X-Message-Number: 7509 Date: 16 Jan 97 04:26:45 EST From: Paul Wakfer <> Subject: Re: Marketing Cryonics Ben, I am the owner and operator of a long-term cryonics care storage business which needs to have more patients if it is to be viable in the long run. So I don't think "marketing human cryopreservation is evil because the procedure has not been proven to work". But it really all depends on what you mean by "marketing". Certainly, I don't think that it is at all wrong to introduce cryonics to individuals and to help them to signup. What I believe is wrong (but I wouldn't go so far as to say evil), is for certain cryonics organizations (and for many individual cryonicists) to year after year continue to say "we ought to be doing more research" and at the same time spend the vast portion of what extra time and funds (beyond patient and membership operations) they have on trying to reach more new people. My position on cryonics 'marketing' right now is that we should be spending no time or funds on it *whatsoever*. If people come along and want to signup, then fine, we will be happy to sign them up. But other than that, *all* of our extra time and money should be spent on promoting research, fund-raising for it, and actually doing it. Sure we have lots of people in cryonics who are not able to (or wanting) to actually do the research themselves (I am one of them). But these people can still put their talents to good use promoting the research, fund-raising for it, and doing many other tasks peripheral to the research (such as computer able cryonicists doing the work for automated data collection and perfusion/cooldown control). With all the computer experts that we have in cryonics, I find it ridiculous that 21CM still doesn't have automated data collection (and some automated control) for their experimental work and BioPreservation doesn't have it for its cryopreservations. Take yourself, for example, you are remote from any cryonics center so you put a lot of time into trying to market cryonics to various individuals and groups. And, yes, I understand your desire and your need to have more signed up people in Toronto, so that they would be there to help you in your hour of need. However, your greatest chance of needing cryonics soon would be under circumstances where you would have some advance warning and your remote location would not be a problem. Thus, I believe that you would be best to just forget about that small chance that you may have a fatal accident in Toronto. Look at me, my greatest chance of death is when I drive 2600 miles cross country in 2 days several times a year. Think of what a mess I would be in before any transport team reached me. My approach is to ignore that chance and to work for the longer range benefit of my goal of vast life extension. You have many good talents of writing, tenacity, cryobiological knowledge, etc. that could really help in promoting and in fund-raising for research. I would love to have you helping with the Prometheus Project, for example. I believe that the great deal of time and money and energy which you put into cryonics would be better spent, in one way or another, furthering research to perfect suspended animation. As I see it, too many of us are too concerned with trying to make things a *little* better, in case we might happen to deanimate soon. By doing so, we are missing the opportunity to make things a *lot* better in 10 or 20 years from now and later, when the chances are greatest that we will need cryopreservation. -- Paul -- Paul Wakfer email: phone:909-481-9620 pager:800-805-2870 HELP TO ACHIEVE - PERFECTED SUSPENDED ANIMATION WITHIN 20 YEARS! Check out the Prometheus Project web site at URL: http://www.prometheus-project.org/prometheus/ Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7509