X-Message-Number: 1807
From: 
Subject: CRYONICS Misc replies
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 93 13:20:38 PST

Lots to comment on in tonight's cryonet.

Kenneth Tolman writes:

>  It would be very worthwhile to have a rough breakdown of ALCOR's 
>expenses and revenues, so that members can evaluate the situation for 
>themselves. Could this information be made public on the network? 

It gets published regularly in the magazine, so I imagine it is 
available in ASCII.  Ask Ralph.  Not that financial detail is 
something many pay attention to. 

>  As an ALCOR member I find it easy to pay for life insurance, as a 
>justified investment into the actual suspension process.  I find it 
>more difficult to justify large yearly payments for "operation costs".  
>In fact, it is somewhat unnerving, because I expect ALCOR to keep 
>patients in suspension whether or not there are any living members.  

I suppose such is possible, but it seem rather hard to imagine an 
organization without any living members.  I have always considered the 
living members to be the most important backup for those in 
suspension. 

>  Where exactly is the money going?

Rent, salaries, utilities, maintenance, supplies, legal, training.  If 
Alcor were not planning to do any suspensions, a high fraction of this 
could be eliminated.  But if you want them to be ready to deal with 
*your* problems if you get run over by a turnip truck, they need the 
dues.  Otherwise, no phone, and no one to answer it for starters. 


Brian Wowk mentions:
 
>        An Alcor member is someone who pays dues and gets a magazine.  
>I don't see how anyone paying dues and getting a magazine can threaten 
>my survival.  Of course, there is also a contractual obligation to 
>provide suspension services, but Alcor already reserves the right to 
>exercise discretion in performing suspensions under dangerous 
>circumstances. 

I was not aware of this clause.  Could you give me a pointer to it?
 
>        The incidents which have motivated the current furor over 
>membership exclusion arose because errors in judgement were made in 
>entrustinig a new member with information that he should not have had 
>access to.

I don't believe this was the entire story.

>        Rejection of members for punative, political reasons is the 
>hallmark of a cult.  I, for one, do not want to see Alcor become a 
>cult.  *That* would be deterimental to my survival. 

An interesting way to define a cult.  Would your criteria make a cult 
of a restaurant which refused to serve someone?  They often have good 
reasons:  for example, the prospective patron is drunk, or has a 
reputation of not paying for meals, or was so obnoxious that the staff 
would quit rather than serve.  Most cryonics people hold to some 
version of libertarian principles--which places great importance on 
voluntary contracts.  You seem to be saying that Alcor (as an 
artificial person) should hold itself to accepting contracts 
*involuntarily*, even if there were analogous problems to those a 
restaurant might face.  I have not thought out all the ramifications 
of this, and would appreciate further discussion on this topic. 

(In the specific situations at hand, I would not reject anyone who is 
currently a former member.  However, there is one case--were this 
person to express a desire to rejoin--where I think additional 
contractual arrangements might be in order.  That way, we could easily 
go after egregious violations of contractually bound reasonable 
conduct in civil court.  And, let me clearly state, any such "do no 
damage to Alcor" clauses we might put in someone else's contract, I 
would willingly incorporate into *mine*.)  

MICHAEL RISKIN writes:

>     While many of you may object to a dues increase, the dues, have in
>fact, been kept at an artificially low level for the services provided,
>for many years. Major donations, and in particular, the entire endowment
>fund donated by one member, have made up the difference for the
>insufficient fee structure.
>
>     It is time for the membership to pay a more realistic yearly dues.
>We currently have basically a subsidized/ welfare state type of services
>and dues structure, one that I believe most of you would find
>objectionable on moral, economic, and personal grounds. 

What it would take today is about a doubling of dues to bring the 
finances into line.  But three years ago, it would have taken at least 
a *four to six fold* increase in dues.  And (assuming continued 
growth) in two or three years close to current dues (with perhaps some 
inflation adjustment) will do the job.  

Picking the "right" amount of dues is a tough one.  In business theory 
everybody learns about the price elasticity curve, even if you can 
only plot two points (infinite price/zero demand and zero 
price/infinite demand).  But the profit/price curve (which takes in 
economy of scale) is more important.  

The Omni contest indicates that there are a *lot* more potential 
members out there than I thought!  What is keeping them from signing 
up?  Not paper work, because doing an essay is about on par with the 
paperwork.  I know several local people who are entering the contest 
who I did not think were potential members.  All of them are 
relatively poor.  I don't know which side of the "profit hump" Alcor 
is on, but raising the dues to fully pay for what we get at this time 
might *reduce* revenues if a lot of people left (three years ago full 
cost would certainly have run a lot of the membership out).  It will 
slow growth to the extent that cryonics *has* price elasticity. 


Clarissa Wells writes:

>In medicine, there is a Hippocratic Oath. As I recall, it is a pledge 
>to heal the sick without discriminating. 

The first paragraph of the Oath (which dates somewhere between the 
fourth century BCE and the first BC) is entirely concerned with 
obligations to the "doctors guild," such as teaching the children of 
one's own teacher.  The second paragraph (from an old Britannica) 
reads: 

     "The regimen I adopt shall be for the benefit of my patients 
   according to my ability and judgment, and not for their hurt or 
   for any wrong.  I will give no deadly drug to any, though it be 
   asked of me, nor will I counsel such, and especially I will not aid 
   a woman to procure abortion.  Whatsoever house I enter, there will 
   I go for the benefit of the sick, refraining from all wrongdoing or 
   corruption, and especially from any act of seduction, of male or 
   female, of bond or free.  Whatsoever things I see or hear concerning 
   the life of men, in my attendance on the sick or even apart 
   therefrom, which ought not to be noised abroad, I will keep silence 
   thereon, counting such things as sacred secrets."

