X-Message-Number: 30464
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:54:38 -0800 (PST)
From: david pizer <>
Subject: KIDNAPPED
KIDNAPPED
Three cryonicists - an Alcor Director, an Alcor Reform
member, and a normal cryonicist - were going to a
meeting. Some anti-cryonics bad guys, (maybe
wearing baseball caps and pumped with steroids),
jumped out of the bushes at the parking lot and
kidnapped them and took them to an abandoned warehouse
and tied them up. The biggest, meanest kidnapper in
the group with a snarl said we hate you guys and we
are going to shoot you. But to prove that we are
better then you guys, we will give each of you one
wish before we shoot you.
The Alcor Director spoke first. For my wish, since we
are going to die, at least let me correctly inform
these other two guys about how great are the
intentions of us Directors and why we know what is
best for all the members. I have a carefully prepared
argument filled with logic and evidence and it will
take me only two hours to explain my position.
The Alcor Reformer then said, For my wish I want to
explain why the present system of Directors electing
Directors is causing so many problems and what we can
do to change the system, how democracy will bring
accountability to Alcor and turn it into a well-oiled
machine. I can make a detailed argument that is like
a steel trap in just an hour and a half.
At this point the normal cryonicist said, My wish is
that you shoot me first.
DON'T PULL YOUR GUN OUT JUST YET!
Well, by now some of you normal cryonicists might be
feeling like the kidnapped victim in the story above
and start demanding to be shot you before you have to
listen to any more arguments. And that would be ok if
you don t mind being dead forever.
You might ask - Can we please stop the arguing and
just get on with doing good cryonics and get to the
point in time when Alcor will reanimate us all, and we
will have perfect youthful, healthy bodies, and the
world is a much better place then it is now?
You might wonder if I believe - Will there come a time
when humans will no longer age like they do now? I
think there will.
Can cryonics be the method to get us to this time in
the future when with improvements through science we
can be much better then we are now?
I think it can.
Do I think - Will Alcor be able to get us to this time
in the future?
Not unless we make some changes in the way Alcor is
run and quickly.
ALCOR WAS KIDNAPPED IN 1987 BY A MISTAKE
The bad situation is the fault of when Alcor changed
the way its Directors are elected in 1987.
Before 1987 Alcor *members* elected the Directors.
After 1987 Directors elected Directors.
That meant that after 1987 Directors no longer had to
appear each year in front of the members they were
supposed to be serving and ask the members to examine
their record from the year before and either re-elect
them or elect some better candidates. In 1987 the
Directors were no longer accountable to the members -
and in 1988 all hell broke loose.
In 1988 Directors began doing things as if they had to
account to no one. They brought a terminal patient
into the Alcor facility and allowed her to die there,
instead of allowing her to die in a neutral place like
a hospice in front of non-partial observers. The story
goes that an Alcor member innocently asked them -
Are you guys sure you know what you are doing here?
And they told him to Be quiet. I don't know if that
story is true, but I do know that if someone did
question the Directors back then, they might very well
have said that. They severed the head and her hands
of the woman who died inside the Alcor facility and
then later dropped her body off at a funeral home with
head and hands missing. What were they thinking?
From that point on, things got worse. First the
Directors starting fighting with local officials and
bureaucrats. After a few years of that they started
fighting with their own members until a large amount
of members quit and started their own company. Once
the feeling of having to be accountable was gone, the
Directors began to act differently. It wasn't all in
just one day, but over time as they realized they had
the power to do what they wanted and could not be held
accountable to anyone else.
Alcor's President and main Board member Carlos
Mondragon acted so unaccountable that he finally had
to be forced out of office and Steve Bridge brought
in, and with the help of others, we had to move Alcor
out of the state of California because by then the
Directors had almost every non cryoncist hating Alcor
and many of the members hated Alcor too.
We got a fresh start in Arizona. For a while everyone
was on their best behavior. The mayor of Scottsdale
welcomed us. The press was kind to us and the people
liked us, for a while.
UNLESS WE CORRECT THE MISTAKE OF 1987 THE
SELF-DESTRUCTION OF ALCOR WILL KEEP REPEATING ITSELF.
Now Alcor is starting to get in hot water again.
Alcor has been getting bad publicity. People are
joining Alcor but half of them leave quickly. People
like us, who like the idea of cryonics but they don't
like the way Alcor is run, and leaving. This is a
very important point. Alcor is getting new people to
join. But for every 2 new people that join, one person
leaves. That is a huge number 50%. The idea of
cryonics is a very powerful idea.
If Alcor were run in as effective a way as the idea of
cryonics represents we would not have so many
problems. We need a system of freedom for the members
to have the say in their destiny that is as powerful
as the idea of freedom that cryonics represents. The
idea that you try to remove the dictatorship of death
from your life by signing for cryonics and then find
that there is also a dictatorship there at Alcor, is
just not appealing to most freedom loving, death
hating cryonicists in Alcor.
Now things have got so bad that Alcor has to have an
attorney to advise the Board Members on a regular
basis on what to say and not to say. They Board
Members have to meet in secret often. Gone are the
days when Board meetings seemed like they were about
how to do more research and do more public things and
instead - behind closed doors - the topic is often
how to keep things from leaking to the public -or how
to keep things from leaking to the members, how to put
a good spin on results of bad decisions.
