X-Message-Number: 9610
From: Ettinger <>
Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 20:51:56 EDT
Subject: Selling Vitamins & Rockets

SELLING VITAMINS & ROCKETS

Although there has not been much input from new people, it seems clear enough
that Saul Kent's essay on the "Failure of Cryonics" needs some serious
revision. 

1. Mike Perry and I have pointed out that growth in Alcor and Cryonics
Institute (the two largest organizations) has NOT stopped. In CI the growth,
always slow, has nevertheless picked up in the nineties. We are doing better
than ever. Admittedly, this isn't saying much, but we are growing and
advancing, not shrinking and retreating. 

Alcor is a difficult comparison, because of the schism and because of erratic
publicity, but there is no evidence of terminal illness--on the contrary,
plenty of vigor. If I am not mistaken, Alcor has now gained more members than
it lost to CryoCare in the schism.

I think it was Sam Clemens who said, "The reports of my death have been
greatly exaggerated."
 
2. Saul's thesis, that you can't sell something that doesn't work, is true
only in part. My own father did say that he wouldn't buy cryonics, although he
could easily have afforded it, because he wanted "a car that runs." But I am
certain that, in reality, he was just too lazy to proceed against the
resistance of his second wife.

People like Drexler and Merkle, if I remember correctly, initially rejected
cryonics because the car didn't run and didn't look like it ever would run.
But after further thought and study, they decided it probably would run after
all, and joined. This vein of ore is far from exhausted.

3.  Saul's claim that the [rotten product] is the one and only important
reason for the "failure" of cryonics is also refuted by several of the recent
messages, which have pointed out, among other things, that: (a) Few people,
when asked, give "doesn't work" as their reason for declining. (b) Many people
have the erroneous impression that it already does work, that dogs have been
revived after deep freeze, that hundreds or thousands of people are already
frozen, etc., and they still don't buy it. (c) Several messages have reminded
us that the simple weight of social and psychological inertia is  the major
obstacle. We are, after all, advocating the greatest revolution in human
history, and the fact that we are still operating, and no one has been
lynched, is testimony both to the generally improving climate of civilization
and to the power of the concept.

4. Saul noted that much of the success (such as it is) of cryonics to date has
been due to just a few people. But he illogically denied or overlooked the
converse of this--that we only NEED a relatively few unusual people to make
disproportionate strides. (Here I started to list some of the important
people, but the list began to get too long and I didn't want to leave anyone
out.) The point is that we did get those people, and we can realistically
expect more. I was impressed by some of the new, or relatively new, people at
the recent Alcor conference. All of the organizations have had "windfalls" of
one sort or another, but they were not really accidents; we earned those
windfalls, and we have earned others yet to come.

5. In insisting that the car must run, and that neither salesmanship nor
anything else can substitute for that, Saul overlooked many obvious
counterexamples. Many "products" are sold successfully  despite a total lack
of objective evidence of intrinsic value or of living up to their claims. But
beyond this, Saul completely overlooks the fact that there are whole
categories of "products" that MUST be sold strictly on the come, with no proof
that the car will run.

The moon rocket was one. Before the project was funded and made operational,
there was no assurance of success. The basic existing technology made a good
case for probable success, but there was no guarantee. Whole new devices and
materials had to be developed. Many people were against it. But the sale was
made and the car did run. (Jack Kennedy did one good thing, at least.)

For that matter, any new industrial or engineering or medical product, or
almost any investment of any kind, is initially chancy and unproven. They can
only be sold on the come. Nobody knows, going in, whether the car will run.

Closer to home, how about vitamins etc.? Kent and Faloon have done very well
(and Paul Michaels in England is coming along nicely). But the demand
(especially in Europe) is still far below what is justified by the evidence of
benefit, and has taken many years to build.  The establishment medical
advisers almost unanimously still advise, "Eat plenty of fruits and
vegetables; you don't need vitamins or supplements." So here we have an
example of a relatively well documented set of benefits, at low cost, already
being sold over the counter in large quantities--and yet inertia or passive
resistance is still massive. If vitamin sales could only grow relatively
slowly, what could one expect for cryonics? 

The answer is neither to fault the product, nor to be complacent about its
defects, but to work BOTH to improve it and to sell it as it is.

6. The effective thrust of Saul's essay--and also of several recent statements
of some of his colleagues--has been to the effect that cryonics today is a
fraud and that no one should do anything except donate or invest money in
research. I know, that was not their intention, etc etc etc. But that is bound
to be the bottom line for many readers, especially newcomers. We haven't heard
from many newcomers, but why should we? Why should they waste their time? They
peek in, see leaders saying the product stinks, and withdraw, relieved of
responsibility.

I believe 21CM and all of us will be well served if Saul will retract and
retrench. (Of course, he doesn't have to call it a retraction, just a
clarification.) He should EMPHATICALLY state that he believes people should
sign up for cryonics and contribute to the growth and progress of their
organizations in any way they can. In this context, an emphasis on research is
fine.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org 

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