X-Message-Number: 3628 Date: Sat, 7 Jan 1995 12:08:35 -0500 (EST) From: Andro <> Subject: CRYONICS marketing Charles Platt's comments on the difficulties of finding rich sponsors for the Cryonics movement trigger further thoughts: I don't think that a higher proportion of rich or famous or dying-of-AIDS people will accept cryonics, than will the general public. But still, the rich have money, the famous have publicity-value, and the dying have an urgent incentive. But the key to a "higher proportion" for acceptance of ideas is broken up between intelligence, curiosity, detachment, rebellion, etc. A successful new religion starts with a Prophet who gathers disciples and produces a Book. Exponential growth, starting from one person, looks miniscule for many years and then explodes, dominates the culture, fragments, becomes orthodoxy, and is ultimately obsoleted by a new situation and concomitant world-view. We have our Prophet, Book, and miniscule but exponential growth. So, where do upstart religions look for new recruits? Not, for numbers, among the entrenched haves; the numbers come from the dispossessed, those with no stake in and no allegiance to society. Jesus was accused of hanging out with low-life and sinners; black Muslims in the US recruited in the prisons; eastern religions in the US drew on drop-outs and hippies. If you want numbers, how about looking for inmates on death row? Not that most of them would buy in; but the percentages should be higher, and the publicity should be enormous :-) I'm smiling, but still serious. What people would resent would be, that *convicted criminals were being offered a chance at immortality, and honest citizens weren't*. Which could be easily rectified. But enormous numbers of impoverished recruits don't spell success, unless you want to have a revolution and take over the government. For regular growth, you also need wealthy patrons - only a couple, maybe; but they are attracted to the movement by the numbers of others too; it validates everything. I think Charles was exactly right when he ended with "there must be some self-made maverick out there..." It's the maverick quality that will relish Cryonics. But even if we could get a mailing list of 1000 John Cleese types, their efficient secretaries would classify us with all the other begging letters they get, and garbage our junk mail. We have to be sufficiently prominent that a) rich mavericks are fully aware of us, and b) they can approach us personally, discreetly, as if by chance, with no commitment or publicity, in a place and manner that causes them no inconvenience, loss of time or waste of money. So I suggest again high-profile clients, even if despised - which doctor makes a moral judgement of character before saving a life? And I suggest locating all Cryonics facilities in "high-traffic" areas - major business cities, major tourism locations; perhaps creating a Cryonics Museum; and generally making it as easy as possible for people, especially rich people who have little time, to personally check our credibility, professionalism, operations, research, financial reliability, etc etc. This might involve increased security costs - but they should be more than offset by admissions and souvenirs revenue, quite apart from more rapid growth. Always optimistically, Robin PS: Yes, Robin is male as in Hood/Batman/Williams. Last name is Helweg-Larsen but everyone always gets it wrong. Andro is just short for Andromeda Training, my business. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3628