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


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