X-Message-Number: 8801
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 09:01:08 -0800
From: Marty Nemko <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #8792 - #8800
References: <>

Thomas Donaldson wisely asks us to think of all the reasons why people 
object to signing up.  It's a great early step to crafting a 
strategic marketing plan--and yes, as uncomfortable as that term may 
sound, that's what we need: a strategic marketing plan.

  The objections previously cited in this cryonet discussion are:

1.  unwillingness to face death

2.  the person's traditional-length lifespan is painful enough.) (This 
often is a legitimate objection.  Some people, not because of luck, but 
because of limitations in their intellect and personality, have a hard 
time doing more than surviving in this world.  I suppose I could 
understand why they wouldn't want to live forever.)

3.  they don't believe cryonics will ever work.

4. fear of social isolation upon reanimation.

5. fear of social isolation now (They fear they'd be viewed as kooks.)

I would like to add another reason why people don't sign up for 
cryonics:
That to spend so much money on something with a low probability of 
working is SELFISH.  They say or think, "That money could be much better 
used. For example, the money could be passed on to the person's family 
or donated to a charity where there is a high probability that some 
benefit will derive from that money.

Here's a rather graphic presentation of this objection:  "It's hubristic 
of you to think that your life is so damned valuable that you're willing 
to spend so much money that could be so much better spent than on a 
long-shot that you've be revived.  Even if you do get revived, your 
brain will probably be fried and/or you'll be in pain and/or they'll 
make you a slave or put you in a zoo.  All when you could simply have 
donated the money to a good charity that would guarantee that people who 
are starving could get something to eat."  Anyone care to try to counter 
that objection?

A variation on the selfishness objection: it contributes to the 
overpopulation problem.

Long life,
Marty Nemko

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