X-Message-Number: 30401
From: David Stodolsky <>
Subject: The Damned: Beyond the reach of today's Cryonics Movement
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 21:05:53 +0100

Beyond the reach of today's Cryonics Movement

Abstract

There is a substantial group of people who can't be reached by the  
current methods of promoting cryonics. This reveals a defect in the  
strategies being used. The group in question comprises about a fifth  
of the population and the results may apply to a majority of  
Americans. Furthermore, it seems clear that a different marketing  
approach alone will not be adequate to reach this group. The only  
option is packaging cryonics with other benefits. Since the key to a  
solution is worldview revision, it is likely that only a collective  
solution will be feasible. That is, today's method of marketing  
cryonics to individuals will likely fail with members of this group.



Reanalysis of the Badger (1998) data:

An outliner analysis, based upon attitude and disposition questions,  
removed 73 persons.

The response closest to taking action was:
"I believe that Cryonics is an exciting idea and intend on looking  
into it further."
The combined attitude and disposition questions were highly  
significant predictors of responses on this item (F(26,417) = 20.3, p<. 
0001). About half (RSquare Adjusted = .53) of the variation in that  
response could be predicted from the those questions. A least squares  
fit found significant:

young again *
will not work *
too costly
under no circumstances. *

* p<.01 (significant results, unless marked otherwise are p<.05)

Agreement with "I'm excited about the prospect of waking up in a body  
made young again through bio  'technological advances." had a positive  
effect on agreement with the action-oriented question. (The others had  
a negative effect on action as measured by that question.) Only  
agreement with "I would feel more favorably toward the idea of  
cryonics under no circumstances." had a stronger effect on the  
response to the action-oriented question and this difference was very  
small. Thus, we can predict whether someone will express interest in  
investigating cryonics further from responses to any of the above four  
questions.

A stepwise multiple regression generated the following predictors of  
the action-oriented response (in decreasing magnitude of influence):

under no circumstances *
young again *
will not work *
mouse revived *
too selfish *
too costly
thousand signups
love life
too weird (p<.1)

These 9 items allow us to predict slightly better (RSquare Adj = .54)  
then a prediction equation including all 26 items. Thus, the  
unincluded items seem to be contributing more noise than signal, when  
we consider that the contributions of the above responses are already  
included. In any case, we can, at least, get the same results with  
only the above 9 items.

With this reduced set of items, the first accounts for almost three  
times as much variation as the remaining ones. The RSquare Adjusted  
for this item, predicting the action item, is .37, thus it alone can  
account for more than half of the effect in the prediction. This  
suggests that removing it would allow a clearer picture of the  
remaining effects.

Also, the question doesn't seem to conform to the proper pattern for a  
disposition question. This sentence doesn't indicate something that  
would change the person's attitude, such as in the sentence, "I would  
feel more favorably toward the idea of cryonics if it were cheaper."  
The justification for this section was, "Finally, a series of  
statements were presented which required participants to consider  
different conditions under which they might become favorably disposed  
toward the idea of cryonics. The purpose was to identify variables  
which may or may not be helpful in motivating individuals to give  
favorable consideration to being cryonically preserved." Therefore,  
this item is inappropriate for this section.

We repeated the above analytical steps without the item, "under no  
circumstances." Again 73 outliers were removed. Of the remainder, 69  
responded with agreement to that statement. The 27 who "strongly  
agreed" appear as outliers on the distribution for the item, "under no  
circumstances."

This group was evaluated with a nominal logistic fit with "under no  
circumstances" as the dependent variable. The following attitude and  
disposition items were significant predictors:

only hope
will not work *
too selfish
human revived *

Those who would not consider cryonics under any circumstances agreed  
less with the statement, "Being frozen is no guarantee that I will be  
revived someday, but I know my chances are zero if I am buried or  
cremated." {However, their mean score was "agree".) They agreed more  
with the statement, "Extending one's life span through Cryonics is  
unnatural, selfish, and immoral." They agreed more with the statement,  
"Cryonics doesn't interest me because I just don't think it will  
work." They disagreed with the statement, "I would feel more favorably  
toward the idea of cryonics if a human were revived."

This group, which comprised 18% of the cleaned data set, appears to  
have had their minds made up about cryonics. Even if a human were  
revived, they would not consider it further. They appear to be basing  
their view on a moral position, which supports the concept of an  
immaterial soul. It might be better to interpret their claim that  
cryonics will not work, as something that will not work for them.  
There doesn't appear to be much chance that people from this group  
will ever support cryonics. This result agrees with the finding that  
more religious individuals are less interested in cryonics.

In the uncleaned data set, 86 persons indicated agreement with the  
statement:
  "I would feel more favorably toward the idea of cryonics under no  
circumstances."
This is about 17 % of the entire data set of 517.

Since this group would not change their opinion even if a person were  
revived (the ultimate success of cryonics), it appears that they are  
beyond reach, given current approaches. Since this sample is taken  
from a group thought to be more favorable toward cryonics than the  
general public, technologically-oriented Internet users in 1998, the  
actual size of this group in the general population must be larger.   
('Participants in the study were subscribers to a weekly internet  
magazine/newsletter known as "The Tourbus"', [Badger, 1998]).

While none of the persons who stated they had more than average  
familiarity with cryonics than the general public indicated that  
nothing could change their opinion, the relationship is not strong  
(RSquare=.29, p<.0001) (this result is from the first cleaned data  
set). In any case, the problem of getting additional information to  
those not interested in cryonics seems insurmountable. Only a massive  
campaign, that would present information to the entire population  
seems to have any hope. These people will not actively seek  
information about cryonics, no matter what news they get of advances  
in suspension technology. Thus, the focus of current cryonics research  
exclusively on improving suspension technology cannot be justified by  
the hope that such improvements will lead to additional signups. At  
least, not from this group.

The group discussed here seems to be embedded in a worldview that  
excludes cryonic suspension as something to even be considered. The  
only likely way to influence them is to embed them in a worldview that  
doesn't have this restriction. It is clear that offering a new  
worldview that has suspension as a primary benefit would not attract  
to this group. If this group is to be influenced, then the new  
worldview must have some other primary benefit(s). Worldviews are  
cultural constructions associated with groups. Therefore, it seems  
clear that only a collective solution is likely to have any effect.

These results may explain why the marketing of cryonics to the general  
public has been so ineffective. The group most resistant to even  
considering cryonic suspension agreed with the statement:
  "Being frozen is no guarantee that I will be revived someday, but I  
know my chances are zero if I am buried or cremated." (However, they  
agreed less than the remainder of the respondent population.)

Considering that most Americans believe in a life after death, the  
characteristics of the above group could explain the relative lack of  
marketing success:

73 percent of respondents agree strongly or somewhat with the  
statement "I believe in life after death."



http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070807/28801_Survey:_How_50%2B_Americans_View_Afterlife.htm

Americans were more certain of a hereafter than anyone else (55%)

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/bishop_19_3.html



While the structure of the data for some responses is problematic, for  
the application of parametric statistics, sometimes used above, it is  
unlikely that there would be major revisions of the results with the  
application of other statistical methods. These results are very  
strong and they show a pattern that is easy to interpret in a  
meaningful manner. Therefore, the conclusion should be considered  
valid. However, your contribution toward the purchase of a specialized  
statistical package that could resolve any doubts will be cheerfully  
accepted. A total of $600 is needed.



Reference:

Badger, S. W., Journal of Evolution and Technology. December 1998.  
Vol. 3




dss

David Stodolsky    Skype: davidstodolsky

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