X-Message-Number: 26638
References: <>
From: David Stodolsky <>
Subject: Re: Chemopreservation
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2005 22:25:45 +0200

On 16 Jul 2005, at 08:23, Mike Perry wrote:

> The idea of a survey to gauge public interest
> before committing oneself to an actual operation sounds good,  
> though it is
> my feeling that something should be done even if little interest is  
> shown;
>

Results of a survey would not only measure interest, but would also  
indicate what approach should be taken in marketing. It could also  
serve as part of a marketing effort. The interviewed person would be  
asked which option they found most acceptable and then mailed a sign  
up form based upon that information. It could be stipulated that the  
contract would only come into effect when the number of sign ups  
reached a certain magnitude. Return of signed forms would indicate  
whether the responses were reliable and could also be used to  
determine the effect of supporting materials included with the forms.  
These could again access the acceptability dimensions and could  
include a much more extensive questionnaire (this might be best done  
on a web page or with that available as an option.)

A survey would also be able to throw light on the question of social  
vs physical acceptability as crucial for new sign ups. On the social  
acceptability dimension, we could have responses to different methods  
of achieving the same objective, getting the brain stabilized.  
Probably the most acceptable is to have the brain removed by a  
hospital pathologist and then either kept there or shipped to a  
university associated brain bank (see cryonics.info). The other end  
of the dimension could be to have the body washed out at a funeral  
home and sent to Alcor for a neuro.

It could be useful to disentangle individual vs group acceptability.  
For example, in considering suicide the effect of the action on the  
individuals' significant others has been found to be an independent  
dimension from the assumed impact on the self. Thus, each option  
could be judged as acceptable to both the person and significant others.

A second aspect of social acceptability could be financial  
arrangements. These could range from free, or even cash compensation  
to the family, to prepaid plus membership in a cryonics organization.

Physical acceptability could include options such as fixation,  
plastinization, freeze drying, freezing, and vitrification. Each one  
could be described as how likely revival would be and when it was  
likely to take place. This yields two dimensions, which also could be  
considered in terms of acceptability to the individual and group. The  
range would go from no chance of revival to full memory restored.  
Even a total loss of memory could be an acceptable solution. For  
example, in the case of an infant death, the parents might be  
perfectly happy with a clone. Of course, there is little memory to be  
lost, in this case (This is the CloneAid option, promoted by the  
Realians among others).

So,  it looks like we need the following factors:

Social acceptability:
: organizations involved in preparation
: organizations involved in storage (includes display, benefit to  
science, etc.)
: financial impact (this might also be considered a dependent variable)

Physical acceptability:
: chance of revival
: likely time of revival
: biological vs physiological preservation

Reference group:
: self, significant others, society, human race, all intelligent life
: age, sex, social class, income, racial identification, political  
id, organizational memberships, etc.

(These need to be refined. Probably a look at the pervious work on  
acceptability of cryonics and of how and when people come to terms  
with death would be useful.)

Dependent variables:
: acceptability score for each option to each reference group,  
including self
: opt-in to mailing list
: agreement to sign up

with follow up:
: response to sign up forms
: input to web site questionnaire
: participation in discussion on web
: refers others?


In the simplest case, the design would include four factors  
(organization acceptability, financial acceptability, chance of  
revival, reference group) and one dependent (sign up). The  
independent variables could have two levels each.  Remaining  
variables, such as age, etc. could treated as covariates. Thus, we  
would have a factorial design with 2x2x2x2 levels = 16 cells. With a  
within-subject design, each person would be required to rate  
acceptability of 16 situations. Responses could be on a scale;  
definitely sign up, very likely, somewhat likely, somewhat unlikely,  
etc.

There would likely be presentation order effects, both in terms of  
which cell was presented first, and which factor and level was  
presented first within a cell. These could be controlled for with a  
more sophisticated design and larger sample. In the simplest case,  
there would be four factors to start a description, each with two  
levels, and 16 cells. Thus, 4x2x16 = 128 groups. With 5 persons in  
each group, the survey would require 640 interviews.

These simplifications are pretty drastic. It would be best to work  
from a theory, which would suggest what factors and levels of each  
would be most likely to have an influence. For example, terror  
management theory suggests that "chance of revival" would be the most  
important, if it was first in a description, and that it would most  
strongly impact financial acceptability.


dss



David Stodolsky    Skype: davidstodolsky

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