X-Message-Number: 18218
From: 
Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 16:07:38 EST
Subject: little red hen

The wet blanket is not my favorite role, but no one should get excited about 
Vanilla Sky, or any other media event, making any noticeable difference to 
cryonics any time soon.

It's only another movie, for Pete's sake, regardless of big budget and big 
stars. There have been countless movies, TV shows including documentaries, 
SFbooks and stories, magazine and newspaper articles, and radio broadcasts. 
They have not (by themselves, in the short term) had any noticeable impact, 
as far as I know, with two exceptions. One exception was my first appearance 
on Johnny Carson, which had several million viewers and drew about a thousand 
inquiries, resulting in a few new members for the Life Extension Society, as 
I recall. The other was the Discover magazine article and contest that, I 
believe, got a few members for Alcor.

The average number of hits on our web site has not increased since Vanilla.

People just don't take that stuff seriously. It's a snowflake in a blizzard 
ot information. Beyond that, the information conveyed is just insufficient by 
orders of magnitude. Saul Kent reportedly said that direct mail needs on 
average seven letters to produce a sale--and each letter has a great deal of 
information, and they come at regular intervals, reinforcing each other--and 
the sales are usually not big bucks either nor difficult decisions, and 
usually you are selling "something you have to someone who wants it."

It has been said that a movie which just casually assumes the existence and 
legitimacy of cryonics must be helpful. Well, it has also been noted that 
most people reject cryonics even when they believe mammals have already been 
revived after freezing, and when they believe membership is already in the 
millions and patients in the thousands.

Sure, every little bit helps, or might help, and some day a spark might just 
happen to strike tinder, but don't hold your breath. Praise the Lord, but 
pass the ammunition. Celebrities might save us, or extra-terrestrials, but 
don't count on it. We have to do it ourselves, by plugging away, day after 
day. 

The next issue of The Immortalist will contain Dr. Pichugin's first report of 
his research at CI.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
www.cryonics.org

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