X-Message-Number: 28917 Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 16:04:09 -0800 (PST) From: un person <> Subject: re: platt's comments on cryonics videos Charles Platt wrote: ///quote//// So, Chrissie Rivas, whom I much admire, has mentioned the embarrassing fact that Emperor Unperson has no clothes. ///end quote//// I take it that is a negative assessment of my video. :-) ///quote//// Personally I think unperson gets points for initiative (after all, most people never do anything to promote cryonics) but the end product is--how can I put this? Not very sophisticated? ///end quote//// Never said it was sophisticated. In fact, if you had bothered to read my comments here and on Cold Filter, you would have known that it is intended as a work in progress, and a call for collaborators. But instead you behave in the same way as other humans--when something new like cryonics comes up, it just bounces off your head. An old newspaper editoral truism goes as follows: you can only give the readers stuff that is one inch ahead of them, because if you go two inches ahead of them, they can't hear you. Am I two inches ahead of you futurists? Oh me, oh my.... ///quote//// In fact after I watched it for a few minutes I just started laughing. ///end quote//// The music video is not intended for you and your critical eyes, Charles. Or for anyone more than about 21 years of age. How many ways do I have to say it? ///quote//// That relentless two-note music track just hammering away incessantly, like a kid playing a toy drum, and the voiceover sounding like a drill sergeant or maybe a stage hypnotist trying to plant suggestions, and the cheesey stock art (all presumably ripped off, from one net source or another)--the total effect was like someone banging my head with a hammer over and over and over again. Utterly relentless. ///end quote//// Yet it is better than nothing. And remember, the target audience is not sophisticated. And again, it is just a first draft and a way of showing cryonicists what is possible to do in just 25 hours. ///quote//// And yes this video will FIT RIGHT IN at Frozen Dead Guy Days, it will definitely add to the "fun" component that KW is looking forward to, because the people who wander into her booth (or whatever it is she has there) will think it is all part of the freak show. As indeed it will be. ///end quote//// Who cares? After 30 years, there are only about 1000 signed up cryos. Mr Proof, meet Mr Pudding. The methods you espouse do not work, Mr Platt. THe evidence is all around you. ///end quote//// In case anyone feels the above comments are overly harsh I should add that I have seen many cryonics promotional videos, and almost all of them are horribly embarrassing--unless you happen to be a True Believer already, in which case any pro-cryonics presentation seems to excite a kind of reverie caused by sympathetic resonance in the viewer. The most recent DVD from Alcor had this effect, even though it looked like exactly what it was: An infomercial created by a second-rate provincial PR company that almost (not quite) understood its subject matter. Awful synth music (cheap), awful cliche pictures of families walking on beaches and men and women holding hands (the video equivalent of clip art), and then the endless talking heads, including then-CEO Waynick looking like a Disney animatron reading lines from a teleprompter in a desperate effort to avoid making elementary blunders such as using the word "freeze" instead of the word "cryopreserve." I could almost hear the director off-camera saying, "Okay Joe, we very nearly got it the last time, except where you had trouble pronouncing the word 'vitrification.' So--stand by, take 276, we're rolling!" Not Joe's fault, he's neither a scientist nor an actor. The fault lay entirely with the people who made this abomination. The writer, the producer, the director (if indeed separate people were used in these functions). But once again the preindoctrinated faithful thought it was just great, and didn't seem to care that it looked like an infomercial selling a fitness machine that you might find on an obscure cable channel at 4AM. ///end quote//// I have seen one or two cryonics videos myself. No, they are not the second coming of The Godfather, and they will not excite any fear of competition in Quentin Tarantino, but they can spread positive images/feelings associated with cryonics--if they are put in front of enough people. You need to realize something, Mr Platt. The vast vast majority of humans do not make rational decisions about things like cryonics. Imagery and connotations are far more effective than reasoned arguments. Quit communicating about cryonics in ways that make sense to YOU. If the only people that we convince are people like you and me, then cryonics will take HUNDREDS of years to get enough members to be a going concern. Now, you are right about the low production values. But you are comparing them to the best products out there. The best is ever the enemy of the good, as Mr Federowicz might say. THe fact is that cryonics is not just a niche, and not even a MICROniche, but a SUBMicro-niche. Compare the product quality of these videos you despise with that of the production values of TV preachers, many of whom crank out videos with even lower production values. Yet their monetary returns are much better than what cryonics has been able to come up with. Alcor has revenues of what, about $1 million a year, roughly? That is a JOKE among TV preachers. Some of them have been known to rake in close to 100 million dollars per year. And yes, they sometimes advertise at 4 AM. But they target the right audience. And they push the right buttons to reach their target audience. Cryonics is targeting people like cryonicists. NEWSFLASH: WE'RE FREAKS! People like us are a TINY minority! Target the same people that the churches are targeting. Ordinary people! We are selling somewhat the same product, except ours actually has a chance of working.... Problem is that most ordinary adults have already shoved cryonics into a corner of their worldview. That is why we have to target youth. Their worldviews will change. And if we plant enough seeds now, we can reap members LATER. /////quote///// Even Bruce Klein's Immortality Institute video had a big problem--talking heads for more than a whole hour. I like Bruce a lot and admired the effort he put into that video, but really, no one is going to sit through something like this unless he or she is predisposed toward the subject matter to an abnornal degree. ////end quote//// Yes, more charismatic/accomplished talkers would be great. But you don't need that. ////quote///// The very best piece on cryonics I ever saw was made by the CBS news affiliate in Los Angeles, which suddenly decided to do a four-minute piece on Alcor. They brought with them a cameraman who had won half-a-dozen Emmy awards for his work. He gave the whole thing a slightly mysterious, underlit look, but very serious, no pseudoscience, and the voiceover was absolutely straightforward, setting out the pros and cons. I liked this so much I ordered a tape (for which I had to pay $100 out of my own pocket) but I'll bet if I digitized it and put it online, no one in cryonics would like it. ////end quotes//// But would it change many minds? Of course not. People don't make those sorts of philosophical changes, except perhaps over many years. And by then they have forgotten the video. You need lots repeated positive imagery associated with cryonics over years in order to change minds. ///quote//// Unfortunately, if you lose sight of how your potential customers think, you are not in a very good position to sell to them. ///end quote//// I hope I have made it clear that I believe that YOUR OWN take on how potential customers think is also wrong. -unperson ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a PS3 game guru. Get your game face on with the latest PS3 news and previews at Yahoo! Games. http://videogames.yahoo.com/platform?platform=120121 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=28917