X-Message-Number: 141
From att!saqqara.cis.ohio-state.edu!compuserve.com!72320.1642 Thu Nov 16
02:55:16 1989
Received: by saqqara.cis.ohio-state.edu (5.61/4.891102)
id AA09183; Thu, 16 Nov 89 02:55:11 -0500
Date: 16 Nov 89 01:45:16 EST
From: STEPHEN BRIDGE <>
To: KEVIN <>
Subject: DETROIT CONFERENCE REPORT
Message-Id: <"891116064516 72320.1642 EHI17-1"@CompuServe.COM>
REPORT ON CRYONICS INSTITUTE CONFERENCE, Held October 6-8, 1989 in Detroit
By Steve Bridge, Midwest Coordinator, Alcor Life Extension Foundation
11-13-89
About 45 people attended the Cryonics Conference in Detroit, Michigan
on October 6-8. The conference was sponsored by the Immortalist Society and
the Cryonics Institute, the organizations founded by Robert C. W. Ettinger,
author of The Prospect of Immortality and the originator of the cryonics
movement. While the conference was a bit short on new information for us
old hands (most of the presentations were new versions of material I had
heard before), I did notice that the few people there who were new to
cryonics were fascinated by it all. For most of the people there, however,
the advantage was in the personal contacts.
The conference program was organized and well run by Mae Ettinger
(Bob's wife); but it appeared that Bob and Mae had only a little help from
other IS/CI members. In fact, close to half of those present were either
Alcor suspension members (17 by my count) or people with whom Alcor has a
lot of contact (children of suspensed patients, subscribers to CRYONICS
magazine, etc.). American Cryonics Society (ACS) had four members there, I
believe, and at least half of the rest were uncommitted. I wonder if IS/CI
will continue to exist as an independent organization after Bob and Mae are
suspended. They are in their 60's and the only comparatively young people
among the other leaders are David Ettinger (Bob's son) and his wife.
Several participants were children of suspended patients, including
five people whose parents were suspended by Alcor within the past two years.
Those five talked quite a bit and had some emotional times sharing feelings
about the different emotional approaches required by cryonic suspension. I
saw that this is a concern Alcor will have to address in the future, at the
least providing opportunities for these families to come together and meet
each other. Eventually, children of patients who have been suspended longer
could provide counseling or comforting for the children of newer suspendees.
And from a practical standpoint, I think this approach makes it more likely
that family members will eventually sign up themselves.
The conference opened Friday evening with an informal reception from
about 7:30 to 9:00. The Ettingers left before 9:00 and the evening would
have been pretty quiet after that except for some lessons Alcor had learned
at various conventions during the past two years. People love to have a
place to talk in the late evening and if you can provide interesting people,
plus food and beverage, they may well choose YOUR place. So Alcor hosted a
hospitality suite from 9:30 to about midnight both nights. Brenda Peters
and Mike Darwin deserve most of the credit for the work here. As has always
been our experience, some of the best conversations and most interesting
mixing of people took place in Alcor's suite. (If you ever decide to do
something like this yourself someday, ask us for advice.)
One thing I have noticed from watching new people go from hesitant
observers to full participants: people get involved with groups they feel
FRIENDLY toward. Few people can judge levels of technological or business
competence to any real degree. But they can get a sense of honesty,
openness, friendliness, and general competence from the personal contacts
they have. That makes these informal parties very important for groups like
ours. Outsiders especially have to be given the chance to see that we are
not crazies, but are intelligent, interesting, rational, and friendly
people.
Saturday morning started with Bob Ettinger's low key summary of his
experiences in the cryonics movement and his ideas about what will be
required in the future. If you don't know Bob, he is a quiet, thoughtful,
and sincere individual, but not a powerful activist or charismatic speaker.
He reminds me of what I have read of Charles Darwin. One basic idea, which
he has steadily worked on and shaped bit by bit for many years. I don't
believe he ever wanted to run a cryonics organization. He assumed 25 years
ago that if he laid the idea out for everyone, then experts in the various
applicable fields would take over and run things. Of course, that didn't
happen, so he has had to become more personally involved.
Next was Dr. Paul Segall of ACS and Cryomedical Sciences, Inc. (his own
little company), speaking about recent progress made by him and his co-
workers (especially Harold "Frosty" Waitz). This included total blood
washout and cooldown (not freezing) of a dog to about 2 degrees C for six
hours and further progress in cooldown of hamsters. He hopes to achieve 8
hours of cooldown on a dog sometime this year. Apparently he is getting
some serious funding for his ice cold blood substitute research and he hopes
to patent and market within the next 3-5 years. Paul's talk was rambling;
he rarely prepares well.
Dr. Ralph Merkle (computer and AI whiz from Xerox Parc) gave a lecture
on nanotechnology which was a highlight of the conference. Ralph really
knows his stuff, and he has a colorful, witty style. His talk has tightened
up quite a bit since I saw it in Lake Tahoe. I was impressed and so were
many other people. I'm hoping on learning more about this, myself. I've
had a high school science teacher tell me she wants me to talk about
nanotech to her advanced chemistry class, with only a little bit about
cryonics. It may be a bit over my head; but I could probably handle it at
high school level.
