X-Message-Number: 30262
Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 10:59:51 -0800 (PST)
From: david pizer <>
Subject: Examining the arguments
Reply to Mike Riskin
I find it hard to debate with Mike because I feel that
he mostly just says political rhetoric stuff. I
can't find enough stated reasons *why* he wants to
believe what he does. But here is a little debate to
get us started, I hope this will encourage Mike (or
anyone who holds his positions) to please give a
detailed argument, with supporting *logic* and not
just stuff like we mean well, or we are the best, or
whatever.
Mike said:
Accountability of management to the people it is
supposed to serve?can be quite?effective if the voting
people themselves are competent and personally self
informed, and well motivated.
David's Response:
Both director-elected directors, and member-elected
directors can (might or might now) be equally
competent, personally self informed, and well
motivated. But only member-elected directors have
additional motivations to be *more* competent because
only they are held accountable to the large pool of
members (and therefore to many more relatives of the
patients), where director-elected directors are not
held accountable. That reason alone (with all other
things being equal) will cause member-elected
directors to be MORE competent.
All other things being equal, directors who are held
accountable will do a better job then directors who
are not held accountable.
Mike said:
We can discuss the democratic system of electing a USA
president on down and at the end, no matter what else,
it can be argued effectively that many terribly
destructive mistakes have been made.
David's Response
Mike this is a straw man. I NEVER said the
member-elected system is *perfect.* I said it is
*better.* I gave lots of arguments *why* it is
better. Please try to argue with the reasons I gave
and not with things I did not say.
Mike Said:
Other cryonics organizations have come and gone or
seriously floundered but Alcor survives. Alcor is
winning the life or death issue re its existence and
primary responsibilities. I believe this is due to a
self elected directorship that even during periods of
severe internal disagreement pulls together to perform
its' most crucial responsibilities. Like a family.
David's Response: I believe the evidence shows that
Alcor is in the early stages of floundering here are
just a few reasons whey: Membership growth is at an
all time low. Member support, pride and involvement
is down. In the last two years, for every 2 people
that signed up, 1 person left. This shows that people
are coming to Alcor for the idea it stands for,
learning how Alcor is run, and then half of them are
leaving. Alcor once held the reputation of being the
undisputed leader in doing research. Now many feel CI
does more. Alcor once had the reputation of having
the best technology in doing suspensions, now many
cryonicists think that CI with its involvement with
Suspended Animation may be as good or better. Alcor
employees have run off with hundreds of thousands of
dollars, and an Alcor president mismanaged even more.
The members feel there is too much secrecy and Alcor
president and directors give one of their main
arguments that secrecy is needed to keep Alcor from
getting sued.
Is that you definition of winning the life and
death issue re its existence and *primary
responsibilities?
Our differences are simple to explain. There is little
differences in our motives and intentions, but that is
where any similarities end. You guys want to win the
war against death with a bunker strategy. You want
to hunker down in secrecy, with a dictatorship, and
try to hold out.
The rest of us want to win the war by taking over the
minds of those out there who are neutral. We want to
make our philosophy and our methods well-known. We
want to win over lots more people and get them to join
our movement. We want to do this by quit making
mistakes and doing the job as best it can be done. We
don't think Alcor is big enough nor has enough
resources to win the war against death, to contribute
enough money to do the needed research to make
cryonics more likely to work. But the big difference
that seems to be evolving is that you seem to want to
hide the mistakes and keep from getting sued, and we
want to create a new system of selecting the ultimate
managers of Alcor (the directors) that will help to
avoid making the mistakes in the first place.
Reply to Dr. Perry
Dr. Perry said:
..for a long time I was a supporter of the
self-perpetuating (non-elected) board, (skip)
At that time a self-perpetuating board seemed
especially sensible to many of us, especially in view
of what seemed to be a real possibility that, with a
member-elected board, a larger organization could gain
control of the assets of a cryonics organization
through an easy process of infiltration.
My response:
*Why* did you think a director-elected board would be
easier for a larger organization to gain control of
the assets then a larger member-elected board?
Dr. Perry again:
(It was also pointed out that very long-lived
institutions such as the Catholic Church were
undemocratic.)
My response: If I hear that reason given for the
Catholic Church's longevity one more time I will puke.
The Catholic Church has survived ONLY because their
members believe the Church represents GOD. The
non-democratic way it is run has allowed the leaders
to take away property from the members, and kill, burn
and rape them and their children, but the Church has
survived in spite of the way it is run, not because of
the way it is run, and only because of main idea the
Church stands for.
I submit this is exactly the same case for Alcor at
present. Alcor's similar government (similar to that
of the Church) has angered it's members and the
monopoly they once owned is eroding (same as the
Church). People come to the Catholic Church and Alcor
because they like the ideas these organizations stand
for, they see how they are run, and then many of them
leave (Catholics now become Protestants or drop out,
Alcor members now become CI members or drop out). At
present for every two people that come to Alcor, one
leaves. Mike, you are a numbers guy, do I have to
point out that is 50%?
Dr. David S. said:
In general, the self-appointing model is most
appropriate for the control of funds, as opposed to
direction of a company.
David P. replies:
1. Why do you think that?
2. It has not worked for Alcor. Years ago, they had a
guy named something like Gemini who ran off with
$100,000 of their cash, Then they had a president move
hundreds of thousands of dollars into a company he
owned a part of while he told them he was using the
money to buy suspension equipment instead. Then they
had a guy embezzle almost $200,000 to open a bar.
Then they had a girl steal $10,000 cash. We have no
idea how many other cash thefts there might be because
a small group of dictators who do not have to answer
to anyone run the company and they don't have to run
for re-election, THEREFORE their is no motivation for
those who really know to tell us. The motivation to
be a whistle-blower is non-existent in Alcor. If you
tell, you might get fired, and even after you do tell
the membership, they can't do anything about it
anyway.
David S said: This would also sharply reduce the risk
of someone trying to get on the Board with the
objective of financial gain.
David P.'s Reply
1. How would it sharply reduce the risk of someone
trying to get on the Board with the objective of
financial gain?
2. The president who moved the hundreds of thousands
of dollars into his partly owned company was on the
board.
David S. A first step would be to set up an Advisory
Board, which would have full access to information and
participation in meetings, but whose votes were
advisory to the Board. I don't think this should be a
large group.
David P. I like this idea of an advisory board. Alcor
has advisers now, but many of us would want both the
directors and the advisers to be elected by the
membership. Also, we would want a record of the
advisers' positions on all the issues recorded and
made public to the membership. When time for the
members to elect Directors, they could vote for
candidates from the pool of advisers who had been
advisers for at least 2 years.
David S.: Over a period of time, it would become
apparent whether better decisions were coming from the
advisers than from the Board.
David P. Exactly! At this point we could see which
advisers were making the best decisions and which
directors were making the worst decisions. Then we
could replace the inferior directors with the superior
directors at election time. Under this plan we would
know the track record of candidates before we elected
them.
At present some directors probably know who the other
incompetent directors are. But the present system
motivates directors to never try to unseat another
director. The reason: If one director tries to unseat
another director, then if he fails that director will
later try to unseat him. This makes it a risk to try
to replace an incompetent director.
If the members vote for the directors they can unseat
whoever they want, whoever has been doing a bad job,
and noting happens to them for trying because they
don't hold director jobs, they are members.
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