X-Message-Number: 1233
Date: 26 Sep 92 04:01:07 EDT
From: "Steven B. Harris" <>
Subject: Cryonics Dues-- split!

Dear Forum:

   Paul Wakfer makes the good point that some of the things that
dues pay for (a magazine, some subsidy of social functions, etc)
are things that do not benefit suspendees, and thus should not be
charged to them.  Of course he is right, but the question is:
what is the fraction?  The dues also pay salaries of Alcor
employees and (ideally) all other Alcor expenses outside of
suspension and storage proper.  Here we come down to yet another
argument for the idea that Perry Metzger raised (and which has
been floating around for a while amongst cryonics honchos), which
is that it would ultimately be nice to "unbundle" Alcor even-
tually into suborganizations with separate functions, goals, and
funding.

   The strongest argument for this, of course, is legal liability
(the credit for realizing this first is not mine; many other
people-- Mark Voelker, for instance-- saw the light first). 
Every time we suspend a patient we run the risk of making some
real or imagined mistake, antagonizing the wrong person, and then
getting sued.  All it takes in that case are a couple of biased
judges (see the Dick Jones case if you don't believe these
exist), and we could lose the whole enchilada.  The "trust fund,"
so far as I can tell, is nothing special-- just some bare-naked
Alcor liquid assets ripe for legal taking by an "injured" party
in a civil suit.  However, if (after suspension) patients were
passed to an independent company whose function it was merely to
store them (and which really did have a trust fund), this would
tend to act as a powerful insulator against such invasions.  Such
a company could be named in a civil suit (you can't stop people
from suing you) but because of its distance from the actual
suspension, would be less likely to lose.  I can see no reason
why such a storage company (despite Keith's misgivings) should be
any less fiercely protective of its patients than Alcor is today,
so long as it is run by cryonicists.  In fact, because of its
singleness of purpose (more on this later) such a company might
be much less likely to do things what would jeopardize its trust.

  So long as we're being wishful and whimsical, I note that we
really need at least four separate organizations to do cryonics: 

1) Ideally, one of these, which I'll call, perhaps, the Alcor
Death Extension Foundation (in deference to Mr. Wakfer who says
we shouldn't be carrying on so about immortalism), can be an
outreach organization-- in charge of advertising, press and media
relations, information dissemination, a monthly inspirational and
informational publication, volunteer coordination for suspensions
and other things, etc, but having nothing to do with the _money_
or the _technology_ of actual suspensions.  If you want to pay
dues to that kind of organization therefore, there would be no
question as to what you're paying for: you're paying for cheer-
leading.  This kind of an organization does not need to worry
about last minute members, because it's basically a nonprofit
social club and quasi-religious volunteer organization.  Think of
the B.P.O.E. or Jaycees, or your local church.  Pay as you go
here is fine and appropriate.

2)  To do actual suspensions, however, you need a second "for-
profit" corporation, which would serve after the way Alcor now
employs (or used to employ in happier days) Cryovita.  This
corporation (call it Supreme Headquarters for Emergency Re-
suscitation, Biopreservative Exsanguination, and Thermostabaliza-
tion) would supply equipment and manpower as Cryovita did, and in
addition it would also be in charge of coordinating and paying
for standbys.  In short, all the nasty check-writing things that
we've been arguing tend to kill us on last-minute suspensions,
what with their hostile families and lack of time to prepare,
which both force us to spend money like people on an expensive
vacation during standbys.  Such an organization would work with
local volunteer cryonics groups, but would ultimately be where
the buck stops, so far as actually doing suspensions goes. 
Please note that **all that I have said previously about dues
structures really applies only to this corporation**. 

