There are three obvious hurdles to getting a person to sign up for cryonics:
They must aware of it.
They must afford it.
They must want it.
We will examine each of these defeaters and determine which promises a more efficient return on intervention.
1 - AWARENESS
It is obviously the case that most people have no idea cryonics exists. They may be aware of the basic concept; science fiction has often times used freezing as a plot device enabling interstellar travel[1], and we have all heard the urban legend that Walt Disney had himself frozen after his death[2]. However, there is a very big difference between being vaguely aware of something that shows up in movies, or something which eccentric millionaires make ad-hoc arrangements for, and knowing that there is a real life company existing right now which is willing to take your money in exchange for providing a very concrete service to you. Could advertising cryonics therefore be an efficient way to increase the number of preserved humans?
Signs point to yes. In January 1994, Omni Magazine ran an advertisement for Alcor which was valued at $30,000 (47,243 in modern dollars[3]). This resulted in roughly 3,000 requests for information, which turned into 20 actual members as of 9 months after the event[4]. However, each request for information also cost an average of $6 at the time ($9.45 today). Taken all together, it seems like those 20 members cost a total of $48,000 ($75,588.81), or $2,400 ($3,779.44) per member gained. Presumably, similarly expensive advertisements in magazines or websites with a similar audience to Omni could be expected to have a similar effect today.
2 - AFFORDABILITY
Still, 20 members out of 3,000 inquiries is a rate of success of less than 1%. These people were pre-selected as science and science fiction enthusiasts, with enough curiosity to contact Alcor, and yet something stopped 2,980 of them from signing up.
Perhaps that something was money. How many people are there who want to sign up for cryonics but are unable to do so?
Surprisingly few. The “Society for Venturism” is a cryonics advocacy organization[5]. Among other things, the society is notable for organizing charity campaings on behalf of people who are dying of illness but cannot afford to pay for their preservation. A grand total of five such campaigns have been undertaken by the society (with the latest one, intended for Aaron Winborn, still ongoing).
Theoretical considerations support this empirical finding. Cryonic preservation at Alcor costs $80,000 for neuropreservation and $200,000 for full body, with surcharges of up to $25,000 for preservations in foreign countries and yearly membership fees of $620[6]. This is simply not expensive enough to account for the sheer rarity of cryonics patients (270 people currently preserved, with another 2,000 signed up for future preservation[7][8]). This also implies that offering to pay for the cryopreservation of people who want to sign up for cryonics will cost you $80,000 per preservation; considerably more expensive than the publicity method.
3 - ALLURE
Eigthy thousand to two hundred fifty five thousand is a cost on the order of buying a house, not private jet. Yet, like we saw above, only 20 people out of 3,000 which we knew were aware of cryonics actually cared to sign up. What is going on?
Once the curse of obscurity has been cured, the biggest problem with cryonics is that nobody wants it.
In his article “When You Can’t Even Give it Away”[9], Mike Darwin recounts the time when the Institute for Advanced Biological Studies tried to give away a free suspension to Frederik Pohl, a science-fiction author who was aware of cryonics and had written about it favorably in the past. Pohl listened politely to their proposal, asked them for some time to think about it, and they never heard from him again despite repeated attempts to re-establish contact. Anybody who has tried to seriously talked about cryonics with their family can surely relate.
Why do people who are aware of cryonics reject it? There are many possible reasons. Perhaps they are aware of it but doubt the technical feasibility. Perhaps they consider the technology sound, but fear that political, social, or environmental problems render revival unlikely. Perhaps they think it will work, but they fear leaving their friends and family behind[10], or they are effective altruist who think that money would do more good elsewhere[11], or perhaps they actually dislikes their lives, and have no desire to extend the suffering beyond what is necessary[12]. Or perhaps all these reasons save the first one are simply rationalizations, and the real reason they don’t like cryonics is because it “sounds strange and not-of-our-tribe and they don’t see other people doing it”[13].
For reasons that are beyond the scope of this essay but which should be familiar to any long-term lesswrong reader, I believe this last explanation is likely to be the biggest factor. This suggests that in order to change people’s minds about cryonics, our dollars should be spent bringing about social change, perhaps by copying the tactics of successful social movements in the past. Unfortunately, we cannot think of a good way to predict the relative efficiency of dollars spent in this fashion.
4 - CONCLUSION
Of the three defeaters, publicity seems like the best angle of attack. By making people aware of cryonics, you can get them to spend a lot of money for their own preservation; money which would otherwise have been directed to non-cryonics purposes.
0 - INTRODUCTION
There are three obvious hurdles to getting a person to sign up for cryonics:
They must aware of it.
They must afford it.
They must want it.
We will examine each of these defeaters and determine which promises a more efficient return on intervention.
1 - AWARENESS
It is obviously the case that most people have no idea cryonics exists. They may be aware of the basic concept; science fiction has often times used freezing as a plot device enabling interstellar travel[1], and we have all heard the urban legend that Walt Disney had himself frozen after his death[2]. However, there is a very big difference between being vaguely aware of something that shows up in movies, or something which eccentric millionaires make ad-hoc arrangements for, and knowing that there is a real life company existing right now which is willing to take your money in exchange for providing a very concrete service to you. Could advertising cryonics therefore be an efficient way to increase the number of preserved humans?
