X-Message-Number: 7221 Date: Tue, 26 Nov 1996 10:44:19 +0000 From: Jay Prime Positive <> Subject: How I got "recruited" >Message #7194 >Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 05:47:06 -0800 (PST) >From: Joseph Strout <> >Subject: How I got "recruited" > >Randy wrote: > >> Maybe I'm wrong, but haven't most people been recruited into cryonics >> through a friend/acquaintance? Is that venue actually more numerically >> successful than media publicity? > >I can only speak for myself, but perhaps it will be illustrative My history is a little bit different. After reading "Engines of Creation" recomended to me by some Extropians, and after talking to some real live folks involved in cryonics (more than once), I decided that I should sign up. Two (three?) years later I finished the project. "Engines of Creation" convinced me that a technology to repair cryonics patients was concievable. The Extropians convinced me that the future would be interesting enough to be worth geting to. An interesting note -- About a year before meeting some real live cryonicists, I recieved a very slick letter from one of the main cryonics organizations. It felt so slick, and sales oriented, that I decided it must be a rip off. One of the foremost questions in my mind was "Why does a cryonics organization need to have the 'beautiful' face of a woman on their literature?" Thus I think I would have been turned *off* by the Omni thing if I hadn't already been signed up. "Why do they need to offer give-aways and contests to get folks interested in their product?" might run through my mind. (I don't claim to be typical, but until we have some representative surveys, anecdotes will have to do.) The thing that most impressed me with the organization I did eventually join (Alcor) was their total openness about the process of suspension as it is actually happens. Not idealized versions, but actual examples with warts and all. Perhaps if one of the others (CI or TransTime et al.) had been more local, or had more folks active in the Los Angeles area (where I was when I signed up) I would have eventually signed up with them. I bet that had I lived in San Francisco area my decision would have been harder. >Now, several years later, I am finally in the process of making >arrangements (though I had underestimated what a chore this would be!). >It has been a very gradual acceptance process. So too with me. I first heard of the "crazy practice of freezing dead bodies instead of burrying them" when I was much younger (say about 16 or so). But didn't get signed up till I was about 29. >I wonder how other newcomers came to be involved? I am now 33, I signed up when I was about 29. Does 4 year old member- ship count as a "newcomer"? General media coverage had a negative influence, a book had a positive influence, a sales brochure had a negative influence, and people had an overwheling positive influence. j' -- O I am Jay Prime Positive Freelance programming, 3508 25th St. Ct. NW, Gig Harbor WA, 98335 design, and instruction email: , in C/C++, Java, HTML for voice mail: 1 206 858 3406, 1 310 535 3308 Dos and Windows(3.x, 95) Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7221