X-Message-Number: 739
From: M.Paulle
Subject: Genetic Cryonics
I have appended below a fax message I received today from Mike Paulle.
You can reply to him via email at either:
or
- KQB
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Genetic Cryonics
My thanks to Keith and Arel for the thoughtful discussion on genetic
resistance to cryonics.
When Curtis Henderson first said to me that belief in cryonics was
"genetic", I laughed. I thought he was joking. The longer and harder
I work at raising positive awareness of cryonics, the less funny and
more believable the genetic resistance concept has become.
(I've now come to think that belief in cryonics is quantitative
proof of a genetic "defect".)
The genetic theory explains why so little comes back, not even
derision, when the subject of cryonics is broached. I liken it to
screaming into an abyss. Even the sound is swallowed up by the void.
You can feel your jaws working and your larynx tightening, but you
can't hear any sound coming out of your mouth.
The genetic concept is that the memetic space is filled already with
"religious" beliefs and that, with the help of the "deflector" genes
(that ward off thoughts of death), no serious contemplation of cryonics
is really done. This explains why the people you are trying to reach
"can't" mentally hear you. What seems so logical to us, is not being
processed at all by your receiver.
For example, there are 1 1/2 million subscribers on Prodigy and I
periodically bring cryonics up in non-assertive, intentionally naive
ways, i.e. "Wouldn't it be great if someone as special as Arthur Ashe
could come back after AIDS was cured?" I can think of several
responses to this question besides the expected "you are out of your
mind", or "what the hell are you talking about, you wacko?". Instead,
I get silence.
This surprises me because even something as oddball as the Flat Earth
Society, for example, would double its membership in a month with an
intelligent blitz on Prodigy.
H. Ross Perot is runing his entire Presidential campaign on Prodigy,
including signing up his free workers all over the country. We are
talking about pro-active people here. Cryonics? Nada!
It's as if the messages aren't even being broadcast. (They are, I
checked.) When I ask if any one has heard of cryonics, I get a tiny
response. Typically, the responder will suggest a literature source.
Undoubtedly, many hundreds of people have at least glanced at these
notes since I started running them. I expected an occasional "you're
an idiot", "this is a cruel hoax on dying people", "you're ripping
people off". Nothing.
It's the non-response that tells me that Keith and Arel are on to
something. The meme governing cryonics is both occupied and well
defended. They CAN'T respond. They aren't ABLE to THINK about it.
What is there to do? Cryonicists say you can't convince people to
be frozen. I agree, totally, but one can raise awareness.
We have no alternative but to keep hammering away. The sadness of
the Oz story forces us to keep fighting. If our loved ones who
"understand" why we are cryonicists, (and supposedly have other
evidence that we are not crazy), can't see cryonics for themselves,
we still have an enormous task ahead with the general public.
Ideas like nanotechnology and longevity "soften the ground" for
cryonics and bless Ralph Merkle for putting in the effort when his
reward to date is so slight.
But there are reasons beyond today's logical "revival" scenarios
that suggest that cryonics will catch on. The growth rates are surely
valid and don't seem to be subject to the stagnation of the '70's and
early 80's. Hopefully, we have reached a "critical mass" in that
department.
But most important to me, belief in a genetic cryonics brings a
correlative belief that there is an undiscovered core membership who,
like me last September, didn't know anything was being done or how to
help. (Am I helping yet, Carlos?)
It's the core membership, that by genetic definition must exist,
that I'm trying to reach by working with the media here in New York.
If that core is 1/100th of 1% of humans, that's about 500,000
members. If it's 1/10th of 1%, that's 5,000,000 members. Anyway,
although it's statistically possible, I'm sure the number isn't 300.
The wonderful thing about the genetic membership is that it doesn't
need its "meme" changed. Normal positive awareness techniques would
suffice, just as they do in selling soap or cornflakes. I'd love to
see what Hill & Knowlton, the giant PR firm, in conjunction with
Ogilvy & Mather, could do with cryonics.
I hear repeatedly that "people know about cryonics". This is
generally true and specifically false. What people "know" is Walt
Disney, a little Thomas Donaldson and Dora Kent, a lot of bad SciFi
and several sensation seeking talk shows. You are part of the public,
is this what you "know" about cryonics?
Does the public "know" about the many wonderful, dedicated, and
"normal" people that are cryonicists? Does the public know how much
we all put up with to try to save their (and our own) miserable hides?
(Do women know about all the intelligent, attractive and over-achieving
men in cryonics? Ahem. Obviously, NOT!)
This too long message leads me to my usual campaign platform, again.
It's not the inevitability of the acceptance of cryonics, it's how we
are proceeding, now, that most concerns me.
Since Dora Kent, research money has basically stopped being provided
in cryonics. We have to find a way to move forward faster on this
front. With each measured success, building on another measured success,
funds will again become available.
Ralph Merkle talks about envisioning the solution and working backward
toward the present's growing progress, for an eventual meeting somewhere
in the middle. We are not carrying our share of the load on our end.
We must find a way, genetic defects or no.
By best as always,
Mike Paulle
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