Signs point to yes. In January 1994, Omni Magazine ran an advertisement for Alcor which was valued at $30,000 (47,243 in modern dollars[3]). This resulted in roughly 3,000 requests for information, which turned into 20 actual members as of 9 months after the event[4]. However, each request for information also cost an average of $6 at the time ($9.45 today). Taken all together, it seems like those 20 members cost a total of $48,000 ($75,588.81), or $2,400 ($3,779.44) per member gained. Presumably, similarly expensive advertisements in magazines or websites with a similar audience to Omni could be expected to have a similar effect today.
2 - AFFORDABILITY
Still, 20 members out of 3,000 inquiries is a rate of success of less than 1%. These people were pre-selected as science and science fiction enthusiasts, with enough curiosity to contact Alcor, and yet something stopped 2,980 of them from signing up.
Perhaps that something was money. How many people are there who want to sign up for cryonics but are unable to do so?
Surprisingly few. The “Society for Venturism” is a cryonics advocacy organization[5]. Among other things, the society is notable for organizing charity campaings on behalf of people who are dying of illness but cannot afford to pay for their preservation. A grand total of five such campaigns have been undertaken by the society (with the latest one, intended for Aaron Winborn, still ongoing).
Theoretical considerations support this empirical finding. Cryonic preservation at Alcor costs $80,000 for neuropreservation and $200,000 for full body, with surcharges of up to $25,000 for preservations in foreign countries and yearly membership fees of $620[6]. This is simply not expensive enough to account for the sheer rarity of cryonics patients (270 people currently preserved, with another 2,000 signed up for future preservation[7][8]). This also implies that offering to pay for the cryopreservation of people who want to sign up for cryonics will cost you $80,000 per preservation; considerably more expensive than the publicity method.
3 - ALLURE
Eigthy thousand to two hundred fifty five thousand is a cost on the order of buying a house, not private jet. Yet, like we saw above, only 20 people out of 3,000 which we knew were aware of cryonics actually cared to sign up. What is going on?
Once the curse of obscurity has been cured, the biggest problem with cryonics is that nobody wants it.
In his article “When You Can’t Even Give it Away”[9], Mike Darwin recounts the time when the Institute for Advanced Biological Studies tried to give away a free suspension to Frederik Pohl, a science-fiction author who was aware of cryonics and had written about it favorably in the past. Pohl listened politely to their proposal, asked them for some time to think about it, and they never heard from him again despite repeated attempts to re-establish contact. Anybody who has tried to seriously talked about cryonics with their family can surely relate.
Why do people who are aware of cryonics reject it? There are many possible reasons. Perhaps they are aware of it but doubt the technical feasibility. Perhaps they consider the technology sound, but fear that political, social, or environmental problems render revival unlikely. Perhaps they think it will work, but they fear leaving their friends and family behind[10], or they are effective altruist who think that money would do more good elsewhere[11], or perhaps they actually dislikes their lives, and have no desire to extend the suffering beyond what is necessary[12]. Or perhaps all these reasons save the first one are simply rationalizations, and the real reason they don’t like cryonics is because it “sounds strange and not-of-our-tribe and they don’t see other people doing it”[13].
For reasons that are beyond the scope of this essay but which should be familiar to any long-term lesswrong reader, I believe this last explanation is likely to be the biggest factor. This suggests that in order to change people’s minds about cryonics, our dollars should be spent bringing about social change, perhaps by copying the tactics of successful social movements in the past. Unfortunately, we cannot think of a good way to predict the relative efficiency of dollars spent in this fashion.
4 - CONCLUSION
Of the three defeaters, publicity seems like the best angle of attack. By making people aware of cryonics, you can get them to spend a lot of money for their own preservation; money which would otherwise have been directed to non-cryonics purposes.
5 - REFERENCES
[1]http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HumanPopsicle
[2]http://www.snopes.com/disney/info/wd-ice.htm
[3]http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm
[4]http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/sellingcryonics.html
[5]http://www.venturist.info/what-we-do.html
[6]http://www.alcor.org/BecomeMember/scheduleA.html
[7]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics
[8]http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2012/10/murray-ballard-cyronics/
[9]http://www.alcor.org/cryonics/cryonics8301.txt
[10]http://lesswrong.com/lw/1lf/open\_thread\_january\_2010/1e4b?context=2#comments
[11]http://lesswrong.com/lw/6vq/on\_the\_unpopularity\_of\_cryonics\_life\_sucks\_bu\t_at/4ks7
[12]http://chronopause.com/chronopause.com/index.php/2011/07/27/would-you-like-another-plate-of-this/
[13]http://lesswrong.com/lw/6vq/on\_the\_unpopularity\_of\_cryonics\_life\_sucks\_but\_at/4kzu