Linda Chamberlain's talk on LifePact and Fred Chamberlain's talk on
Post-mortem Suspensions (Fred is now calling these "Non-Member Suspensions"
on the logical basis that currently ALL suspensions are "post-mortem.")
both were much better organized and presented than their previous
presentations on these subjects. You could see the amount of effort they
had put into this during the past five months. They are getting a LOT of
positive reactions on LifePact.
LifePact is a plan for providing cooperation between cryonicists today
with the hope and plan that we will also cooperate in bringing people back
in the future. The emphasis here is on planning for the unexpected costs
and problems of future revival, including financial, technical, social, and
emotional.
Fred's talk was on ideas for involving morticians around the country in
offering information about cryonics groups as part of their regular
discussion with clients and in those morticians possibly providing some
actual services. For example, except under unusual circumstances, today's
cryonics organizations do not provide suspension services on an emergency
basis to non-members. There are many important reasons for this, but the
most important is the principle that a family cannot give informed consent
in a last minute, emotionally-laden situation; so they could later claim
coercion or fraud on the part of the cryonics group. Fred would like to see
morticians be able to put the patient's body on water ice or dry ice on a
temporary basis, buying time for the family to better investigate the
possibilities. Under these circumstances, Fred theorizes, cryonics groups
may have more incentive to provide suspension services. Obviously, such a
suspension would be done with what seems like less advanced methods; but it
still might be adequate by the standards of future technology.
It is beyond my capabilities to more fully describe the Chamberlains'
ideas here, and unnecessary to boot. If you write to them and send them a
couple of dollars for postage, they will happily provide you with details.
Fred and Linda Chamberlain, P.O. Box 16220, South Lake Tahoe, CA 95706.
Saul Kent spoke on some similar themes as he discussed the fledgling
Reanimation Foundation. This is an organization which is planned to act as
a financial setting for "taking it with you." In the United States there is
a rule against "perpetuities," i.e., giving a deceased person control over
his estate for longer than a certain number of years. This is to prevent
immense sums of money from being tied up in estates and never getting back
into circulation. The tiny, but wealthy, country of Lichtenstein has no
such rule, so Saul is setting up a corporation there which will invest
people's money and save it for their "return." To get his brochures
explaining this, write to: Saul Kent, Reanimation Foundation, 16280
Whispering Spur, Riverside CA 92504. A caution: This is still in the early
stages and Saul has told me there are already changes being made, so the
brochures may not be accurate in all details. Indeed, I found an unclear
item or two which I quizzed him on. But he is happy to hear other ideas.
Saul is definitely onto something here. When I showed the brochures to
a couple of friends who have been interested in cryonics but not INTERESTED,
their eyes lit up for the first time. The idea of being rich in the future
makes being alive in the future seem a lot more palatable.
It was interesting to see the intense reactions (mostly positive)
generated by LifePact and the Reanimation Foundation. As Saul says, most
people don't get much good feeling out of discussing operations, dead
bodies, freezing procedures, insurance needs, etc. It is simply something
they endure. But MOST people get excited about the future and helping each
other out and coming back with a lot of money and a lot of choices. If we
spend more time on the positives and fewer on the negatives, perhaps we will
get more people excited about our ideas. We certainly cannot ignore this
reaction. I even felt it emotionally. People LIKE the feeling that other
people are looking out for them. Perhaps we haven't strongly enough
emphasized Alcor's position as a mutual aid society. I do notice that
statements by me to the effect that "Alcor is not a company selling services
to outsiders; it is a group of people providing services to each other..."
get strong positive reactions from friends and audiences.
Dr. Michael Perry gave a short talk about the goals of The Venturists.
This was much the same as what has been written about Venturism in various
magazines and on this "cryonet," so I won't bother to summarize. Mike did
add that the Venturists were examining the possiblity of encouraging and
perhaps even participating in long-term storage of records ("intellectual
property" rather than goods) for suspension patients and in providing "Good
Samaritan" funds in some way. Incidentally, Venturist head David Pizer has
moved to California. Write to the Venturists at P.O. Box 458, Wrightwood CA
92397 (Pizer's address) for subscriptions or to P.O. Box 8511, Riverside CA
92515 (Perry's address) for editorial purposes. Subscriptions to Venturist
Monthly News are $8.00 (one year) in the U.S., $10.00 in Canada, and $15.00
overseas. Remit to "The Venturists."
Saturday evening after dinner, Jack Zinn of the American Cryonics
Society gave an extremely brief talk about what ACS is doing. He surprised
everyone with an impassioned thank-you to Alcor and to Mike Darwin
in particular for their courage and perseverance under fire in the Dora Kent
crisis last year. Frankly, Mike was quite embarassed at being singled out
like this, and he wants everyone to know that at least as much courage, if
not more, was shown by Saul Kent, Jerry Leaf, Carlos Mondragon, and many
others during the crisis.
Sunday morning was the other big news: several of the people at the
conference took it upon themselves to begin a Federation of Cryonics
Societies. I gather this will be more or less a "professional association"
for cryonics groups, to set ethics, standards, and cooperation for cryonics.
It is too early to tell if this will be a workable idea or just another
place for the organizations to argue. I assume Alcor will be participating.
If you are on the LifePact list, you have received (or will) the first
discussion of this idea from the Chamberlains.
Frankly, ideas are coming so fast and furious in cryonics that it is
hard to keep score. Cryonics is far from its final form, economically or
organizationally. Fortunately, we have forums like this to keep the news
spread around and to talk out the ideas. Feel free to contribute.
Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=141