X-Message-Number: 7509
Date: 16 Jan 97 04:26:45 EST
From: Paul Wakfer <>
Subject: Re: Marketing Cryonics
Ben, I am the owner and operator of a long-term cryonics care storage
business which needs to have more patients if it is to be viable in the
long run. So I don't think "marketing human cryopreservation is evil
because the procedure has not been proven to work". But it really all
depends on what you mean by "marketing". Certainly, I don't think that it
is at all wrong to introduce cryonics to individuals and to help them to
signup. What I believe is wrong (but I wouldn't go so far as to say evil),
is for certain cryonics organizations (and for many individual cryonicists)
to year after year continue to say "we ought to be doing more research" and
at the same time spend the vast portion of what extra time and funds
(beyond patient and membership operations) they have on trying to reach
more new people.
My position on cryonics 'marketing' right now is that we should be
spending no time or funds on it *whatsoever*. If people come along and want
to signup, then fine, we will be happy to sign them up. But other than
that, *all* of our extra time and money should be spent on promoting
research, fund-raising for it, and actually doing it. Sure we have lots of
people in cryonics who are not able to (or wanting) to actually do the
research themselves (I am one of them). But these people can still put
their talents to good use promoting the research, fund-raising for it, and
doing many other tasks peripheral to the research (such as computer able
cryonicists doing the work for automated data collection and
perfusion/cooldown control). With all the computer experts that we have in
cryonics, I find it ridiculous that 21CM still doesn't have automated data
collection (and some automated control) for their experimental work and
BioPreservation doesn't have it for its cryopreservations.
Take yourself, for example, you are remote from any cryonics center so
you put a lot of time into trying to market cryonics to various individuals
and groups. And, yes, I understand your desire and your need to have more
signed up people in Toronto, so that they would be there to help you in
your hour of need. However, your greatest chance of needing cryonics soon
would be under circumstances where you would have some advance warning and
your remote location would not be a problem. Thus, I believe that you would
be best to just forget about that small chance that you may have a fatal
accident in Toronto. Look at me, my greatest chance of death is when I
drive 2600 miles cross country in 2 days several times a year. Think of
what a mess I would be in before any transport team reached me. My approach
is to ignore that chance and to work for the longer range benefit of my
goal of vast life extension. You have many good talents of writing,
tenacity, cryobiological knowledge, etc. that could really help in
promoting and in fund-raising for research. I would love to have you
helping with the Prometheus Project, for example. I believe that the great
deal of time and money and energy which you put into cryonics would be
better spent, in one way or another, furthering research to perfect
suspended animation.
As I see it, too many of us are too concerned with trying to make
things a *little* better, in case we might happen to deanimate soon. By
doing so, we are missing the opportunity to make things a *lot* better in
10 or 20 years from now and later, when the chances are greatest that we
will need cryopreservation.
-- Paul --
Paul Wakfer
email: phone:909-481-9620 pager:800-805-2870
HELP TO ACHIEVE - PERFECTED SUSPENDED ANIMATION WITHIN 20 YEARS!
Check out the Prometheus Project web site at URL:
http://www.prometheus-project.org/prometheus/
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