X-Message-Number: 31438 From: Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 11:50:29 EST Subject: strategies again Stodolsky points out that my Man into Superman was not notably successful in selling cryonics. I was indeed deeply mistaken in thinking that a reasonable and optimistic look at possible futures would have an appreciable effect on cryonics recruitment. It resonated with very few. To this day, the primary impediment to recruitment is cultural inertia and traditional conditioning. As far as I recall, Stodolsky's only attempt at constructive contribution has been (a) to recommend that we spend millions on public relations, lobbying etc, and (b) that we focus on atheists and also attempt to nudge the general society in the direction of "progressive" politics. Well, Alcor, as I recall, has already spent heavily on consultants and lobbyists, with minimal apparent result. And, as I have repeatedly mentioned, neither atheists nor any other potential target group has shown enough interest to justify advertising to them. Kent and Faloon have spent heavily on a variety of cryonics sales efforts, including the ludicrous Timeship project, to no result of which I'm aware. You might think that the World Future Society would offer fertile fields. They claim to have 25,000 members. It is hard to imagine that most of them are ignorant of the cryonics movement, yet the numbers speak for themselves. In a similar vein, very few science fiction writers, let alone readers, are involved in cryonics. Once more, I acknowledge the possibility that new leaders or new approaches may somehow work magic and business will boom, but to count on that is irresponsible. Yet again, although our numbers are still very small, growth has picked up in the last decade. What we are doing is working, albeit far below what we would like. What individuals can do is gas and complain less and work more, with a patient focus on your own relatives and friends. If the average member could recruit one new member every five years, that would be a tremendous help. Robert Ettinger **************A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1219957551x1201325337/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fwww.freecreditreport.com%2Fpm%2Fdefault.aspx%3Fsc%3D668072%26hmpgID %3D62%26bcd%3DfebemailfooterNO62) Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=31438