salaries or
just self-esteem from running charities, and people who collect salaries or
self esteem from running cryonics organisation. This includes suppliers to
either organisation - it seems to be little known that charities are also
employers and usually if you offer them a professional service they will pay
you for it.

We would say that those who are running cryonics organisations do so not so
much for self esteem or getting salaries, but saving lives - their own, and
those of their friends and loved ones. But the deathists who say we are
selfish do not see it that way.

--
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:      http://www.deRivaz.com
my homepage links to Longevity Report, Fractal Report, music, Inventors'
report, an autobio and various other projects:
http://www.geocities.com/longevityrpt
http://www.autopsychoice.com - http://www.cryonics-europe.org -
http://www.porthtowan.com

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