X-Message-Number: 31306 Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 20:02:26 -0700 From: "Finance Department" <> Subject: Advances, Regressions & RSN/Status Quo in Cryonics, 2008 ------=_Part_120994_9581285.1230519746620 Content-Disposition: inline I thought it might be helpful to get some perspective on "where we're at" in cryonics, over the past calendar year. I'll do one paragraph on each issue that stood out for me during the year, and that was discussed on Cold Filter. Cold Filter is where I mainly post, and is at: http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/ Cold Filter (CF) is not, as some folks mistakenly think, a "Rick Potvin Forum". It has an entirely different owner, though not me. It is actually not far from CryoNet in moderation principles. I wrote the below to CF, and since I have occasionally been newly posting here to CryoNet, thought I would share it also with you, so that you can look at some issues, and also see what is sometimes being discussed on CF. Here goes: STANDBY SERVICES: Two organizations, Alcor and Suspended Animation (SA) claimed at the beginning of the year to provide standby services, but we knew nothing about the staffing or leadership of teams for either of them. We waited all year and finally SA gave us commentary on their website and in their recent newsletter, describing their standby resources. SA named three employees, one with EMT training and two who are taking it, augmented by dozens of unnamed professional contractors. The latter would be more credible if we knew who they are. During the year, we discovered who Alcor's standby team was, from leaked details of a standby they did. This team consisted of three Alcor employees, only two of whom work there at this time. Very recent information has been fed to me claiming that Alcor now has 3 or 4 people in the field each with some level of standby experience, who are willing to fly anywhere to assist a standby. I was even given names but I will let Alcor make an official announcement describing their recently revised standby service, if it is not more than just a rumor, themselves if they so choose. In this area of cryonics, we have apparent progress. ALCOR MEMBER RIGHTS: Beginning of the year, zero. End of the year, still zero. And by "member" let me clarify that referred to people who are signed up for Alcor's services, which Alcor incorrectly calls "members". Alcor's own bylaws though say that the only real members of Alcor are those on its board of directors. ( http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/bylaws.html Section 3.) Others should more correctly be called "customers". They have no rights for anything, not to mention electing Alcor's board, which is reserved to the self-electing board members/directors. At the beginning of the year, we saw an emerging movement headed by David Pizer to get Alcor's board to give its member/customers voting rights. This fell on deaf ears. Pizer then discovered and published that the original Alcor bylaws which at least gave *some* members voting rights, was illegally changed during the Alcor presidency tenure of Mike Darwin, the sponsorship of which he says he now regrets. The obvious conclusion that the current Alcor board sits illegally and everything that has been done since that change is invalid, has been posited, and of course, fallen on deaf ears. Now not only is the board deaf, but Pizer seems to have become "hard of hearing" regarding this issue as well. See: http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/message/1214180139/ . That's where Alcor members stand now - no standing at all. STOCK MARKET CRASH EFFECT ON ALCOR'S AND CI'S MONEY: At least a couple of times I not so discreetly inquired as to how much money both organizations have lost to the stock market, which is now at about 50% from it's high in the past year. Both companies have been said to have such investment - Alcor via their Patient Care Trust and CI via their general fund. The only response at all we saw was a comment from Robert Ettinger saying, if I recall correctly, that only about 1/4 of their money was so invested. That means their general fund probably lost only about 1/8 of its money thus far. Thanks to Mr. Ettinger for the CI insight. Where's the Alcor insight? Out of the nearly 1000 Alcor members (excuse me, I mean customers), who of them even care? Over and out. OREGON CRYONICS: Jordan Sparks, a dentist from Oregon with some passion for cryonics, an ex-Alcor and now CI member, announced* that his cryonics service organization would be easily launched within a month or two of then. Since then it has gone into hiding, rumoredly from personal family issues I will not repeat at this