X-Message-Number: 1653
From: 
Subject: CRYONICS Misc replies and comments
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 16:00:02 PST

In msg #1610 - Ideas a threat? Paul Wakfer writes: 

>I am, once again, astonished that so many particpants in CRYONET do not
>know the meaning of the word "threat".  "Threat" does *not* mean the
>same as "powerful" or "dangerous".  

Random House College Dictionary:

threat 1.  A declaration of an intention or determination to inflict 
punishment, injury, etc., in retaliation for, or conditionally upon, 
some action or course; menace: "He confessed under the threat of 
imprisonment."  2.  an indication or warning of probable trouble: "the 
threat of a storm." --v.t., v.i.  3 (Archaic) to threaten. 

Meaning 2 was likely what Saul Kent had in mind when he used the word, 
but he is welcome to correct me.  It is what I took him to mean in my
comments.

>                                An idea is *not* equivalent to its
>implementation or to the harm that any person does with it.  Ideas do
>*not* cause harm, people do!

This is (in a narrow sense) true.  

>                              Believing that ideas cause harm and are a
>threat is only one step removed from advocating censorship,
>book-burning and other restrictions of free speech.
>
>By immediately recognizing and appologizing for his error, Dave Pizer
>has improved a notch in my evaluation.
>
>By continuing to misunderstand the fundamentals of free speech (eg.
>equating the ideas of communism and nazism - which can be filtered out
>by human choice before being implemented and causing harm, with the
>bubonic plague - which is directly, causally responsible for human
>deaths), Keith Henson sinks farther below the line of acceptability.

Though I happen to be much more aware of the dangers which replicating 
ideas (memes) represent, I am no more an advocate of censorship than I 
am of gun control.  In spite of considerable problems with both, 
trying to control either is worse.  But Paul, are the bacteria 
responsible?  Or are the humans who fail to control the rats causally 
responsible?  (I have a hard time attributing responsibility to 
anything which cannot foresee the consequences of its actions.)  And 
who is responsible when no one knows that rats carry plague? 

Both memes and bacteria are *replicators*, so a lot of what we know 
about one caries over to the other.  For humans to thrive (or even 
survive!) in an environment where we are faced with both requires 
learned skills, those of sanitation to avoid bacteria, and those of 
skepticism (and other mental traits) to avoid being sucked into a cult 
which can destroy your reproductive potential (Shakers, and more 
recently the Rajneesh cult) or even kill you (Jim Jones and company).  
I recommend *The Selfish Gene* by Richard Dawkins for a textbook. The 
new edition included references to some of my work on memes in the end 
notes. 

------------

In msg 1611 (Jerking Around Potential Donors) Steve Harris quotes much 
of a previous post of mine and comments: 

>                       In any case, if the issue over the
>building was this simple, I cannot imagine why it was not
>resolved in one-two fashion.  1) You simply let our rich bene-
>factor donate to Alcor for the purpose of buying the building,

Well, it wasn't that simple.  Assuming I have the story right (and 
that is *not* for certain) this is a good example of an idea which 
(when it infected a susceptible person) resulted in a disaster.  After 
getting several unpleasant calls from a person who insisted that the 
building had to be acquired Saul's way, the benefactor decided he did 
not need the harassment and told Alcor to forget his offer (which I 
understand was about half of what we needed.)  Can't say I blame him. 

[much deleted]

>                                                Let me give you
>some underpaid researcher's advice: when people want to give you
>money with no strings attached, you don't hassle them about it.
>You say "thank you" as fast as you can (before they change their
>minds) and then you figure out what to do from there.  Saul was
>obviously afraid that Alcor intended to buy the new building with
>the money of everyone possible (not just our one sticky contri-
>butor), and then keep the building in our name, indefinitely.
>Why didn't somebody (Carlos?) be a little creative and tell him
>it wasn't necessarily so?

First, I am in full agreement with you re donors!  Hassling and 
threatening a donor (to my sketchy knowledge) was done by an overly 
enthusiastic person who was "captured" by Saul's memo.  It was (I 
believe) an unintended side effect of Saul's memo, which itself was (I 
think) largely prompted by Saul's trying to find fault with everything 
Carlos did.  From what I remember of the memo itself, by the time it 
reached the Alcor board, and Carlos talked to him, Saul had (to some 
degree) reconsidered his objections, but that did not stop the 
cascading damage of Saul's memo (a meme-o?). 

