X-Message-Number: 1824
Date: 25 Feb 93 02:21:02 EST
From: MICHAEL RISKIN <>
Subject: CRYONICS: Commentary on requests to reduce the Alcor staff/pay

       First, I totally agree with Ralph Whelan's analysis of the value
per dollar that Alcor receives from its' staff. Every member who signs up,
does so with the expectation that Alcor is prepared to perform a
suspension, patient care, and ALL the other duties necessary for those
expectations. Those duties must include accounting, facilities management,
membership coordination.....everything that Ralph noted the staff is
doing.  To want professional suspension IS TO WANT professional personnel.
       Talk is cheap. If there is someone out there willing to demonstrate
the ability and willingness and committment to show all the responsibility
and productivity of any Alcor employee on an unpaid volunteer basis, take
one step forward. If any of you who proposed a volunteer system of
individuals to do as outlined above, please step forward. If any of you
can find an employee of equivalent or better ability willing to work at
the pay-cut salaries being suggested, please step forward. Some of the
membership does work very hard on a volunteer basis. The rest pay their
dues and that is absolutely fine. 
       By no means am I saying that Alcor has reached the perfect state of
efficiency....and neither has any other corporation in the known universe.
I am not an employee or director of Alcor. I am a dues paying member, who
on occassion donates extra money, and lives close enough to the facility
to attend board meetings once a month, and once in a while do some on-site
volunteer work. A volunteer work force????? If we get 10 non board members
in attendance at the monthly meetings where their voices can be heard, it
is a BIG turnout. And this is in Southern California where many members
live. I'm not complaining about that, mind you, it's simply a fact of life
that most members prefer to pay their dues and go about their business.
      Any across the board cut in an already rock bottom staff pay will
represent such an absurdly low percentage of the entire budget, it almost
seems demeaning to even discuss if it were not for the fact that otherwise
intelligent and rationally based persons are proposing it.
     Want better services, no dues increases, technological advances???
Put your (money, effort, material...) where  your mouths are. 
     Cryonics is not a religion where you tithe an amount of money that
can be dragged out of you and in return get an assurance of deliverance
to the promised land.
     I am starting to get the warm feeling that this will be a quite
unpopular email. The attitude I get from many members is, hey, I pay my
dues.....you owe me. The "you owe me" in essence translates to "I expect
to be properly suspended and revived when appropriate, and don't bother
me about the details, and don't ask for any more money, and don't
traumatise me with the technological details that current suspension is
unreliable and crude, because you promised to take care of me and thats
what you have to do, and thats that...and why is thats' that, you ask?
it's  because I pay my $288 per year , thats' why."
     The above is a child-like mentality that refuses to acknowledge
reality and take real self responsibility. Many persons who belong to
religious organizations donate %10 of their incomes to their church
because they believe the church offers them something really valuable.
Alcor members tend to view this whole thing as a business investment.
Hey, you told me to fund my suspension....I did. You said paperwork needed
to be done...I did it.  You said the dues are $288 a year... I pay it. And
now you owe me. No, immortality doesn't come that easy. The technology to
promise a really good shot at extended life is not here. Ok , its a lot
better than cremation, but dont you really want a lot better than a lot
better?  Here is a really gross estimation of a reality about money:
Alcor has approximately 350 members. If the average income of these
members is only $20,000/year then a yearly contribution of 10% 
equals $700,000/year income to Alcor. $700,000 a year at current
membership will buy a fantastic amount of research, patient facilities,
and services. Such so , that by even modest estimations, the increased
chances for a successful suspension explode in probability of success.
     There's no free lunch and you get what you pay for and a whole lot of
us are going to be dead forever because it will be a case of too little
too late. How would you have liked to be one of the last few hundred
persons to contract polio before the vaccine was available? And cryonics/
life extension will work....some day....and there will be some last person
who became dead forever before it was available.
     OK, OK....I hear some of you thinking that I am fearmongering you to
death and using used car salesman tactics to seperate you from a few bucks
or some volunteer labor. 
    Well, you are wrong. I just cant stand the thought of being dead
forever.
    And thats' just whats' going to happen without some help.

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