X-Message-Number: 31013 From: David Stodolsky <> Subject: Re: Warning for All Cryonicists Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2008 10:58:20 +0200 References: <> --Apple-Mail-14--540551511 format=flowed; delsp=yes On 2 Sep 2008, at 11:00, John de Rivaz wrote: > What is also needed is some tangible benefit for membership that is > worth having in its own right. That is the point of the "current' benefits" mentioned. > > The lawyers consulted would probably say that this is life insurance > by another name Then they would have to say the same about foundations/churches/etc. > > Also, it is attractive to people whose 10% of income is small, and > unattractive to those whose 10% is large. Since large incomes are typically taxed at a higher percentage, the reverse would be true. > > Bear in mind that to be successful it would have be marketed to > people who are new to the idea of cryonics. This has been disconfirmed by private emails. The original starting point for my proposal was, "How to get the cryonics movement to the point where it cannot be destroyed by a rampaging government official or someone with a few hand grenades?" That is, how to deal the with the political risk that will be encountered before cryonics reaches widespread acceptance. The answer was to develop a marketing strategy that would increase membership by hundreds at a time, not by one's or two's. The repackaging would also open up the overwhelming majority of the potential market that will never be reached by current efforts. Finally, I illustrated how political acceptance could be achieved in a smaller jurisdiction by electing cryonicists to government posts and thereby ensuring that in that jurisdiction suspension would be an option that could be carried out as a routine hospital procedure. Therefore, the approach would benefit all cryonicists, both active and suspended. My reanalysis of the Badger data showed that the long held belief that a demonstration of human revival would lead to widespread acceptance of cryonics is wrong. In the short term, both the risks to and acceptance of cryonics can only be changed by a new marketing approach. This is what I was referring to when I asked, "Is there someone who can shake loose the money" to try a new approach to increasing the growth rate of the cryonics movement. The current technology of cryo-preservation is entirely adequate to convince anyone, that isn't ideologically opposed to cryonics, that it has a chance of working. It is clear from recent discussions, however, that millions continue to be spent on this research direction. Not to mention that a lot of this money seems to have been wasted. The Badger survey also showed that many people simply don't believe that a cryonics organization will continue to exist long enough to revive them. Thus, the institutional barrier is often what is preventing people from signing up. Therefore, there are both institutional and political considerations which suggest it would be wise to fund an alternative approach. dss Skype: davidstodolsky --Apple-Mail-14--540551511 Content-Type: text/html; [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=31013