>   Finally, by the way, how DID Saul's letter to the board,
>impacting as it did on delicate negotiations with a wealthy
>contributor, ever reach an unstable Alcor member in the East in
>the first place?  If Saul sent it to him or made it public, then
>that's a black eye for Saul (some things are not meant to be
>public until the appropriate time).  If not, then somebody else
>ought to `fess up.

I think that whoever passed the May 19 memo on did it without 
realizing that it might result in the kind of action which seems to 
have happened.  If this is correct, I am not inclined to blame anyone.  
I hope we have all learned from these events, but I doubt it.  (For 
the historical record, it seems to have taken a day or two at most to 
reach the member in question.  I have a memo from Carlos referring to 
these events dated May 21.  If it is ok with Carlos, I may post the 
memo.) 

Note to Keven Brown.  Would you take a look at the archives of late 
May and see if Saul's memo was mentioned or posted?

------------

In msg 1613 Saul Kent writes: 

>In the memo to the Alcor Board that Keith quotes from, I expressed my
>concern about changing the rules of the game without Board
>authorization regarding the purchase of the building in Scottsdale,
>Arizona.  This viewpoint was shared by others in Alcor.

>The orginal deal, which the board had authorized, was that the building
>would be purchased via a limited partnership.  Suddenly, it was
>proposed, without board authorization, that Alcor be the purchaser and
>sole owner of the building.  The potential investor who wished to
>donate his money to Alcor rather than to a limited partnership could
>have waited until the implications of this proposed change as well as
>any possible alternatives to it had been discussed by the board.

See Steve's comments above on turning down a donation.

Saul, if you remember, Dave Pizer put up a heap of ernest money, and 
that got us only two weeks or so to raise the whole purchase price of 
the building.  I was up on what happened, and it never occurred to any 
of us who were in contact over these developments that anyone could 
*possibly* object to getting the money as a donation so Alcor (or more 
likely the PCTF) could outright own the building.  The "working stiffs"
seriously underestimated the hostile political environment. 

>Keith's description of how I became involved in helping to document
>criticism of Carlos is inaccurate.  It happened as I stated in my reply
>to Dave Pizer.  Dave asked Paul Wakfer to submit written criticism of
>Carlos to the board.  Paul asked me to help him.  I did.

This is not the way I remember it, since I remember asking you to 
write up your personal objections to Carlos, and I considered the book 
as an overgrown response.  But it is what you said on the first page 
of the second edition of your book, along with: 

   "Unless the specific allegations in this book are dealt with 
   objectively and fairly, The Board will lose the respect of a 
   growing number of Alcor members!  Unless the board deals 
   effectively with the growing political opposition to Carlos 
   Mondragon's presidency, it will lose its legitimacy as a governing 
   body!" 

If anybody thinks there was one shred of "fairness" involved when 
those you influence on the board voted to muzzle Carlos so he *could 
not* respond to your book they have another think coming!  The fact 
that they rescinded the vote the next month did *not* repair the 
damage. 

However, I have to agree with you that the board has lost the respect 
of many members and that its legitimacy as a governing body is has 
certainly been called into question.  Unless you are blind, you must 
be aware of forces at work which are tending to rent Alcor into pieces. 

>Paul and I only decided to distribute this criticism to Alcor members
>after it had been totally ignored by the board for more than 30 days.

Don't you remember?  It is on tape when you distributed copies of your 
book to the board and the chairman, Paul Genteman (if I remember 
right) made an immediate response by telling you it would take some 
time to respond to an inch thick book.  There was no way the board 
could respond quickly to such a monster, especially with board 
elections coming up.  People might note that Saul gave the board less 
time to research and respond to this stack of accusations than he and 
Paul took to put it together. 

By the way, a book well worth reading is Axelrod's *Evolution of 
Cooperation*.  For cryonicists, the shadow of the future is long 
indeed.  It simply amazes me that anyone plays "defect," but when they 
do, Axelrod's work indicates only one effective strategy. 

-------

Re another topic (or perhaps it is related) I have come to the 
conclusion that Alcor should strongly encourage regional groups to 
upgrading to deal with standby and washout--perhaps the larger ones 
should consider perfusion capability.  While my objections (primarily 
those of quality control and responsibility for drugs) are still 
valid, the cost factor has come to dominate my thinking.  When we go 
beyond ground transport range, the cost for patient standby/transport 
goes up so much that we are going to be faced with either massive 
increases in suspension funding, or we will have to make do with local 
transport teams.  More on this in a few days.


Keith

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