X-Message-Number: 30540
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:10:41 -0700
From: hkhenson <>
Subject: Reply to Charles Platt

At 03:00 AM 2/25/2008, charles wrote:

(Keith wrote)

> > Dave Pizer's argument is that members could monitor the board's
> > actions and replace those that made what they thought were bad
> > decisions.  I used that extended incident, which eventually led to
> > the disastrous CryoCare split,
>
>Keith I'm sorry, you didn't get it then, and you still don't seem to
>get it now. MD being fired from Alcor was NOT the single factor that
>led to the formation of a new company.

I don't think I have ever said or even thought it was.

The problem was that the reason MD and Alcor parted company was not 
out in the open at the time.  That problem made certain decisions the 
board and officers had to make unpopular, hard to understand.  If the 
members didn't understand why the board was taking unpopular actions, 
how could a voting member make a rational decision on who to 
replace?  That was the point of the post.

Here is a partial list of topics I don't expect non board Alcor 
members to be informed about:

Political strategy (most of the time).

Legal strategy, specifics of legal cases, particularly active ones.

Topics gagged under court orders.  Sometimes there are court orders 
where you can even say if there has been a court order.

Legal settlements, most of which are under gag

Physical security arrangements

Animal research

Employee affairs such as the reasons people were terminated.

Some of these, particularly gagged legal settlements, really stick in 
my craw.  I think they should be outlawed.  But while they exist, 
there are times Alcor will have to accept them.

>The annual election at which
>the board ignored other qualified candidates and mostly re-elected
>itself was the decisive factor. That was when we walked out, and a few
>hours later, the new company was formed.
>
>It was intransigence over numerous issues (such as relocating in
>Arizona) that pissed people off so much. A sense that the directors,
>including you and, incidentally, including Dave at that time, simply
>didn't care what anyone else thought.

I am not the least bit surprised you had that opinion when I consider 
your lack of knowledge about what was freaking out the board members 
back then.  Given that you now know what was worrying us back then, 
do you still think today we didn't care what anyone else thought?

The move to Arizona was driven by four main considerations, only 
three of which were openly known then.  But if you knew all that was 
bugging the directors . . . .

>This is how Alcor lost almost
>all of its best-qualified activist members.

It was a huge hit for Alcor, which is why I used 
"disastrous."  Having been on the losing side, I didn't play a major 
role after Steve became president.  Never discussed this business 
with him either, but the fact that he pushed the move to Arizona and 
didn't bring MD back in might indicate something.

Yeah, Alcor lost a bunch of good people because the board took a 
stand those people could not understand and the board members could 
not explain.  Heck, if I had not *been* on the board and privy to the 
bad news I might have gone with them.  And yet those "best-qualified 
activist members" eventually folded the CryoCare tent.

Put yourself in our shoes and let me ask you Charles, what would you 
have done if you had been on the board back then?  Let it all hang 
out?  I don't remember for sure, but it might have taken only one 
more voice on the board for that to have happened.

>Note that Darwin left Alcor months before that final meeting--long
>enough to set up his own lab, in fact. This _enabled_ a new
>organization, since the lab was capable of doing human cases. But it
>didn't _cause_ the new organization.

I could argue this point, but I won't because I think the bigger 
though derivative factor was the Alcor board and the officers taking 
a stand they felt they could not explain.  Not to bug you on this 
point, but didn't the inverse of this _disable_ CryoCare?

>I really don't know if any of this matters at this point, but to see
>you repeating your rather simplistic version of history is a little
>annoying. I was one of the five or six people who wrote the CryoCare
>bylaws and ran the organization, so, I do have some idea of why it
>existed.

If my version of that part of history comes across as simplistic, 
then it's a failure of communication on my part.  Sorry,  I will 
state for the record that that section of cryonics history is nothing 
short of Byzantine, full of strong willed people, crazy events, 
bizarre sub plots such as CryoVita and questions unanswered to this 
day such as where did Jerry's toys go?

> > Who do you want to replace, why and with whom?
>
>Again you miss the point. The point is that _the members_ (or a
>suitably qualified subset thereof) should have some ability to make
>this kind of decision.

There already is a qualified subset, the board.  Everyone on the 
board has to be an Alcor member and generally they are a member of 
long standing and service to Alcor.

The regular members of CryoCare did have "some ability."  I wasn't in 
the loop at all so I have no idea of how it worked out.  Perhaps you 
could enlighten us?  I also have no idea about SA or LEF and I think you might.

If you don't see me posting here for a while don't be surprised.

Humans are such a depressing lot.

Keith

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=30540