X-Message-Number: 30444
Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 11:05:11 -0800
From: "Charles Platt" <>
Subject: the response to intransigence

Keith Henson's implication that CryoCare was funded entirely by Saul
Kent suggests that Keith does not realize or has forgotten that
CryoCare was very much a group endeavor by a sizable number of people
(at least a dozen) who were responding to intransigence at Alcor,
where I seem to recall that Keith was a director at the time.

On the day of the infamous board meeting at which the Alcor directors
re-elected themselves and ignored the complaints from a sizable number
of members, those of us who felt seriously annoyed reconvened in the
conference room at the building that was then occupied by 21st Century
Medicine. Mike Darwin solicited contributions of $1000 per person from
all those sitting around the table, and about ten checks were written.
Paul Wakfer was working on a collaborative basis with Darwin at that
time, and had contributed a lot of money to help establish 21st. Saul
was still fighting the case brought by the FDA, and was not in a
position to make large financial commitments.

It is important to remember that the development of a new cryonics
organization, which eventually inherited at least 60 members from
Alcor, was specifically prompted by anger in response to an Alcor
"establishment" that appeared to be complacent, arrogant, and
unresponsive. Those who left Alcor included a significant number with
relevant qualifications, experience, and willingness to donate their
time--precisely the people that the organization could least afford to
lose.

In the words of Santayana: ". . . when experience is not retained, as
among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the
past are condemned to repeat it."

--Charles Platt

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