I suppose a promise to refrain from seducing "male or female, of bond 
or free" can be interpreted as non-discrimination of a sort.  :)

>                                       If cryonics emergency workers 
>are serious about saving people's lives, it seems to me this puts them 
>in the same category as doctors; and therefore, they too should make a 
>pledge, explicit or implicit, to help people regardless of who those 
>people are.

You might note that when I informed the board two months ago about my 
intent (along with four others in this area) to help with the 
suspension of a member of a rival cryonics organization (who was being 
denied the suspension he wanted because he has AIDS) the Alcor board 
passed a resolution that officially discourages me and other members 
from helping suspend members of another organization.  The minutes are 
published if you want to see who voted which way. 
  
>             There is a very simple, obvious reason for this: a 
>health-care worker exercises the power of life and death. If workers 
>have no principles to guide them, so they exercise or withhold their 
>power indiscriminately, how can we ever trust them?

You have a point.  But, while I doubt many patients are turned away on 
the basis of political or religious grounds, a lot of health care 
workers are refusing to treat on something much more important to the 
patient--the patient's illness--AIDS.  As you can see above, cryonics 
is not free of this problem. 

The Oath seems a little dated, so I dug out my wife's EMT book.  
(Which I read when she was taking the course last year.)  The modern 
equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath is a bit more verbose--taking up 10 
pages of solid print in the chapter "Legal Responsibilities."  There 
is an interesting note under the definition of "Duty to Respond."  
While ambulance services which are attached to a government agency 
have this duty, "A commercial or volunteer service is not so obligated 
unless such care is advertised or is a requirement of its license." 

[some deleted]

>Mr. Henson's letter is long and seemingly full of contradictions, 
>which makes it difficult to answer. On one hand, he indicates that 
>Alcor can already get rid of any member it chooses. But if this is the 
>case, why did Mr. Henson need to ask for new rules that would allow 
>Alcor to prohibit people from rejoining? In his same letter, Mr. 
>Henson indicates that a nonmember can cause just as much trouble as a 
>member--if not more. In that case, Mr. Henson seems to have no 
>rational justification for wanting to keep some people out. This leads 
>me to suggest that maybe there is an IRRATIONAL reason. Did he, 
>perhaps, merely want the power to punish someone whom he disapproves 
>of? 

No, I wanted the board to be able to consider additional *contractual* 
arrangements in cases where we have already had a lot of trouble.

>One last point about Mr. Henson's letter. He says "a case can be made" 
>that a former member cost Alcor half a million dollars. However, Mr. 
>Henson chooses not to make that case. He prefers simply to hint at it, 
>knowing that I cannot reply, because I don't know what he knows. This 
>is arguing by innuendo, and it is not a technique that I respect 
>highly. 

My problem is that I do not have "court of law" grade proof of what 
happened.  As a result, I have been careful not to identify the 
"former member" even to their sex.  I can't go into more details 
without exposing myself (and possibly Alcor) to liability--though 
perhaps I could frame an entirely hypothetical example.  But I can 
point you to others who can tell what they know.  You can form your 
own opinion, which might differ from mine. 

>Originally, I posed an ethical question. Yet Mr. Henson doesn't even 
>try to talk about what is right and wrong. Instead, he talks in terms 
>of expediency. In view of this, I now feel even more strongly that Mr. 
>Henson does not seem an ideal person to help run a cryonics 
>organization. 

Sorry you feel that way.  But running a cryonics organization takes a 
lot of different talents.  I happen to be an engineer, and engineers 
tend to be long on the practical, short on the philosophical, and not 
too tolerant of people who destroy other people's work.  Re ethics, I 
have found that ethical concerns can support *both* sides of many 
arguments, and that decisions made on a simple ethical basis sometimes 
have rather adverse effects.  (Ask Michael Riskin about the handling 
of a recent suicide of an Alcor member.)  If you have any doubts as to 
how much attention we must apply to the practical side of cryonics, 
perhaps you would consider training to help with suspensions.  We 
offer members or sometimes those in the signup process a chance to 
observe a suspension once *without* being trained.  (There are always 
floors to mop, and that is where I started.) 


Thomas writes:

>Much as it would hurt, I would favor a combination of lowering the 
>paychecks of some or all of the workers at Alcor South combined with 
>an increase in yearly dues. Money should NOT be taken from the 
>Suspension Fund;

Thomas, money *is* taken from the patient care fund--it pays for LN2 
and some overhead.  There is a fairly wide range of how much Alcor 
could bill to the fund.  I think billing our marginal cost is too 
little.  Consider this, however.  Because of the 10% rule, the fund 
has a financial *interest* in Alcor's growth.  If the fund could 
"invest" in Alcor's growth, it might make hard business sense.  In any 
case, I think the PCTF can carry a little more of the overhead for the 
few years it will take for better economy of scale effects to kick in. 

>the Endowment Fund should not have its principal reduced. 

If Alcor were to stop growing or shrink, (always possible--for 
example, a better, and better funded, cryonics organization could be 
formed) then income from the endowment fund would be of constant or 
even increasing importance.  But if Alcor continues to grow, then the 
income of the endowment fund becomes a smaller and smaller part of the 
operating budget.  It comes down to what gives the best return:  
bonds, or increased membership.  Deciding which is best depends on the 
business plan model you think best fits reality. 

I do agree with you that more effective use of volunteers would help.
Perhaps you could work with Steve to explore this area.


Keith Henson 
(usual disclaimer)

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=1807