X-Message-Number: 11446
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: To Thomas Nord, and for Bob Ettinger, about increasing our numbers
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 23:32:13 +1100 (EST)

To Thomas Nord:

I am sure that my paperwork will work in Australia because there is a
cryonics society in Australia, and we've all checked it. Yes, when I
joined I also got to know some local lawyers very well, but that is in the
past.

I will say, though, that if the laws of your country (Sweden?) are
anything at all like the laws of England, the US, or Australia, you should
be able to give your money (or the money in a trust) to whomever you wish.
Sure, some people will be made unhappy by that (hardly unusual! People
are made unhappy almost every time a Will is read) but they won't be able
to do a thing.

I do not know how many people in Sweden are interested in cryonics, but
I would suggest that you do what I did years ago: find or create other
cryonicists, then get together with them to work out the legal issues
first of all. And since even in Sweden lawyers (whatever they may be
called) are unlikely to be inexpensive, you've thus found one reason for
local cryonicists to band together: so they can share the legal fees.
In the US this was done long ago, but in other countries it still needs
doing, and has to be done before ANYTHING ELSE. (Though you might set
up temporary arrangements so that if you became very ill you would be
taken out of Sweden).

The legal issue you want to settle doesn't even require much understanding
of cryonics: the only question is that of whether or not you can give
some significant part of your estate to a society you choose, rather than
your relatives or the State. 

And if I've misremembered the country where you live, just substitute it
wherever I've put Sweden. 

To Bob Ettinger: 

As you know, the question of just whom to approach when raising the idea
of cryonics has appeared again and again on Cryonet. I believe that it
keeps popping up not because the people who ask it aren't doing their
darndest to promote cryonics in other ways, but because we are still
growing very slowly by any absolute measure. In the latest Alcor PHOENIX,
for instance, 70 people (out of the 4 billion or so people on the planet
Earth) are applying for membership.

And so this bothers people (yes, if you look at it in terms of percentage
growth, it's over 15%, but that still bothers people). They look around
themselves and see all the political movements with hundreds of thousands
of adherents, even model railroad enthusiasts with thousands of members
--- and poor cryonics exists with only about 1000 members, worldwide,
total. What's so wrong with us?

Basically, so long as it's done with full understanding of how to use
statistics and ask the proper questions, such activities can't
actually hurt us. And maybe those who try to answer those questions will
eventually discover that answering them won't do as much as they hoped to
increase the number of cryonicists --- and so take up some other activity.
Just what to say to such people remains a problem, and I doubt that this
is the last time such questions will be asked (not by the same people, of
course). They MAY even find some useful answers.

As for myself, I would put the issue this way: unlike every other movement
you probably know, cryonics is RECENT. Even model railroading is at least
100 years old. Women's Lib (perhaps not under that name) existed at the
beginning of the LAST century. Political ideas have not changed that 
much for the last 100 years, at least. Conservationists also existed at
the beginning of the 20th Century and even before (long before, if you
count authors such as Thoreau). 

It is just a simple fact about how societies work that movements just
don't grow instantly, they take time. And as for percentage growth, 15% or
so is damn good. Moreover, if you get involved with cryonics now, you're
getting involved with something that one day may become very large,
encompassing a large fraction of the Earth's population: and you will be
seen as a pioneer if and when you are revived, and looked up to highly
for that reason. Even if cryonicists someday stop growing in numbers at
only 1 million, to have been among the first 1000 is a distinction. 

I give here reasons not to be emotionally bothered by the small number of
cryonicists... one reason I think there is this constant searching for
ways to find others. Still, anyone who thinks he has an idea which may
help recruiting should try to implement it --- after all, the collective
efforts of all of us is exactly how we grow. Realizing how small in
proportion to the population that we are should not make anyone give
up, but only understand just how much we can accomplish.

			Best and long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson

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