X-Message-Number: 9583
Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 08:48:00 -0700
From: "Joseph J. Strout" <>
Subject: Why folks don't sign up

Saul Kent asks us (in Message #9576) what we think is the #1 reason people
don't sign up, and our evidence for thinking so.  So I'll present my
experience, limited though it is.  My wife and I are signing up.  We've
explained this to our parents, who are in their late 40s.  Both of my
wife's parents have read Jim's "The First Immortal," and my parents have
read most of my articles on mind uploading.  All four parents say they
understand our decision, and when we ask, they admit that it will probably
work.  But they don't want it for themselves.

Now, we haven't been able to pin down exactly why this is, but they simply
won't consider it for themselves.  Their minds are completely closed to the
idea; even hinting at the possibility of considering it runs immediately
into a thick wall.  Yet I really do believe that they think it will work,
mainly because we say so; we are more educated than our parents in
scientific and technical things, and they respect and trust our opinion on
such matters.

I also believe that our parents are fairly typical.  All have some college
education, though my parents did not finish their degrees until a few years
ago (by night school).  They have typical middle-class jobs, except for my
father-in-law, who is a high-level corporate manager.  My inlaws are
practicing Catholics, and my parents are nonpracticing Methodists.  Nothing
unusual here.

If I had to guess, I suspect that the reason they don't sign up is mainly
that they couldn't face the derisive opinions of their peers.  They want to
fit in with their friends and neighbors, and to sign up for cryonics would
clearly mark them as different.  (Note that it's much easier for my wife
and me, who are in a university environment, and in California no less --
*everybody* is different here!)  I also wonder whether it is too painful to
seriously consider that death is inevitable, given that they have all lost
loved ones -- rather recently, in the case of my parents.  In that case,
they are using a sort of doublethink when they say (honestly) that they
think it will work for us.

I think these attitudes will continue; among the average middle-age,
middle-class Americans, nobody will sign up until everybody else is signing
up.  In that case, there's nothing for it but to start at the top, and
allow the effect to trickle down from the authorities, to the early
adopters, and finally to mainstream America, as Charles Platt described.
That implies (again) that what we really need is good research that reaches
(and convinces) mainstream scientists.

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
|    Joseph J. Strout           Department of Neuroscience, UCSD   |
|                 http://www.strout.net              |
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