X-Message-Number: 30479
From: David Stodolsky <>
Subject: Re: What makes people take action? 
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 04:34:56 +0100
References: <>

On 14 Feb 2008, at 09:35, Kennita Watson wrote:

> David Stodolsky <> wrote:
>> ... significant predictors of the action item, "I believe that
>> Cryonics is an exciting idea and intend on looking into it further.":
>>
>> young again *
>> will not work *
>> too costly
>> too selfish *
>> love life
>> under no circumstances *
>>
>> * p<.01
>>
>> We conclude that any of the above items can predict whether a person
>> will indicate intention to act.
>
> Thus I see my mission as being to affect people's
> responses to these items where possible.

These are attitudinal variables, which can't be influenced much,  
according to the results.

>
>
>> Those who agree more that their attitude toward suspension would
>> change "under no circumstances" agree more that cryonics "will not
>> work". The relationship is dominated by those who respond neutral and
>> disagree to "under no circumstances" and correspondingly neutral and
>> disagree to "will not work".... The response neutral appears to
>> be overused.
>
> I can set up the survey so that "Neutral" is not
> allowed:  Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Slightly
> Disagree, Slightly Agree, Agree, Strongly Agree.
> For this to help, I'd also need to remove the
> choice "Don't Know".  This would probably annoy
> some people.

Keeping the "don't know" would result in cleaner data.

>
>
>> ... People willing to change their attitude indicated that the were
>> more
>> likely to seek information, if they agreed more that "I'm excited
>> about the prospect of waking up in a body made young again through
>> bio-
>> technological advances.", "I love being alive and I want to remain
>> alive and healthy for as long as I can.", and agreed less with,
>> "Cryonics doesn't interest me because I just don't think it will
>> work."
>>
>> A stepwise regression selects the following, in order of entry:
>>
>> young again *
>> will not work *
>> human revived *
>> too weird *
>> love life
>> optimistic future *
>> ([the rest] are not individually significant and only raise the
>> RSquare from .33 to .34)
>>>
>> ...
>> "I'm excited about the prospect of waking up in a body made young
>> again through bio-technological advances." is the runaway best seller
>> accounting for half of the effect (RSquare = .17). "Cryonics doesn't
>> interest me because I just don't think it will work." boosts the
>> RSquare to .23 and from there on the effect of items goes down fast.
>
> So I want to emphasize that patients will be revived
> into young, healthy bodies, and to present evidence
> that cryonics can work.  How convincing that evidence
> will be for any given listener may depend more on the
> predisposition of that listener than on the evidence
> itself.

This should not be on the survey, but on a separate information sheet.

>
>
>> ... Even when we include only those who
>> claim they are willing to change their attitude, the strongest
>> negative effect is due to, "Cryonics doesn't interest me because I
>> just don't think it will work." In other words, these people will not
>> seek information about cryonics, because they don't think it will
>> work. The problem is that they are willing to change their attitude,
>> but they never will seek information that could make them change  
>> their
>> attitude. So, getting these people to signup would require an
>> educational effort directed toward the entire population or at least
>> the most likely demographic, which still would mean a large segment  
>> of
>> the population. The alternative would be to repackage bio-stasis so
>> that it comes with other benefits, that would promote information
>> seeking or reeducation. This appears to be the most economical and
>> self-sufficient approach given the resources available to the  
>> cryonics
>> movement at this time.
>
> What "other benefits" do you have in mind?
> I really don't know what one would
> repackage cryonics with to "promote
> information seeking or reeducation".


If you consider the functions of a church, then you will get an idea.  
This is how immortality has been packaged and sold successfully for  
thousands of years, with no evidence that it would actually work.


dss






David Stodolsky    Skype: davidstodolsky

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