time. He was said to provide some low-cost alternatives to cryonics, such as maybe plastinization (sp?), freeze drying or chemical fixation, I forget which it was of those. No more, it seems. Ironically, the deWolf couple Aschwin and Chana moved to Oregon, the latter having quit her job at Alcor, and we have no clear idea what they are doing there except there are stories about a new research lab. Oregon seems to be, well, somewhere between status quo and status flux. REMOTE/FIELD VITRIFICATION: Whichever one you want to call it, it is basically the concept of integrating the final preservation step into the initial standby/stabilization step, of the cryonics service process. Most of us know that time is of the essence in getting you straight from the deanimation into the dewar/cryostat. Why wait hours or days of shipment time and delays to get your body with ice cubes around it to the provider's HQ where it will finally get the vitrification perfusion that it needs? This should be the goal, and I brazenly and arrogantly presented it as a goal to Alcor and SA at the beginning of the year, to be implemented by the end of 2008. Nope. All we got are indications their basic standby service they have been claiming to have for years, might actually be a reality. Nothing about any improvements on it like remote/field vitrification. although it almost seemed from remarks by an SA employee Mathew Sullivan that we were only one or two pieces of equipment away from it, though he did not say it could be done in 2008. I even participated in a lengthy discussion of all the things needing to be done, earlier in the year, to the best of my ability being a totally non-technical person. At this point in time, there is no hint that either standby service organization even has remote/field vitrification on their agenda. This is not even a Real Soon Now (RSN) issue - it is barely a State of Flux. MIKE PERRY'S GRANT TO STUDY CHEMICAL FIXATION: This was briefly mentioned on CF, but we have nary a report, except that Martine Rothblatt granted money for it. RSN? 'Nuff said. WEALTH PRESERVATION TRUSTS: Amid the humor on CF which if you saw you saw it but I won't elaborate here, it seems a big shindig was held among wealthy and a few not so wealthy cryonicists about how to "take it with you". Undoubtedly, this enthusiasm was diminished somewhat later in the year by the onset of our great recession robbing substantial wealth from such folks' accounts, like some of them might even owe past earnings as a result of one megabillion dollar ponzi scheme ( http://www.madoff.com/ ), but I digress. Others, such as one of the original founders of cryonics Mr. Ettinger, thinks it is better just to leave what you have to your favorite cryonics org. FORCED CRYONICS: Here and there the subject comes up of ethics concerning the next of kin deciding a deceased relative should be cryopreserved. This is muddied by the distinction of whether the deceased expressed a wish for one manner of interment over another, or not. IMO, if they did, it should be respected. If they didn't, there is no reason the next of kin should not choose cryonics for them. Further discussion please start a new thread. THE WEALTHY TRIO'S SUPERFUNDING OF ALCOR: I won't repeat the details, go dig. In a nutshell, Saul Kent convinced 2 other wealthies to fund millions of dollars to pull Alcor out of the drainhole. What have we seen thus far? New standby kits sent to 7 local groups. Still no filling of the two vacant positions, except that one is not really vacant (Tanya will probably have it for life because nobody better seems to want it) and that the other one supposedly has some serious people under consideration. This latter may be a RSN that really gets done Soon Now, we shall see, and said salary is to be paid for out of the superfund. What I have been wondering though is why hasn't Mr. Kent similarly funded CI, who has graciously made a contract with SA, a company Mr. Kent is a major owner of? And why is Mr. Kent still an Alcor member when SA, his own company, seems to provide better standby service, and CI's preservation and storage seem comparable to Alcor's? Many mysteries remain in the dark room behind cryonics. GLOBAL WARMING THREAT TO ALCOR'S CONTINUED SERVICE ABILITY: Summers around Alcor in the USA Southwest are already a hell-hole, and slowly getting hotter every year. While liquid nitrogen is admittedly the same temperature in Scottsdale as in places north, and boiloff the same provided room temperature is maintained, it could eventually become an issue of insufficient people willing to stay in the area who now make up the support structure for cryonics storage. Other aspects of this have been discussed from