X-Message-Number: 11112
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 12:19:06 -0500 (EST)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: Australia

On Fri, 15 Jan 1999, Thomas Donaldson wrote:
> Well, as for Australia, I FOUNDED the Australian cryonics group, and did
> lots of work when I first lived there to make it successful

Okay, I'm interested. What does the group do? Does it have emergency 
response capability? Can it perfuse anyone with anything? How would your 
patient be transferred for maintenance at Alcor? How many cryonics 
members live in Australia, and how widely are they dispersed across the 
very large land area? I tend to think that if any of them believe they 
will be well-preserved, they're fooling themselves; but I would love to 
be proven wrong.

Personally I feel I am taking a risk by living 500 miles from the 
facility that would provide service in an emergency. You are living more 
than 10,000 miles away. How do you rationalize this with a desire to be 
placed in cryopreservation?

> it looked like we could get any member frozen except one, ME. But it did
> not collapse, and is now bigger than when I left. Not only did it not
> collapse, but all the work of preparation I did when I was there must
> have helped out: the Australian group has been responsible, directly or
> indirectly, for two suspensions.

This is a bit vague, Thomas. Does anyone in the group have any Alcor 
training? I do seem to recall a case where the patient was flown back to 
the US from your part of the world, but I also recall that it was a very 
suboptimal procedure. Am I right, or wrong?

> Your answers and your postings seem to assume that if we post on Cryonet
> we do nothing else, and show ourselves to be less active cryonicists
> than you. I'm glad (really!) that you are active, but the fact that YOU
> are active does not imply that no one else is.

I named two people (Bob Ettinger and Mike Perry) who have devoted much
more of their lives to the practicalities of cryonics than I have. If
there are other people posting to CryoNet, who have become actively
involved, I'm sure they will point this out. So far, however, no one has. 

> statements sound. Moreover, you seem reluctant to learn anything new which
> might pertain to cryonics (unless it comes from those you know). If you
> read even a few issues of PERIASTRON

I read numerous issues of PERIASTRON before I asked you to stop sending it 
to me. This may sound hard to believe, but PERIASTRON is not the only 
source of information about cryonics-related and life-extension-related 
topics. 

> By understanding how memory and identity work, we will understand just
> what damage a relatively poor suspension may cause. 

Fine. But I believe this will achieve precisely NOTHING in improving the 
quality of future cases.

> As for citing references, page and journal, you know or should know that
> doing such is a very good way to stop all conversations.

You mean, any thread on CryoNet could be stopped by someone citing
references that reveal the whole discussion is irrelevant? Sounds good to
me! 

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