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lsparrish comments on Cryonics Wants To Be Big - Less Wrong
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Cryonics doesn't necessarily need more male propeller heads. I think it would benefit from more women, married couples and entire families, which would give it the vitality and durability of mainstream social structures like churches. Unfortunately I don't know how to overcome the "hostile wife phenomenon," as well as the fact that a commitment to cryonics resists generational transmission.
As an example of the latter, Marce Johnson entered the paleo-cryonics scene in the 1960's, and she had 40 years to show her children through precept and example that she wanted cryonic suspension for herself. To summarize a long story, despite efforts to raise money for her cryotransport with CI after she developed Alzheimer's and lost her suspension arrangements with another organization, she died and the daughter with POA over her had her cremated, then informed Marce's cryonicist friends after the fact, apparently out of spite.
Early adopters are (relatively) crazy and have to put up with ridicule from their friends because it's not cool yet. That's just how it goes. The trouble is that cryonics has stayed in the early adopter phase for 40 years.
Suddenly I have the mental image of a t-shirt reading "I was into cryonics before it was cool."
I want one.
I want a shirt that says "I was into cryonics before I was cooled."
With a few exceptions, why does cryonics continue to repel female early adopters? I draw the contrast with Mormonism, which drew a lot of female early adopters despite sanctions against their participation in it. One, they had to defy taboos about getting involved in weird, heretical new religions; and two, they especially had to defy taboos against polygyny and adultery. Yet their participation turned Mormonism into a demographically successful church. If Mormonism had attracted mostly men, its demographic breakthrough wouldn't have happened.
A few exceptions? I don't get the impression that the statistics are that severely skewed.
According to Kerry Howley's NYT article just linked by ciphergoth:
(Problematic, but not quite "few exceptions" territory.)
I imagine Mormonism gave women the spiritual connection which most church groups do. I doubt it is coincidental that women outnumber men in churches. The protection of a powerful alpha male, as God is portrayed, might be something they can connect with more easily than men, on average.
But religion is not the only thing that disproportionately attracts women... For example, the Twilight fandom is mostly female.
While we're speculating, I think it's that "kin work" (keeping up with family and friends, taking care of the elderly, child-rearing) primarily falls to women. Churches provide a framework to do that. If you've noticed, women are highly active in the parts of a church that aren't explicitly about God -- fundraising committees, education committees, various organizing functions. It's community-building glue.
Cryonics, unlike Mormonism, doesn't have that aspect. As of now, it's a transaction made by an individual. I'm not sure how one would make cryonics by itself "church-like."
You could try to make a rationalist social institution -- like a Masonic lodge -- that combined charitable work, socializing, activities for children, educational lectures, and activities/volunteering opportunities for the elderly. Cryonics could be built into that. The point is, it has to be a family and community institution.
Perhaps coincidentally, Twilight was written by a Mormon.
Some of my favorite authors are Mormon. Orson Scott Card, Brandon Sanderson, and Howard Tayler. Somehow they seem to go to greater extremes in their fiction than non-Mormons on average. And they have no qualms about literally turning a character into God (given that Mormon theology includes this eventually happening to the faithful anyway). There's a kind of balance of creepiness/weirdness and old-fashioned family values, which is in itself perhaps more disturbing in a way.
I think it has to do with how success of a meme seems to have a lot to do with its power to resolve cognitive dissonance -- but what this implies is that the cognitive dissonance must exist to begin with. When they encounter the creep factor of cryonics, most people resolve cognitive dissonance by ignoring it, downplaying its chances of success, or imagining fantastic reasons it would not work. Cryonicists themselves might resolve the dissonance factors by reassuring themselves that it's the only sane thing to do in face of inevitable deanimation, reading up on the facts, and hoping for improvements in the process before they die. But that sort of thing takes a lot of activity in the logical areas of the brain.
Mormons seem to resolve the cognitive dissonance factors of their religion (and the weirder aspects of life in general) by turning to a focus on human relationships -- family, romance, etc. Perhaps the cognitive functions involved in this are easier to stimulate in a group that is highly inclusive of women and children.
Zenna Henderson is another splendid Mormon author. One of my Mormon friends aspires to write children's books, although she's not yet been published, and her writing is reasonably good as well. Said friend accounts for this strong representation of Mormons in the fiction world by saying that the religion encourages imagination and creativity. (It's perfectly acceptable to plan for being one of the future deities who gets to run a universe later, so one may as well think about how one plans to do it.)
Crikey, I didn't know that... the other cool thing is, you learn about genealogy and get to save all of your unbaptized relatives from hell! That religion has some pretty kickass memes.
They are so hardcore about genealogy. I have one friend whose tree goes back all the way to some crackpot king who demanded that genealogers trace his lineage back to Adam, so my friend can trace hers back that far too.
That's impressive. I can only trace my lineage back to people who actually existed.
... per household?