X-Message-Number: 9648
Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 04:01:24 -0400
From: Saul Kent <>
Subject: Why Research Is The Key To Growth In Cryonics
A number of people have posted messages
in response to my essay--The Failure Of The Cryonics
Movement--in which they stated their opinion that there
are reasons other than the perception that cryonics
doesn't work to explain why people don't sign up for
cryonics.
I agree that there are *many* other reasons
to explain why people don't sign up. Over the years,
I've probably thought about (and attempted to over-
come) these other reasons as much as anyone in the
movement. In this post, I'd like to explain better why,
after all these years of experience and thought, I've
come to the conclusion that research to improve
cryonics methods is the key to the growth of the
cryonics movement.
To start with, I'd like to introduce the concept
that aging is the major cause of death in modern society,
even though it is never listed on death certificates. The
reason aging is the number one cause of death in the U.S.
and other developed countries is because it is the process
by which we die.
When we are young, we have a strong, vital
immune system that fights off diseases; a strong, unclog-
ged cardiovascular system that functions quite well; healthy
kidneys and lungs and a healthy liver that filter and detoxify
dangerous chemicals in our food, water and air; strong and
vigorous bones and muscles; and a smoothly functioning
neuroendocrine system that maintains homeostatic control
over reproductive and sexual function, blood pressure,
blood glucose, temperature, coordination and other vital
physiologic functions.
As we grow older, however, *all* of these systems (and
others) break down progressively, which continuously increases
our risk of lethal diseases such as cancer, heart disease, stroke,
diabetes, arthritis, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.
As a result, our chances of becoming afflicted with one or more
of these killers goes up precipitously with advancing age.
A simple way of visualizing how aging causes us to die
is to imagine that we are playing chess with death, as depicted in
Ingemar Bergman's classic movie, The Seventh Seal. In Bergman's
movie, the protagonist, a knight at the time of the plague (played by
Max Von Sydow) is confronted by death (a forbidding man in a cape)
who has come to claim him. The knight bargains with death, who
agrees to play chess with him for his life. If the knight beats death at
chess, he will be spared; if not, he will die.
The problem is that the knight is an amateur chess player,
while death has never lost a match. This soon becomes apparent as
the knight loses piece after piece in his struggle to survive. At one
point,
the knight tries to gain a reprieve by "accidentally" knocking over the
chess board and scattering the pieces. But death then informs him that
he remembers *exactly* where the pieces were, and the game continues.
One way of seeing aging is as the consummate chess
player, who, with the passage of time, takes away your pieces, one by
one, gradually increasing your risk of losing the game, until, finally,
you're faced with checkmate, or loss of your life. In this context,
aging is the major cause of death in the modern world because
(except for those who die young), aging is responsible for removing
our chess pieces until we are checkmated (Cryonics is a method
of suspending the game until some future time when it may become
possible for us to beat death).
Another way of looking at our fate is the Russian Roulette
model of life. As you probably know, Russian Roulette is a game, in
which the player has to put a gun to his head, which contains all blanks,
except for one chamber, which has a live bullet in it. The player than
twirls the chambers, puts the gun to his head, and pulls the trigger. If
he
avoids the chamber with the live bullet, he survives; if not, he dies.
According to this model, we have a gun pointed constantly
at our heads, which is programmed to go off every day. When we're
young, we have a great many empty chambers, which makes it highly
unlikely that we'll be shot with the live bullet when the gun goes off.
As we grow older, however, we progessively lose blank chambers,
and our odds of avoiding the live bullet get worse and worse, until,
one day, we get hit with the live bullet and we die. In this context,
aging is our major cause of death because it is responsible for
reducing our odds of survival.
Just as aging is the major cause of death in modern
society, so, I believe, is the poor quality of our cryonics methods
the major cause of lack of growth in the cryonics movement. And,
just as scientific control of aging is the ultimate answer to the problem
of death, so, I believe, is research leading to a better (and, eventually,
perfected) product the key to spurring accelerated growth in the
cryonics movement.
To better understand why I belive this to be so, let's take
a look at some of the major reasons that keep people from signing
up for cryonics, other than the quality of the product. Some of the
most common reasons why people don't sign up are related to the
social environment they live in. To those who populate mainstream
society, cryonics is an odd little outpost on the fringes of society.
Cryonics is *not* recognized as an authentic, credible
practice by the scientific community, the medical community, the law
(and the legal profession), government, education, or the media.
Some people think cryonics is fascinating, but few of those ever
sign up. Others think it is weird or outrageous. And still others
think it's a cult, a religion or a fraud.
As a result, many people who are interested in cryonics
to some degree, and might otherwise sign up, do not do so because
they don't want to be identified as the member of a fringe group. They
don't want people to laugh at them, tell them they're crazy, or fight with =
them over the money required to be a signed-up member.
When a scientist looks at cryonics, he soon finds that
virtually none of his colleagues think it's a legitimate practice.