time to time, but the most important item was a challenge I made to Alcor to at least form a committee to monitor the situation and develop a contingency plan. Still the usual silence from Alcor. LIQUID VENTILATION: I started the following thread soliciting official positions from major cryo organizations, which was of course ignored by them: http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/message/1210974034/ . Since then I have heard via unofficial sources that Alcor is doing nothing, and SA has done something that might come to light RSN. RSN, folks. WHOLE BODY VITRIFICATION: I had the following to say mid-year and nothing new has happened: http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/message/1215749168/. This is the RSN item Alcor keeps repeating, sometimes verbatim!, the same progress report on month after month. CI, who does the vitrification part of their preservation via their local contracted funeral home, says they now perfuse the entire body with vitrification fluid. Little or nothing is being measured, tested etc. regarding that part, and no one knows what Alcor really does as there are no case reports. THE SINGULARITY KEEPS REARING ITS UGLY HEAD: http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/message/1224302462/ . And Alcor keeps promoting the organizations that are trying to bring the end to humanity via super machine intelligence that will logically conclude that we are irrelevant. The money they invest in Alcor is a bribe. Wake up and start challenging these idiots instead of taking their money. Status insane. Or maybe Yudkowski, a main promoter of this danger, would like to post to CF what he means by this statement on his website "My own work deals with the stability of goals in self-modifying AI, so we can build an AI and have some idea of what will happen as a result." Huh? What work? Maybe I missed something, but I would say "not much". But it is Mr. Y's problem to get his message out if he has one, not mine. I AM STILL "FINANCE DEPARTMENT": And as I have said for years now, I will remain so until Alcor and its board promises to refrain from giving "celebrity exceptions" to the requirement that its members/customers are fully funded on their own part. No loans. No promises. Money up front or at least funded by life insurance. Alcor made an exception for Ted Williams, and it was totally unwarranted. It was an insult and slap in the face to every Alcor member who had to fully fund before they could be assured of service. This anomaly was discovered on analysis of an annual report showing a mysterious $100,000 accounts receivable item which was later revealed to be the amount owing on TW's suspension. (Since then Alcor has habitually taken as long as they legally can to publish financial statements and has formulated them in a manner that details are obscured.) When Alcor's board irrevocably states that they will never give such Celebrity Exceptions again, I will cease using the above handle, which is a continual affront to Alcor and is intended to be. If that ever happens, and it is highly unlikely, I will revert to using my old handle from years ago, Non E. Moose. UNPERSON KEEPS (nah, I won't, I'll be kind to the poet who don't knowit) There were many other stimulating CF posts and threads, mostly focused on lesser individuals and their idiosyncrasies, that served to lighten up our beloved forum. Keep it up in 2009 folks. What will that new year bring ... Happy New Year! FD * http://www.oregoncryo.com/news.htm "3/2/08 Aschwin DeWolf (formerly from Suspended Animation) and Chana DeWolf (neuroscientist) just moved to Portland, and they organized a local cryonics meetup yesterday. It was attended by Eric Geislinger, Jane Talisman, Scott Newell, Kumar, Dan Ellis, Carlos Mondragon (Alcor director), Ramos Dilly, the DeWolfs, and me, for a total of 10. There was a lot of combined knowledge in that room. Many of the people in the room had hands-on experience with multiple cases, many had worked at a cryonics organization, and many had been involved for decades. I feel like we finally have the chance to create a world-class cryonics organization in Oregon. Other than myself, none of the others seemed to be able to store equipment. So I will be the only one doing that. The DeWolfs know what equipment is needed, and still have connections with other cryonics organizations to possibly obtain a few critical pieces at low cost. They will be advising me and working with me. I will be creating some pages on this website that explain the equipment and supplies that are still needed. We will not be able to put a big sign on the street until about mid April. 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