(Gee, don't you get tired of asking your leaders
questions and they have to tell you that they can't
talk about that on advice of their attorney?)
THE BOARD MEMBERS HAVE GOOD INTENTIONS BUT THAT ISN'T
ENOUGH.
The present Board members don't have bad intentions.
They don't want Alcor do be doing so poorly. How does
it happen that a person becomes an Alcor Director
filled to the brim with good intentions to make
lasting and positive changes and then a few years
later finds that he is spending time hiding mistakes
and building positive spin?
THE ANSWER IS SO SIMPLE THAT MANY PEOPLE JUST CANNOT
BELIEVE THE ANSWER IS SO SIMPLE.
The answer to fixing Alcor is so simple that Alcorians
want an answer more complex. They just cannot believe
that doing one simple thing will make most all the
problems much easier to deal with and put Alcor back
on track like is was in the early days.
What is this simple change that can prevent Directors
from making mistakes and causing problems, and will
bring us all back together working with one another
and having multiple successes again?
Actually, we need to do two things to Alcor to make it
much better but both of those things can come from
only making one simple change.
THE TWO THINGS WE NEED TO DO ARE:
1. We need to instill a feeling of accountability in
the Directors of Alcor. Without feeling more
accountable it becomes too easy for Directors to blow
off the good ideas and suggestions of the members when
they don't agree with them.
2. We need to instill a feeling in the members of
actually being a part of Alcor. When people join
Alcor they think they are going to be a part of the
team. When they learn that all members are merely
bench warmers for the 9 Directors, they leave.
THE CHANGE WE NEED TO MAKE
We correct both of the problems above by allowing the
members to elect the leaders of Alcor. The idea is so
simple that most people reading this cannot believe
that's all there is to it.
In this remainder of this work I am not going to
propose which are the best checks and balances to put
into a member-electing system, we can figure that out
after we agree to discuss it further.
Another benefit of a member-electing system is that it
can give us much more protection from hostile
takeover. I know we can create a system, where the
members elect the Directors, that will be much harder
to be taken over by hostiles then the present Director
electing system where all it takes is 5 hostiles to
take over all of Alcor.
PLEASE THINK ABOUT THIS NOW AS IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDED
ON WHAT YOU DO ABOUT THIS.
Please don't blow this off as one group trying to pick
a fight with another. You can have the benefit's that
cryonics should be able to deliver, but you need to
get involved. Alcor can be our delivery vehicle. But
we need to fix the delivery truck first. A cryonics
vehicle can't get you to the future if the motor needs
an overhaul.
WE NEED TO INSTILL A FEELING OF ACCOUNTABILITY INTO
EVERY PERSON WHO BECOMES A DIRECTOR IF WE WANT ALCOR
TO SURVIVE!
I have been a Director. I have sat in public and
secret meetings with 8 other Directors and listened as
they spoke. Here is how a typical situation gets
ugly.
A member comes to the Directors with a concern. The
Directors listen to the member and sometimes they
decide he or she has some legitimate concerns and they
might make some changes. HOWEVER - Sometimes the
Directors come to believe that the member's concerns
and or suggestions do not have enough merit to make
any changes. They tell the member they are not going
to do anything about the members ideas.
The member having some experience or knowledge that
the Director may not have is still concerned and
pushes the matter. Eventually the Director or
Directors have enough and they start responding to the
member and instead of debating the issues with him or
her, they begin to make assumptions about the member's
motives or his or her intentions. But in the end, the
decision of the Board member is final. So even though
we have 9 Board members and 900 members the 9 override
the 900 every time under this present system.
I think Alcor would do better to have the input of the
900 not just the 9.
Another problem this present system causes is that
members, since they know they have no say, pay less
attention to what is going on at Board meetings. Why
would a member want to go to a meeting where he sees
things being done that he or she thinks are bad for
Alcor and knows there is nothing he or she can do
about it.
In conclusion let me say that I know you may be busy.
I know you have lots of things in your life that need
your attention. But we may only get one chance at
fixing the major flaw in Alcor right now. We have
some momentum starting to build. People are getting
interested. Now is the time for you to come take a
visit to the site at www.reformalcor.org
Please click on the support button on the top and
post your support either for democracy at Alcor or at
least your support that discussions about the problems
be examined further and that Directors should show
the members enough respect that they will begin to
engage in those discussions.
Visit the blog and forums sections. Reply to
something, or start a new thread.
If you feel strongly submit an article to the
ReformAlcor web master.
I believe now, as I did over 25 years ago when I first
got interested in cryonics, that we can create and
sustain a company that can deliver us to the future.
I also think that the future will be a place worth
visiting. I know you believe that too, because if you
didn't you wouldn't have read this far in my work
here, you would have shot yourself a few pages before
now.
Please visit the ReformAlcor.org website now - it is
YOUR website. We are in the early stages of creating
this movement that will make Alcor a much better run
organization. You can be a CHARTER MEMBER in the
campaign to re-create Alcor into the vehicle that can
deliver us to the future. You can do that by posting
something positive on the ReformAlcor.org website now.
If you don't remember any other part of this message
please remember this undeniable rule of business: ALL
OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL, A COMPANY WHOSE LEADERS ARE
HELD ACCOUNTABLE WILL ALWAYS DO A BETTER JOB THEN A
COMPANY WHOSE LEADERS ARE ACCOUNTABLE TO NO ONE.
www.reformalcor.org
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