X-Message-Number: 857
Subject: Re: Dirty Linen
Date: Tue, 26 May 92 12:49:06 -0400
From: 

David Roth (david!) says:

>" The path to success ... to first go after the 5%..." is a position
>of concern to me. I might very well be taking this out
>of context but to me it sounds like the "success" would be to be able
>to revive people from suspension someday.

You did take it out of context (because of poor writing on my part).
We were talking about the "Cryonics - Reaching for Tomorrow" book,
which helps with recruiting but does not directly help with eventually
reviving people.  By "success" I meant success at recruiting (although
I didn't actually say that, which was my fault).

>Why is it important to argue with others about cryonics in a way to
>make them conform?

You seem to be presupposing that my note said the opposite of what it
really said.  I was advocating leaving abject conformists out of our
recruiting efforts, instead of trying to psychologically manipulate
them.  With this approach, the people we recruit (at least in the
beginning) will have actually thought about the issues, instead of
conformed to the expectations of some crowd.

If the typical argument voiced against cryonics were carefully
reasoned and (at least nearly) valid, then rationally arguing with
people would be the best thing to do.  On the other hand, if the story
about the fellow who wanted "eternal rest" but went ahead with his
coronary bypass is typical, the choice before us is to psychologically
manipulate people who have this quality of thought or to ignore them.
My experience leads me to believe that the "eternal rest" fellow is
typical.

>If this is science based on
>theory then the information should be offered this way and people
>should be able to make their choices based on that.

I agree!  Unfortunately, the fact is that most people DON'T make their
choices based on that, and the question is what should we do with
them.  I think we should give up on them.  Or, at least, we should be
very careful not to lose people who actually look at the issues when we
attempt to reach the people who don't.

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