X-Message-Number: 5171 Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 21:04:16 +0100 (MET) From: Eugene Leitl <> Subject: kraut kryonix, yet again. I'd like to report what has been going one in Germany on behalf of cryonics (precious little, alas) and to pose some questions to the cryocognoscenti in here. 1. The situation. In a certain fashion, current teutocryonic situation seem to resemble those of the U.S. some 20 years ago: very few interested individuals of diverse background, sparsely distributed throughout the country (not that we have that much country to speak of ;) There are some differences, though. For one I vastly understimated the sheer numbers of those _not_ interested in cryonics. The number of active requests for further information directed to the natural target Klaus Reinhard, the single known german cryonist, was infinitesimal (some 10 requests), in spite of thorough (not even consistently hostile) recent media coverage. There has been noticeable hostility in wide circles of public, however. (In fact, I have been unable to elicit not one single wholly positive reaction towards cryonics from those several persons that I approached (I did not beset them like a charging bull, mind)). I had been waiting for some time for some leader personage, perhaps in the person of Klaus, to step forth and become a crystallization nucleus of local cryonics movement. This has not happened. After having contacted Klaus (who happens to be an uploader ;), the picture instantly became clearer, albeit gloomier: e.g. in the region of Munich, where I live, only 3 persons have shown interest so far. My estimation would have been at least 20-30. In the whole of Germany only 2 (sic) cryonicists have access to email. 2. What to do? Obviously, we have a classical bootstrapping problem: we are to few to start things going and we will remain below the visibility horizon unless a certain critical mass has been achieved. My plan is to start the local mobilization of potential clientele. Particularly, since email allows massive mailings at virtually no expense apart from hitting exactly the right kind of target group: young, dynamic, with above-average income or at least imminent prospects of the latter (students). Furthermore, a home page with basic links/mirrors (oversea bandwidth often sucks atrociously) and a growing body of documents in krautspeak. Particularly, a FAQ settling typical questions artefacted by local mindset (these have to be identified first). Possibly, implementation of a mailing list. By strategical positioning of leaflets on blackboards and ads in local papers offering information. To initiate local enthusiast group meetings. To kick off a skeletal rapid response team, equip it with pagers, minimal hardware and training. To explore potential legal difficulties. Almost all of above was intended to be noncommercial. However, since I was contacted by one Michael Dettman, who has been characterized as a man of some means and, obviously, commercial intent I have grown unsure what the optimal strategy might be. It is quite clear, that the long-range temporal development should roughly look like: a) assessing the potential/enthusiast gathering b) early PR phase c) (legal) interface to the U.S. providers implementation d) rapid response team formation e) adding further stages to service pipeline f) becoming full service provider and integration into world cryonic net. 3. A Request for help. So what I would like to know is: - which flaws above plan sketch has (apart from being terribly ambitious): Too much? Too little? Unnecessary stuff? Something essential forgotten? Which mistakes should we certainly try to avoid? - what the right amount of commercialism has to be (not to starve out the means yet not to unnecessarily inhibit the growth (hopefully, there will be any))? - what the rapid response team should look (persons? training? equipment? communication? - and please remember: we're still in praecambrium stage) - a very very primitive stripped-down rapid response procedere, which must very minimal in the beginning (Instruments? Proceedings? Solutions? Containers? Protective gear? Cryoagents?) - lots of others things I forgot Thank you very much for your efforts, -- Eugene Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5171