X-Message-Number: 27804
From: 
Subject: Squeezing more information from my survey of cryonicists
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 14:00:26 US/Eastern

       In an effort to see if I can squeeze more information from
my survey of cryonicists I have created a "Meta Survey"
which will allow for detailed study of respondents
who answered questions in specific ways. The "Meta
Survey" form is on my website at:

http://www.benbest.com/sandbox/Choose_Questions_8.php

By selecting specific questions on this form you can
see the entire profile of the respondents who answered
those questions in the way you specify.

To see the response profile of a subset of respondents,
do the following:

(1) Choose a subset of questions to profile, then click
'Obtain SubSurvey for Profiling'

(2) Choose the response to your chosen questions that
you want to profile, then click 'Display Profile'

(3) View the SubSurvey and compare the SubSurvey results
to the results in the general survey of 100 cryonicists:

http://www.benbest.com/sandbox/Display_Survey_8.php


Because there are only 100 cryonicist respondents you can
easily get zero respondents to a SubSurvey. For example, if
you choose questions 16 (Gender) and 17 (Age) looking for
females in the 20-29 age group, you will get no respondents.
All of the 12 respondents in the 20-29 age group were male
and none of the 10 female respondents were under 30 years of age.

  As another example, I have tried to profile the respondents
who answered YES to question 12 [Do you use the word 'immortality'
to mean infinite (non-finite) lifespan (eternal life)?] and
YES to question 13 [Do you believe that science will eventually
enable people to have infinite (non-finite) lifespans?]. I chose
questions 12 and 13, and clicked on "Obtain SubSurvey for Profiling".
Then I chose the YES answer for both questions and clicked on
"Display Profile". This gave me a SubSurvey Profile of the 20
respondents who answered YES to questions 12 and 13.

  These respondents were more evenly split between those who
definitely think cryonics can be currently practiced without
freezing damage to the brain and those who think not
(in the general survey twice as many believe cryonics cannot
be currently practiced without freezing damage to the brain).

  No one in this subgroup believed that more than 3 people
had made cryonics arrangements due to their influence.

  This subgroup was more disturbed than the broader group
that people wanting cryopreservation might not be able to
afford it.

   Slightly more of this subgroup was motivated by a desire
to see the future.

  A greater percentage of this subgroup was disturbed at the
idea of not being able to live longer than one million years.

  A higher percentage of this subgroup are sign-up cryonicists.

   This subgroup is not distinctive in terms of age or gender,
but there is a slightly greater representation of North
Americans.

   But 20 respondents may not be a large enough sub-sample for
making reliable conclusions.

  As another example, I looked for those who had immediately decided
they wanted cryonics upon learning about it (question 3), but who took
over 6 years before making arrangements with Alcor or CI (question 4).
16 respondents fit this profile. The only thing I see that is
distinctive about this group is that they are noticeably more
disturbed than the broader group that some people may not be
cryopreserved because they cannot afford it. More than six years
of frustration before making cryonics arrangements might give
more empathy for others in similar circumstances.

  As another example, I looked at those who answered "Elsewhere
in Europe" for Location (question 18). There were 11 respondents
in this profile. Not one of those respondents believe that
cryonics can currently be practiced without freezing damage to
the brain. All of these respondents are male and in general
they are younger than the 100 total respondents. Only 3 (27%) had
made arrangements with Alcor or CI (all with CI) as opposed to
64 (64%) of the 100 total respondents.

   I invite others to see if they can think up profiles of
cryonicist respondents that they would like to analyze and
to share results if those results are interesting and
convincing.

  A word of warning: my website is on my virtual private
server and I have a limited number of processes allowed. So
if too many people are trying to do queries at the same time
you may get the error: "Warning: mysql_connect(): Can't create
a new thread (errno 35)". If this happens, wait until another
time to try your testing. If you find a program bug not
related to number of processes, however, please let me know.

-- Ben Best

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=27804