X-Message-Number: 8825 Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 13:46:40 -0500 From: Robin Helweg-Larsen <> Subject: Reasons not to join cryonics - personal References: <> The past couple of weeks of CryoNet have been rich, diverse, and fascinating. I love it! I guess I owe an explanation of why *I'm* still not signed up. I was aware of cryonics as a movement (as opposed to a concept) from the time of Charles Platt's OMNI contest. I was in favor of it, saw no hurry, lost the contact info. That accounts for several years. When I started getting computer-literate, did a search, signed onto CryoNet, started investigating the alternatives, couldn't really get a feel for what was going on until business trips took me to places where I could actually start meeting people. That took a couple more years. My analysis at that point was: I liked people in several different organizations (that was very important - the warmth thing, not in terms of people being outgoing, but in terms of my personal comfort level: integrity, honesty, intelligence, self-knowledge, self-criticism): for example Mike Darwin, Steve Bridge, Bob Ettinger. I mention these people because they were influential in my looking favorably on their associated organizations. Other people I like, such as Thomas Donaldson, are not vital to my choice of organization. CryoCare's structure was difficult to understand: the structure seems to evolve or shift, and there are hidden dynamics to that process. It is connected with the most interesting research possibilities, but my confused motives (altruistic and self-interested) in passing money to them and otherwise getting involved do not allow me to fully understand them yet. Alcor under Steve Bridge looked the largest, most solid, perhaps a bit bureaucratic, but still the best organized, the one that picked up after other failures like Bedford's go-it-alone, and the one most likely to keep me suspended for the necessary hundreds of years. CI seemed lower-tech - but that's largely irrelevant to my way of thinking - all suspension will inevitably involve major damage for the foreseeable future, the far enough future will be able to put us back together no matter what. But CI looked to be too small to be viable indefinitely - I suspected that it was dependant on too few individuals. So I chose Alcor for the long haul, based on their stability. In Feb 96 at the techfest in Scottsdale I got all my paperwork signed, and, because of the great numbers of signatures involved, I proudly got members of every group I could find to be signatories somewhere or other. The only thing I was missing was insurance. I went with an east coast insurance person, went through the process of having blood taken etc twice (my business was in crisis with the withdrawal of our distribution license from our UK supplier, and the need to create our own product from scratch, and a tremendous business opportunity from an international client occurring simultaneously - things like insurance paperwork were very difficult to deal with when we were working 7 days a week with no time for families) before having the paperwork go in to Kemper, and then having it bounced apparently because they didn't like the prospect of Alcor being a beneficiary. I was that close to being signed up. But that was another year wasted. Then at the Scottsdale techfest at the beginning of this year Alcor lost a lot of credibility with me: Steve Bridge's calm professionalism was replaced with what I felt was an enthusiastic, long-term, committed, but not very professional team. Secondly, the new team, together with CI, behaved in a very gullible manner concerning Visser, and their perceptions were clearly clouded by their wishes. Third I was personally offended by Michael Cloud; his personality clearly appealed to the new team, and to an insurance agent present at the festival, but I didn't see any other personal enthusiasm for him. I am still paying $25 a month to keep my application alive. I have received a package of paperwork from Mary Naples that should allow me to get the insurance I want. But I'm back to Square 1 in terms of being comfortable with choosing an organization to sign up with. My thinking now is that Saul Kent, who has dedicated his life to generating the funding to make his own suspension not only possible but as likely to be successful as it can be, is the person who is most likely to create the best long-term security for himself, to ensure that, once suspended, he survives as long as necessary and is then reanimated at an appropriate time (not too early; not unnecessarily late) and with enough finances intact to allow him to continue his life. Therefore, if only I could figure out actually what is going on with CryoCare and their associated groups, I would be likely to switch my allegiance from Alcor to them. Obviously my concern about CI's viability being dependent on a couple of individuals has to apply equally to Alcor and to CryoCare. It would be nice for us to have a movement that was so large that it had more stability than that. But if even nations of 10s or 100s of millions of people can be led into instability and then have their futures determined by only a couple of individuals, then that process is always going to apply in human affairs. Meanwhile I am wasting another year without being signed up..... Always optimistically, however, Robin HL Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8825