X-Message-Number: 31668
Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 05:26:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: un person <>
Subject: social driven growth vs publicity driven growth

David Stodolsky wrote:



>Your argument here assumes the conclusion. This is a logical error  
>known as assuming the consequent. If growth is driven by centralize  
>systems of publicity, it is correct. If growth is actually due to word- 
>of-mouth or other "viral" marketing effects, then it is exponential  
>and publicity events are 'noise'. For example, if each member recruits  
>another person every few years, we would see exponential growth.  
>Unaided cognition is close to useless for identifying these kinds of  
>differences. Without knowing what we should 'normally' see for growth,  
>we have no basis on which to make comparisons.



A very important distinction, and it is the difference between these two very 
different math functions that underlies cryonics optimism. Knowledge grows 
exponentially, which supports the optimistic mindset of cryonicists. Social 
driven growth is in the same family of functions, but publicity driven growth is
not.



>We have increasing amounts of evidence that the limitations to growth  
>are primarily of a social character. 


Amen to that! When it comes to growing an organization, you have to look at the 
real pros--the Democratic and GOP parties. I posted an article here on cryonet 
some months ago called THE BIG SORT (from slate.com). It showed how the GOP grew
its organization via social growth, in particular working within religious 
organizations and by using a technique whereby the recruiter is selected to 
mirror the potential recruits in certain major social and personal 
characteristics. In other words, social recruitment is best done by recruiting 
people who are like yourself, or by at least trying to be like the recruit. 


This highlights the main problem cryonics has in promoting social growth. We 
cryonicists are not like many other people. So the potential pool of social 
recruits is very small. Also, we do not generally work within religious 
organizations, which have proven to be a very fertile ground for social 
recruiting, and also because those who are religious are likely to want to live 
forever.

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