X-Message-Number: 31667
From: David Stodolsky <>
Subject: Re: Membership Growth: Alcor and the Cryonics Institute
Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 10:49:28 +0200
References: <>

On 3 May 2009, at 11:00 AM, CryoNet wrote:

> In the period from 1976 to 1993 CI growth was in the
> single digits. This accounts for the largest part of
> CI history.

Attempting to understand these phenomena by looking at absolute  
numbers is not tenable as an analytic strategy. It also ignores the  
basis from which growth is taking place. As I said before, an increase  
of ten members when you have ten already is not the same as that  
increase when you have ten thousand. I am not aware of any social  
effects that depend upon absolute numbers, unless they are very small.  
A single person is dramatically different from a group of two - one of  
the lessons of Chatsworth. In groups of up to ten, there is a tendency  
for even numbered groups to be somewhat more contentious than odd  
numbered groups. Beyond this, everything is percentages, normalized  
scores, etc.  Therefore, you are making two mistakes here: the  
absolute number error; and the failure to consider base conditions.


>
>
> The surge in Membership growth in 2005 for both
> Alcor and CI due to the event of the New York
> Times article distorts your efforts to analyze
> through curve-fitting.

Your argument here assumes the conclusion. This is a logical error  
known as assuming the consequent. If growth is driven by centralize  
systems of publicity, it is correct. If growth is actually due to word- 
of-mouth or other "viral" marketing effects, then it is exponential  
and publicity events are 'noise'. For example, if each member recruits  
another person every few years, we would see exponential growth.  
Unaided cognition is close to useless for identifying these kinds of  
differences. Without knowing what we should 'normally' see for growth,  
we have no basis on which to make comparisons.

Why did the Times article cause such a big effect and earlier  
publicity had little or no effect? Was it because there was something  
different about the event, or was it due to the fact that the  
membership base was larger at that time? We can't answer this question  
without much more detailed data. We have already seen that monthly  
membership data tells a different story than yearly membership data.  
To answer the questions posed here we need data on number of inquiries  
as compared to data on membership. The same is true for the question  
of the Internet population effect or any other potential effect.

We have increasing amounts of evidence that the limitations to growth  
are primarily of a social character. In a social environment that  
supports cryonics, more people will choose that option than in a  
social environment that is hostile. This doesn't mean we can't find  
many and even most members coming from hostile social environments,  
since they characterized the current climate in the USA. Similarly,  
even thou we have concluded that religiosity is the critical variable  
in acceptance of cryonics, many if not most of the members will be  
religious or come from such environments, simply because that is where  
the overwhelming majority of people find themselves. Thus, it is  
impossible to reach any kind of valid conclusion without taking into  
account base line effects. This is a well known stumbling block in all  
kinds of analysis and that is why it takes research to find the  
underlying processes. If we are dealing with social processes based  
upon group behavior, then we will likely find exponential growth,  
which characterizes many of these processes.

My conclusion from the Badger (1998) data was that the current  
marketing methods target atheist millionaires. If that is correct,  
then it is no surprise that we see stagnation in growth, once they  
have all been reached. The fact that we see continued growth at all  
would then be due to person-to-person effects, on which we don't even  
have data. The individualistic orientation of a majority of people in  
the movement has led to a blindness concerning these effects, even  
though we know there are many cases where entire families sign up.  
There are even special prices for such situations, but the possibility  
that social effects underlie growth is never considered. If we are  
serious about seeing the movement grow and survive, we have to get  
beyond peoples' prejudices and anecdotal accounts, to an understanding  
of the real drivers of growth. There is no way to do this without  
social research.


dss

David Stodolsky
  Skype: davidstodolsky

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