X-Message-Number: 1396 Date: 04 Dec 92 02:07:02 EST From: Charles Platt <> Subject: CRYONICS To: Kevin Brown Re: What a Board Can Do Keith Henson seems to think I am expecting too much, asking Alcor's board members to address the problems he cites. As I understand it, the first step toward resolving any MAJOR issue at Alcor is for a board meeting to vote on a policy or general course of action. Once a policy has been established, an appropriate employee or volunteer or outside contractor can be commissioned to do the work. (In the case of a minor problem, we would expect an Alcor employee to address it without prior board approval. I agree it may be helpful to throw out an appeal for assistance here in such cases.) Since I am neither an employee nor on the board, I hardly see that it's up to me, as a member, to run out and read books about preventing earthquake damage, or the law regarding animal experiments, while Alcor has no announced policy on these subjects. I also think it would be presumptuous of me to assume that I am the person whom the board or the CEO would want to handle the job. I do see some point in non-employee, non-board members such as Steve Harris posting messages about urgent matters such as earthquake damage, since this is a way of asking the board (or Alcor employees) to take up the matter. They, after all, are the ones who have the power to act. It's not the same thing at all when a board member asks cryonicists at large to tackle some substantial issues which he has not (so far as I know) tried to clarify in conjunction with his fellow directors. This seems strange to me. Re:Autopsies I appreciate Mr. Lubkin's concern about the threat of autopsy. I'm sure we all share it. But if he hasn't had any suggestions about "What to do," this is surely because no one knows what to do. Coroners have huge amounts of discretionary power, and have been known to violate strong (recognized) religious beliefs expressed vehemently by family members. Why should cryonicists think they have a better chance of changing the status quo than, say, orthodox Jews? Since a fundamental tenet is that "dead" people have no human rights, I see no basis be for any legal argument in favor of restricting the activities of coroners. It seems to me that the first step is to achieve a reallignment of public attitudes toward death. After that, there should be much more hope for a revision of the law (though the law usually lags behind public opinion by at least a decade). In short, I think efforts to revise the law are probably futile at this point, and popularizing cryonics is the number-one job. However, since I know much more about popularizing things than I do about fighting legal battles, I am obviously biased. Ralph Merkle told me that he has made contact with his local coroner on a personal basis and has established that the man prefers not to autopsy. I would think that this kind of personal contact, if pursued diplomatically, is worth a lot more than a legal offensive which is liable to create enemies and negate any possibility of receiving special favors. Clearly, all the above statements are speculative. --Charles Platt Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=1396