When a physician looks at cryonics, he sees a practice that other
doctors scoff at. When a religious person looks at cryonics, he
sees a practice that appears to be in conflict with the teachings of
his church or synogogue. When a business man looks at cryonics,
he sees a practice without a market that the "authorities" dismiss.
When members of the general public look at cryonics, they see a
practice without credibility of any kind that is costly, time-consuming,
and a potential source of conflict with their loved ones.
In the context of such an alien environment, the only *easy*
sales we have for cryonics are people who feel very strongly about
staying alive, who understand and appreciate the concept of cryonics,
who don't care about the lack of credibility of cryonics, who care
little or nothing about what other people say or think, and who are
willing to go out of their way to go through the complex legal and
financial steps necessary to sign up.
I think 33 years of experience has shown us that such
people are truly few and far between, and that, in order to foster real
growth in the movement, we need to sign up people who are con-
strained to one degree or another by the negative attitudes towards
cryonics in society.
Let's take a look at how we try to sell cryonics to people
who are reluctant to sign up because of their fears of being associated
with an uncredentialed, unorthodox, unsuccessful, fringe group at the
outer limits of society.
The first thing we do is to try to do is address these fears and
concerns in our literature or on our web sites. Such an approach can be
successful in convincing people of the logic and rationality of cryonics,
but is unlikely to work when we're dealing with the complex emotional
and psychological issues that underlie the reluctance of people to sign
up.
Ultimately, the only way we can make sales to reluctant
customers is through personal contact. And so we meet potential
members one-on-one, in groups, or we invite them to mingle with us at
parties or at conferences. In these personal meetings, we try to sell them
on the fact that, by joining cryonics, they'll become part of a sensible
group of intelligent, interesting, nice people, and that by joining us, it =
will be a satisfying replacement for any ridicule, embarrassment,
derision, hostility or ostracism they'll face in mainstream society.
Sometimes our efforts to sell people in this fashion work,
but often they do not because the hurdles we have to overcome are
too great. And so, we continue to pound away at prospects, month
after month, year after year...hoping to overcome their resistance
=2E..hoping to break down the final barrier to their commitment...hoping
to convince yet another sheep to leave his large, white and fleecy
flock for our small ornery flock of black sheep.
The problem is that every sale in cryonics--beyond the
handful of people who *don't* have to be sold--requires a one-on-one
effort (sometimes a ten-on-one effort) against considerable odds.
Every new prospect has to be sold individually. When we finally
close a sale with one person, we have to start from scratch with
the next...and so on and so on. It's truly a difficult and painstakingly =
slow process!
The reason research can pave the way for sales is
that it attacks the root cause of the negative attitudes about
cryonics in society, just as therapies to control aging attack the
underlying cause of death.
By making scientific advances through research,
and by then using establishment megaphones such as science
and medical journals, meetings and conferences to communicate
our findings to the outside world, we'll begin to break down the basis
for the negativity concerning cryonics among scientists, physicians,
the media and the general public. By publishing hard evidence, in
the form of electron micrographs and other data showing that our
methods truly preserve ultrastructure in the brain and other organs,
we'll build a growing, ever more impressive scientific portfolio for the
value of cryonics. By demonstrating the reversibility of our cryo-
preservation techniques in increasing numbers of tissue and organ
systems, we'll build a stronger and stronger case for cryonics.
In producing scientific data to sway the attitudes of
mainstream scientists towards cryonics, we'll be helped immensely
by the fact that our findings will be brought to the scientific community,
in part by mainstream scientists working with us. In working with and
affiliating ourselves with mainstream scientists, we'll be attacking the
barriers to the credibility of cryonics from within as well as from the
outside, much as we can do a better job in cryopreserving a patient
by cooling internally as well as externally.
Our scientific successes will be aided immensely by our
success in generating revenues and attracting investors from main-
stream financial sources. When (and if) 21st Century Medicine (21CM)
becomes a successful public company, it will signal an unprecedented
degree of acceptance of and credibility for cryonics that will resonate
throughout society.
At this point, I believe we'll see generalized weakening of
the resistance to cryonics among many people for whom the stigma
associated with the idea will disappear. This will lead to an increasing
number of people who *don't* have to be sold on cryonics, as well as
a substantial lessening of the burden of selling those prospects who
still have to be sold.
It will also make financial sense by then to mount a well-
financed marketing campaign to sell cryonics, with reasonable expecta-
tions of a cost effective yield of new members per dollar spent. The
resulting growth of the movement from such a campaign will lead to
more research, more scientific advances, more credibility for cryonics,
and accelerated growth for the cryonics movement.
Another major benefit of this plan of action, of course, will
be that the development of an increasingly better product will
progessively improve our chances of survival. The better we're
preserved, the easier and faster it will be possible to revive us,
and the more affordable revival will be.
That, in a nutshell, is my plan, and the rationale for it.
---Saul Kent, CEO
21st Century Medicine
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