X-Message-Number: 4971
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 13:40:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: SPIN magazine, article on cryonics

Spin magazine, which has become increasingly serious over the last couple
of years, contains a long and perceptive article on cryonics in its
November issue, out now. The article focuses almost exclusively on Alcor,
and may (or should) be embarrassing to some cryonicists since it does an
excellent job of accurately capturing the wishful thinking and wackiness
that our field sometimes tends to suffer from. I doubt that Alcor (or
anyone else) will pick up a single new member as a result of this article.
To me, it demonstrates very clearly that if you want good treatment from
the running dogs of the press, you can't just lie down and expose your
throat to them. 

Also, it might be helpful to establish some things that we, as
cryonicists, do want to get across (e.g. hard research data) and some
things which we will try not to talk about (e.g. fantasies about running
off multiple copies of ourselves to have group sex in the distant future). 

I remain convinced that the ideal way to deal with the media is to do what
we did with Omni magazine: sell them a package. This seems to be the only
way to exert any real control, and it worked well. I remain unconvinced
that articles such as the one in Spin really do any good at all. 

--Charles Platt


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