3) Then there would be a company whose only business is patient
storage, which we'll call Frozen Novelties Corporation.  Frozen
Novelties Corp. would get suspended patients from S.H.E.R.B.E.T.,
along with a lump sum from an insurance policy, or a cash
payment, and would contract to store them on that amount until
there is enough cheap technology to revive them.  (In addition,
some patients might wish to set up independent trust funds in
places with no rule against perpetuities, in order to have an
independent source of regular funding to Frozen Novelties, and
also something that will pay for revival.  See The Committee To
Reanimate Saul Kent for an example.  This would make a fifth
organization.)

4) Lastly, there might be an cryonics/cryogenics research
company, which I will dub "Cold Dogs With Relish, Inc." 
Cold Dogs, Inc. would do biomedical and cryonics research, but
would have to scare up funds to do it in the capital market, or
from donations.  At present, Mike Darwin's company Biopreserva-
tion is functioning along this line.       

   What's the advantage to doing it all this way?  The first is
legal protection, as noted-- i.e., if someone successfully sues
SHERBET, they still can't necessarily get at the funds of Frozen
Novelties, or at its patients.   The second advantage to unbundl-
ing is that locations of organizations can be spotted for maximum
benefit, and in several states (which has legal protective
advantages again).  For instance, rural areas near places like
Phoenix, Arizona or Laughlin, Nevada seem natural for a Frozen
Novelties Corp and pure cryonics storage; whereas they don't make
nearly so much sense for Alcor and its social functions, and are
nearly impossible because of technical and supply reasons for a
shoestring research company like Cold Dogs With Relish, Inc.  

   The last and not least advantage to unbundling is that
separate organizations, each with a balanced budget for its
goals, tend to make for more responsibility in spending (think of
the individual 50 U.S. states vs. the federal government).  If
there are four separate cryonics suborganizations and (say) the
Alcor Death Extension Foundation overspends on cheerleading, it
does not have the option of (say) invading the trusts of Frozen
Novelties and leaving IOUs (don't laugh).  Instead, it must stop
operating, decrease its CEO's salary or lay off some of its
employees-- but if even if that happens, suspension and storage
capability are unharmed.  All organizations benefit in this way,
even the least of them.  For instance, even if Alcor, SHERBET,
and Frozen Novelties should all be embroiled in legal battles,
Cold Dog, Inc. will not be drained of research funds, and
research will still get done.  SHERBET, for its part, is not so
much tempted to take cases with marginal funding while figuring
to make up for it later or fixating optimistically on the
difference between minimum funding and the marginal costs of
storage; this helps insure that the Nelson disaster will not be
repeated.  We can bet, in fact, that if SHERBET gets the shaft on
a last-minute case with a weak-willed patient and hostile
relatives causing a hemorrhage of money on a remote standby, it
will take much less time to come up with a tough-minded workable
standby plan and "last minute case" policy in response.  Why? 
Because what SHERBET cannot do is soak suspended patients or
borrow from future Alcor members for cash to cover bad standby
decisions.


                          ---


   Last Comment: And I might as well admit it: perhaps one of the
latest correspondents is correct, and the way to fund remote
standby and other suspension administrative functions is simply
to charge an extra piece of cash up front on everyone's sign-up,
and let them borrow if they don't have it.  But then, of course,
the bank makes money on the loan just like the insurance company. 
I was simply trying to make *Alcor* the lendee under conditions
where the loan could *actuarily* be expected to be paid back. 
Perhaps that was a mistake.  I don't know the answer!  However, I
am skeptical that this problem by its very nature can be solved
by Charles Platt's suggestion of slapping on an extra $5,000 of
insurance for everyone, simply because it seems that the people
who are dying (and are supposed to be yielding up money for
standby) are NOT people with insurance-- rather they're often
last minute "cash cases" which Alcor has unwisely agreed to take
at near the minimum funding, and then ended up EATING the standby
costs for.  That's the crux of the problem.  Again, however, this
kind of thing would be much less likely to happen if the or-
ganization were spit into suborganizations, each with its own
goal and funding.  People in Alcor who argue for a patient
advocacy group within the present organization are implicitly
recognizing this conflict.

                                  Steve Harris

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