X-Message-Number: 10072 From: Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 21:30:43 -0500 (CDT) Subject: The Big Picture, at least as I see it now. I like flow charts. Like many pictoral devices, flow charts can clarify steps and streams of events or actions. I envision one flow chart entitled "Achievement of Successful Resuscitation of Human Cryonic Suspension". Meanwhile, here we are on this end at the beginning of the flowchart in the present having debates about what are the steps and sequencing of steps to go from where we are, to that final step on the "Achievement" flow chart. Does anyone disagree that somewhere along the way there is going to need to be sufficient research to find the ways to accomplish "Achievement"? Don't think so. But the question might be better posed regarding how much time and effort (and therefor money) needs to be applied to research to do the job. Yet this is unknown and remains only speculation. We can't know at this end how much will be required. However would everyone agree that the more money (= time and effort) that is applied to the task, the more likely it is we will get the job done? Now I am aware of efforts to attempt to gather commitment from currently involved members of the relatively small cryonics community to promote research directly. And it will either be enough to do the job or not. But if the number of individuals personally commited to cryonics were ten times greater, then the pool of money would be overall potentially greater. Or if it were 100 times, so too the quantity of funds. Any disagreement here? Didn't think so. Currently the movement grows steadily (if I understand the figures over the last few years correctly). If we continue, slow and steady, it is clear that the quantity of funds will eventually rise to the needed level (which is, remember, an unknown) to fund the amount of research to accomplish "Achievement" unless it is "impossible", of course. But none of us can *ever* know if it is literally "impossible", so this issue is a dead-end and not on the flowchart). Why will more members make a difference? Because of Cognitive Dissonance. Psychologist Leon Fesstinger demonstrated many years ago how people generally form their beliefs based first upon behaviors (choices) made and then generated "reasons" after the fact (rationalizing). I am well aware of how many extremely bright intellectuals will find it difficult to understand why most other people believe what they do in the face of clear, factual information to the contrary. However, the fact of *this* matter is that people seldom use an untainted process of clear reason to arrive at their convictions. They are more usually drawn into behaving (often at first in small ways) in manners in harmony with the beliefs they then come to adopt as their own. Once at that stage, confabulation rules supreme. (For direct examples, ask materialist atheists who do not support cryonics why they feel that way. They don't make a lot of sense, do they?). What does this have to do with this flow chart to "Achievement"? In my opinion, just about everything. MAYBE if we devote our current meager resources as a small group 100% to ongoing research we will get to "Achievement". MAYBE it is out of reach at our level. But MAYBE, when we gather enough members, then that needed level will be more easily achieved. So I can imagine one part of the flow chart which is devoted to leveraging what we know to be true about human psychology to attract members faster. The key? Well, not to disparage my more learned elder fellow cryonicists who are already a part of the scientific establishment, but it seems to me that those who have been exposed to your rational arguments in favor of cryonics have been tapped out. If they were going to join based on your approach, they already did. In other words, "they" are YOU. Granted, if you can somehow legitimize cryonics in the opinion of the mainstream scientific community, the masses will laugh less loudly and come to treat it more seriously. But how long will this take? As I have discussed in earlier posts, the human animal (scientists too) have a dogged determination to prove that their views are right, generally to the grave hence the truth of the words "dead right"). I think it is worth while to try to win over the scientific community, I just personally doubt it can happen before it no longer requires their acceptance (in other words, *after* the Wright brothers were flying, it *then* became acceptable to consider heavier than air flight as feasible). And let me venture a guess. If you have enough money, you can buy the people you need to do the research desired? Even if the establishment doesn't "approve"? For the rest of the human population (what percentage might that be? 99.9%?), the proven path of sales psychology (as pioneered by Fesstinger and others) is what has been demonstrated to work. (Just turn on your television and look). Once someone joins, they will support the movement for precisely the same psychological reasons a new Republican, a new non-smoker, a new Roman Catholic will be the strongest advocate of the group he or she has just commited to. That's not a problem. The real starting point for this sequence on the flow chart seems to me to be what professional salespeople call "closing", getting the prospect to make the decision to buy. And this, according to the experts in that field, remains an issue of emotional desire, not reason (as I have discussed before as well). Successful selling requires a willingness to acknowledge the truth about why human beings act the way they do (and an equal willingness to drop our personal beliefs if these clash with what works). People buy all kinds of expensive nonsense every day, every minute. Why the hell do people need sportscars that can go 200 mph when there is no safe nor legal place to drive that fast? But look at all those sportscars people keep buying! And if you don't like my example, go find ten more out there in the next five minutes. No, let's be fair. Find at least twenty. In sales, you either get results or excuses. If we want the cryonics movement to continue to grow and grow exponentially, if we want the best shot at having the necessary money to fund the requisite research to reach "Achievement", we need more membership results. We need solid emotional appeals lined up and in place to use in discussing cryonics with potential members. If the very people most intellectuals hold beneath contempt, the millions who buy and believe the National Enquirer at grocery stands every week, if even a fraction of these average folk were to be given effective emotional appeals to consider cryonics NOT FOR THEMSELVES but for those they love and care for, we would have more results. It is very dignified to remain intellectually aloof from the methods which are most effective in terms of motivating human beings. It is emotionally risky to reach out to even a close friend or family member and tell them you fear for their life. The risk of rejection, however, is the price paid by any successful sales effort. If someone doesn't buy into cryonics, don't blame him. Don't blame your lack of "proof". Don't blame the testimonials you don't have from the scientific establishment. These are only excuses. Go for results. Go for emotions. -George Smith Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10072