X-Message-Number: 22983
From: 
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2003 14:59:27 EST
Subject: "Why Die?" Suggestion from Mark Shewmaker

(Rudi Hoffman writing)

One of my clients saw the "slogan" thread posting a few days ago, and wrote 
this to me personally.  With his permission, I have forwarded it here in full.

(Begin copying)
I'm not subscribed to Cryonet, but only read it every so often on the
web archives.  I just came across your message in which you said:

> But we need a rallying cry that "sings, compels, 
> annoys, and replicates"

Well, here's one to add to any brainstorming ideas you may get:  "Why Die?"

Features:

1.  It's quick, simple, and memorable.  No hard-to-say or confusing statistics
    needed.  :-)

2.  It's thought-provoking in the listener's *own frame of reference*, in that
    it causes an instant need for the listener to justify to themselves any
    of their pro-death values, even if only in a very cursory sense, and to
    then possibly update those values slightly, all from within their own
    belief and value system.  (No translation to ours required.)

3.  Even a minor re-examination of a pro-death value system will help the
    listener understand a let's-not-die mindset, and thus help the listener
    be more open to honestly listening to and thinking about such ideas.

Even more importantly:

4.  It's fair--as a slogan it doesn't "cheat":  There's no bias towards saying
    death is always bead--there may well be legitimate arguments for real 
death,
    (saving someone else's life, or maybe a person's considered religious 
system
    is pro-death in some ways and that's simply what they value, etc.)

    And although the question may use emotion to help someone to decide
    to consider it as a serious question, that same emotional jolt helps the
    listener to recognize and thus discount any thought-clouding emotion when
    thinking about their own, personal answer.

    If anything, there's a bias for the listener to consider their answer
    to the question in an honest and logical way.  (ie, we want everyone to
    remove their own blinders and recognize what their own values are.)

    In keeping with the question being fair, the pro-longevity type argument
    is also fair:  It's backed by facts, trends, hard data, and actual 
science.

    So from slogan to arguments to supporting data, everything can be 
presented
    in an open and honest way, with a mindset of "no-need to trust us on any
    specific point, you can examine and verify any bit of data or argument
    that you like."

Even if someone determines that they have a different answer, this type of
here's what-we-ask-ourselves question together with
this-is-why-we-come-to-our-answer background to our point of view helps those
who come to different answers to not disdain, but better understand the
pro-longevity point of view.


Oops, that went on for a *lot* longer than I intended.  But, maybe it will be
useful if you do get a bunch of slogans, and become "keeper of the slogans". 
:-)

-- 
Mark Shewmaker

770-933-3250


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