X-Message-Number: 6723
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 02:54:18 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: Research vs. Publicity

Robert Ettinger suggested:

> 3. Instead of spending the money on research  directly, spend it on cryonics
> public relations and recruitment. No organization has ever had that kind of
> money for that purpose, and in my opinion it is NEARLY CERTAIN that our
> membership, and our patient population, would grow much more rapidly. 

This is the same optimistic hope that has sustained cryonics since its
beginning; i.e. "get as much publicity as possible to attract more members
so there will be more money for research in the future." 

At this point I think there is ample evidence to show that this is nothing
more than wishful thinking. 

1. Cryonics has had HUGE amounts of publicity during the past 30 years,
including appearances by Mr. Ettinger himself on nationally networked talk
shows. My own modest contribution, the "Omni Immortality Contest," 
reached the OPTIMUM target audience of more than 300,000 magazine readers
interested in science and pseudoscience, and offered a FREE freeze to the
writer of a winning essay. Despite nationwide publicity, fewer than 500
people bothered to enter the contest. But this should not be surprising,
since all the vast amounts of cryo-publicity over the past thirty years
have attracted fewer than 1,000 cryonics organization members, total,
worldwide. If publicity hasn't worked during three decades, why should
more publicity work better? 

2. The growth curve for cryonics memberships didn't turn significantly
upward till Drexler gave us the concept of nanotechnology, which offered
the first rational hope of cell repair. Therefore, publicity wasn't the
key factor catalyzing growth in the 1980s; technical plausibility was more
important as an attractor. 

Let's suppose, though, that Mr. Ettinger is right, and we may be able to
attract more people to cryonics. This raises an immediate question: why
bother? If sufficient money can be raised to finance reversible brain
cryopreservation research RIGHT NOW, isn't this more important? 

Mr. Ettinger evidently doesn't think so. Therefore, bearing in mind that
he is not a young man, I have to conclude that he isn't worried by the
prospect of dying before reversible brain cryopreservation is perfected.
This in turn must mean he feels sanguine about cryonics procedures
currently being used. 

So, surely this is the real issue. People who are satisfied with the
status-quo in cryonics see no need for the Prometheus Project, because
they don't feel that their lives are endangered. Others (such as myself),
who are painfully aware of the damage caused even by state-of-the-art
cooldown and perfusion, *do* feel personally threatened and are therefore
quite impatient to see the research accomplished. 

This is a difference of opinion rooted in very personal estimations of
mortality risk. Would it be more appropriate to express it this way,
rather than wrap it in an argument that purports to be objective and
detached? 

--Charles Platt

(My own opinions, not necessarily CryoCare's.)


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