X-Message-Number: 17599
From: 
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 14:17:52 EDT
Subject: conflicts of interest

Platt has mentioned possible financial irregularities in Alcor, and conflicts 
of interest among Alcor, some of its officers and members, and other 
organizations, including the for-profit company Cells4Life, headed by Fred 
Chamberlain, as well as another company organized for profit, BioTransport, 
apparently still-born. 

I don't take any joy in this, and don't think it is terribly important, but 
some of us have issued gentle warnings in the past in this area. It isn't 
easy to mix for-profit and non-profit activities or interests, or to separate 
management from ownership without risk. One of the major recurring scandals 
in the capitalist system is the infighting and self-serving, within a 
corporation, among shareholders, management, and labor, all of whom have 
somewhat differing aims. 

For the benefit of newcomers especially, I point out again that in the 
Cryonics Institute the officers and directors are unpaid, and we are not 
beholden to any commercial enterprise. There are no shareholders; the members 
"own" the corporation, and have ultimate control of its policies. No paid 
employe is an officer or director. There is no way a CI officer or director 
can get personal financial benefit from CI activities.

In Alcor, not only is it permissible for officers to be paid, but the 
membership cannot even effect a change in leadership or in policies, no 
matter what the provocation, except indirectly by various kinds of pressure. 
Only the Alcor directors themselves can nominate and elect new directors, as 
I understand it. 

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
www.cryonics.org

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