X-Message-Number: 745
Date: 17 Apr 92 03:53:44 EDT
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: Re: cryonics: #737 - #739

Hi. Me again.
A few comments on Mike Paulle's discussion of memetics as it relates
to cryonics:
First, one point I would draw from the calculations about the exponential
growth in the number of cryonicists is that THERE WAS NO PERIOD OF
STAGNATION. It is simply that increasing the number 10 by 40% yields 14,
still hardly a large number of members. People have been working on the
job of making our ideas spread for a long time: its just that as a result
of that work there are now more people working, and hence (as we'd expect)
more people signing on.

All theories of memetics aside (I think memetics is too crude to say much
about the spread of ideas in general), relative to the total population of
the Earth or of the US, very little energy has gone into explaining 
cryonics. Sure, relative to the 300 people now involved, a GREAT DEAL of
energy has been expended: but that just isn't the measure to use. We may
face no special resistance at all --- just inertia. I know that may not
comfort many people, who would like to think that ideas spread without 
any energy devoted to their spread, but that doesn't seem to be true.

I have thought for some time that history provides some analogies, when
correctly seen. True, we see around us many movements and ideas which 
CLAIM to be "new", "forward-thinking", etc etc, and at the same time have
millions of adherents. It is their claim to novelty that is false. Look
at the idea that women should have equal rights with men. Now this is a
widespread idea. But its history goes back way into the 18th Century,
when it was very far from widespread, with a number of known adherents 
we can count on one hand. Various "radical" political and social views,
many of which we all first meet when we go to college, are really much 
the same. They have been around for 200 years at least. They are not 
"new" in any historical sense, they are just minority views. REALLY new
ideas take some time to spread: not because of any SPECIAL problems
people have, but simply because the number of their adherents does not
increase faster than exponentially, and an exponential increase from a
base of (say) 10 will take a long long time to become any large percent
of the population.

I think as cryonicists we have some right to be unhappy about this 
situation, but still that doesn't mean that our situation is all that
unusual, historically speaking. And I'm certainly not saying that we
should not work to spread the ideas of cryonics. It's just that some 
things are possible and others are not: instant conversion only happens
after a long, invisible period of preparation. We live now in that period
of preparation, and it may help to reconcile ourselves to that fact.

		Best
				Thomas Donaldson

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