X-Message-Number: 13767
Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 17:48:18 -0500
From: david pizer <>
Subject: The failure to get reanimated - or how to be dead forever

I dissagree with Saul - just a little. Saul saw the failure of the cryonics
movement.  I don't think most of us will fail to be frozen at our legal
deaths, the problem is that we might not get reanimated in the future.

In this posting I am going to tell you what is wrong with the cryonics
movement at this time, why many people who get frozen (or are already are
frozen) may never get reanimated even though the technology will become
available someday.  And then I am going to make some suggestions on what
*you and I* can do to help.

I see technology progressing as follows:

1.	We freeze people now at a certain level of technology.
2.	The technology for cryonics  keeps getting better.
3.	At the same time the technology to freeze people gets better, the
technology to keep people healthy and alive, and to reverse aging gets better.
4.	There comes a time when we can do reversible cryonics suspensions and
around the same time, there is a technology, (I'll call it the "Youth
Pill") that becomes available and people quit dying.  They no longer feel
they need cryonics.  At least they don't want to donate their time and
energy to it for the main reward that cryonics will be there on the very
slight chance they will need it.

There comes a time when you have biological-immortal people running the
world who don't really need cyronics.  There has been the argument they
will still need it, but if I were biologically immortal - I would feel like
I need it a lot less.  And I am one of a mere 1,000 people in the world
signed up or in the process of signing up.

The question is: "At a time in the future when the world is getting very
crowded, why would anyone want to reanimate frozen dead people to take up
more room and resources?"

Let's backtrack a little.  At present, and I see no reason for all the
people in cryonics to quit in the near future, the cryonics movement at
present is carried on by people who believe that *they* are going to need
cryonic suspension some day.  The people running or working in cryonics
don't do it for the money.  They don't do it for the glory.  They do it
*only* because they believe that there is no one who will keep cryonics
available for them for the normal reasons a business keeps going - to make
a profit.  That is because no one has figured out how to make a profit
doing cryonics so far.

If I am correct (that the only reason people working in cryonics today is
because *they* are going to need it for themselves some day), and if I am
correct that people in the future will be immortal *before* they can figure
out how to renaimate the frozen dead people, then there is going to be a
time-window when no one is going to want to run a cryonics company for the
present reasons - and maybe not for other reasons either.

Let's look forward:  It is a hundred years, or so, in the future, people
are immortal. They feel they don't need cryonics so they don't want to run
a cryonics company, but the frozen dead people have not been reanimated
yet.  The problem is that there may be NO dedicated people to work in
cryonics because traditionaly the only reason people have worked in the
movement is because they felt they will need the services themselves.

So there are now only two possible reasons why someone who is alive (and
immortal themselves) might help reanimate frozen people - because they have
a loved one in suspension they want back, or because they might get money
for reanimating the patients.

My confidence in the money aspect is not very good: Not as good as
confidence in people wanting their loved ones back.  There is also the
chance that future cryonics leaders can get even more money if they can get
the frozen dead people declared unsalvagable and then get their hands on
the money trust.  So I think the patients' best hopes are for a large pool
of relatives and loved ones still alive who want to see the patients
reanimated.  (Steve Bridge did help out a lot when he made the current
Patient Care Trust - but where there is a lot of money for the benefit of
dead people, there is a lot of motivation for evil living people to become
creative.)

So as Saul pointed out in his well-thought-out article, cryonics is not
growing nearly fast enough.  Saul said he thinks the movement is near
extinction, and maybe it is if one figures that extinction means not having
enough people alive in the future (when the technology is available) that
want the patients reanimated.  If you don't believe we are near extinction,
you should at least grant that we should be doing a lot better.

Before I get to the next point, we need to all agree on one thing, and that
is growth is needed to raise the odds that the patients will get reanimated
some day.  If you don't agree with that (maybe not for my reasons but for
any reasons), don't bother reading further.  

Why is the growth rate in cryonics such a failure in the last few years?
(This may not apply to CI, I am more familiar with Alcor and CryoCare).

Three years ago, there were 408 Alcor members and 80 CryoCare members, for
a combined total of 488 "Al-Care" members.  (I have always considered Alcor
and CryoCare members in the same group as they started out as one and I
always figured they would end up as one).

Now we have 483 Alcor members and about 40 CryoCare members for a total of
about 523 "Al-Care" members, or a net gain of about 50 members in 3 years.
I think this is around 2% or 3% annual growth, a big disaster from the old
days of 30% annual growth.  If we had only kept the 30% growth rate we
would not be in such big trouble now.

So there is the problem.  Just as Saul saw it.  Our inability to attract
more members on a regular basis.  We have the greatest product ever
invented in the history of the world, immortality, and we havn't been able
to market it.

