X-Message-Number: 88
From: Kevin Q. Brown
Subject: Perceived vs. Actual Risk 
Date: 14 May 1989

One of the great mysteries of cryonics is why so few people are seriously
interested in it.  Messages #9 and #13 proposed some reasons why.  A mechanism
for yet another barrier to interest in cryonics recently showed up in Issue 68
of the Vol. 8 comp.risks USENET newsgroup.  This issue included excerpts from
the Mon. May 8 New York Times' front page story "Life's Risks: Balancing Fear
Against Reality of Statistics", written by Peter Passell.  The article points
out that sometimes the perceived risk is out of proportion to the actual risk.
Sometimes the public greatly fear a relatively small risk and other times they
are indifferent to serious threats.  (For example, after a report of a plane
crash or hijacking many people forego air travel while still driving their cars
without using seat belts.  Yet, "from 1982 through 1986, Americans were 70
times as likely to die in an automobile trip as they were traveling the same
route on a scheduled airline.")  The article offers some explanations for why
the perceptions of risk differ from reality:


" ... What explains the public's decreasing tolerance of some risks and apparent
indifference to others?  Paul Slovic of the Decision Research Corporation in
Eugene, Oregon and Baruch Fischoff of Carnegie-Mellon University, point out
that perceived risk is not always related to the probability of injury.

  Easily tolerated risks include ones that people can choose to avoid (chain
saws, skiing), that are familiar to those exposed (smoking), or that have been
around for a long time (fireworks).  Poorly tolerated risks are involuntary
(exposure to nuclear waste), have long delayed effects (pesticides), or unknown
effects (genetic engineering).

  As Dr. Slovic notes, nuclear and chemical technologies fare especially badly
in such subjective rankings.  Indeed the general acceleration of technical
change and integration of new technology in products helps to explain the
increase in public anxiety about risk.  ..."

-----

By these criteria (of intuitive, "gut-level" perceptions of risk), death is
both an easily tolerated risk, since it is so familiar, and a poorly tolerated
risk, since it is (generally) involuntary.  But choosing cryonic suspension is
not an easily tolerated risk, due to its unknown and long delayed effects.
This is because decades or even centuries will pass before reanimation will be
possible, and by that time the world will have technologies and risks that
(most) people today cannot yet comprehend.  Perhaps Linda Chamberlain is
correct that one of the main strengths of Lifepact (message #87) is that it
reduces the perceived risk of cryonic suspension by promising a "welcome mat"
upon reanimation.
                                       - Kevin Q. Brown
                                       ...att!ho4cad!kqb
                                       

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