X-Message-Number: 194 From att!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!rburns Sat Jul 7 14:36:09 1990 Return-Path: <att!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!rburns> Received: from att.UUCP by whscad1.att.uucp (4.1/SMI-3.2) id AA11344; Sat, 7 Jul 90 14:36:08 EDT Received: from portal.UUCP by sun.Sun.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA12269; Sat, 7 Jul 90 11:20:19 PDT From: sun!portal!cup.portal.com!rburns Received: by portal.portal.com (1.29) id AA29739; Sat, 7 Jul 90 11:19:48 PDT Received: by hobo.portal.com (4.0/SMI-4.0) id AA00842; Sat, 7 Jul 90 11:19:47 PDT To: Subject: Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaws public Comments on Alcor Date: Sat, 7 Jul 90 11:19:44 PDT Message-Id: <> X-Origin: The Portal System (TM) X-Possible-Reply-Path: X-Possible-Reply-Path: sun!portal!cup.portal.com!rburns Recently Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw were speaking at Mountain View. One of my housemates (who is signing up with Alcor) was there and asked Durk what he thought of Alcor, his response (according to my housemate) was 1) that he thought their were some good folks at Alcor and that they are sincere about cryonics 2) he thought that an Alcor policy was a poor investment at this time, a) because of Alcor's organizational "instability" b) because he thought that Alcor was "comingling funds" c) he thinks something else better will be available later either from Alcor or a derivative organization Basically, he is advocating his approach of incremental life extension via vitamin therapies etc. - which one might well expect him to do. Here is the problem as I see it: Durk, whatever else you and I might think of him,does have a message with wide popular appeal. Durk is one of the people most likely to be perceived by the public as someone who "ought" to be sympathetic to Alcor. His first two complaints are basically legal and organizational in nature (and may even be obsolete)-These should be addressed. If he is mistaken in his information, he should rather gently be informed of this, preferably by someone at Alcor who knows him. His last argument, I rather strongly disagree with. He is basically saying, let someone else do the work, and then reap the benefits. While it is possible that certain people should wait until things are a bit more mature in the industry (basically because they lack the sophistication to avoid being taken in by con-artists around at this point). What I personally tell people, is that an Alcor policy is an extremely high risk, high return investment that makes sense as part of a balenced program of life extension and other life improvement activities. I probably wouldn't suggest an Alcor policy to someone who had real trouble supporting themselves or was unhappy, but I would suggest it to someone who is getting along well and has surplus resources in their life. I'm supporting Alcor now, because it is the best thing around at the moment, and in the belief that only if I do my part now, will there be a good cryonics organization around in 30-60 years when I do need it. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=194