In my opinion, there are at least 4 reasons why we haven't done a good jog
marketing cryonics.

1.	We can't demonstrate that it will work.
2.	It costs too much.
3.	We have lost the earlier enthusiasm that we had in the 30% annual growth
rate        days.
4.	We don't appear to offer any real value to the world in general.  What
we really               offer is a reward for ourselves.  

If we could begin to improve in any of these 4 areas we could begin to
recapture the 30% growth rate we used to have and need to insure that the
pool of surviving relatives will be large enough to insure reanimation for
all the patients.  How can we do this?

1.	We can't demonstrate that it will work. 
For years Alcor did in-house research.  This research created interest from
members and prospects.  The members brought in more prospects when they
were excited by research and the prospects signed up when they were excited
by the research.  When Mike Darwin was running Alcor, "Cryonics" magazine
was full of excitement.  Now I use it on nights I have trouble falling asleep.

For a while it seemed like 21st Century Medicine was going to do some
exciting research FOR CRYONICS, but lately they seem to have got
side-tracked into mainstream type research for organ preservation for
transplants.  There has been the theory that "we will make some money first
on regular stuff and then use that money to do cryonics better, later."

In the meantime, the movement may dissapear from under them for lack of
excitement in cryonics research.  They may die forever - rich.

2.	Cryonics cost too much.  
At least at Alcor.  I was on the board when the present prices were
determined and I can tell everyone that they are based on fear and lack of
business sense.  This is how the present prices were determined:  All the
costs were considered.  Every cost was figured at the highest possible cost
if everything were to go wrong.  Everything was padded and then padded
again.  Then the already high price was doubled for safety.  We now have a
price that makes cryonics unaffordable for 95% of the people in the world.
And it does not have to be.  

Fair prices lead to volume.  Volume leads to more net money than gouging.
Ask Henry Ford!

If the price for a whole-body suspension were priced at $45,000, and we
cleaned up a few other problems, we would have more than a 30% membership
growth. We would begin to get more of a sound financial condition in
Alcor's operating budget than we are now.  Thirty or even fifty suspensions
a year at $45,000 each will do more for Alcor than one or none or maybe two
 suspensions a year at some way-too-high price.  And since most of the
excess from the gouge goes into the patient care fund rather than in the
operating fund where it could be used to help Alcor grow, it is even more
un-business-like.

High prices, higher than what is needed, lead to little or no suspensions,
and little or no growth.  

Alcor would make more net money doing a healthy volume at reasonable, fair
prices and doing many suspensions per year than this present crazy,
inspired-by-fear price structure.  In addition, to more net money for
Alcor, fair prices would lead to needed membership growth.
 
The only real safety for the patients is a very large amount of members who
have loved ones they want reanimated, when the technology is available.

3.	We have lost our enthusiasm.  
The present leadership at Alcor is always with a feeling of being behind,
being in trouble, afraid to try anything for fear of failure.  Needing to
catch up.  Needing to fix problems.  There is an attitude of worry, worry,
worry, where there used to be an attitude of excitement and expectation.  I
am not blaming any specific present leaders, I am blaming all the present
leaders.  But blaming is not my point. Lets not get into a blaming contest,
lets admit there are problems and then build a plan to fix them.  Not a
pie-in-the-sky, "Big Fix" plan, but a realistic plan.

We the rank and file members no longer get together and motivate each
other.  After the Cryo-Wars we became beaten up, burnt out and then beaten
down.  We need to officially put the Cryo-Wars behind us - lets shake hands
and get back to work.  There are a lot of good people still in the movement
who need to get together on a regular basis and rekindle that old
enthusiasm.  I recently attended an Alcor Board meeting (after being away
for several months).  It was attended  only by board members and staff.  It
was like attending a funeral.

Perhaps we rank and file members can make an effort at the Asilomar
Conference to begin to rekindle that old spirit of enthusiasm.  I would
like to invite everyone to drop by the room to be used by Mike Perry and
myself (I don't know the number yet) on Sunday evening at 7pm, to get
together and share some enthusiasm and ideas.  

4.	We don't offer any real value to the world as they see it.  
What I mean by that is that the outside world sees us as a bunch of selfish
persons who want something that should not be had. Or something for
ourselves but not of any value to them.  Or something they can't afford.  

Until we do the work to convince the "regular" world that biological
immortality is worthwile for *them* (and make it affordable) we will
continue to be looked at as not offering anything of value to the world in
general.  

There you have it.  We have a problem.  We need to solve it.  Otherwise we
may get frozen and never get reanimated.  

I invite your suggestions.  I can't think of anything more important that
we should be discussing at this time.

Dave Pizer

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