X-Message-Number: 22512 From: "Jappie Hoekstra" <> Subject: Some things Date: Saturday, 13 Sep 2003 05:32:00 +100 Hey, [*] 12 Sep 03 09:00, quoting : C> Michael Price wrote: >> personnel. I, too, have also decided to resign my Alcor >> membership, which is quite a wrench as one of the >> founders of UK cryonics, for the reasons Charles listed >> and for other personal reasons, and, likewise, will not be >> joining any other organisation for the foreseeable future. C> So are you recommending that every Alcor member read Charles' article, C> figure out which psychological group they fit into, and use it as a C> reason to quit Alcor and not join any other organization? Who is C> pulling *your* strings? Quite something indeed. I'd like to say something. Two months ago I had never heard of cryonics, nor did I know any cryonicist.. I used to have fantasies about building a big future house in the middle of nowhere - somewhere in Sweden actually (no sarcarm intended) - with a secret armored concrete basement with a freezer to place myself into somewhere at a decent age. Without telling anyone, and with enough locks on the chamber to require an army vehicle to open it.. Ofcourse there were some hypothetical problems like finding a lasting powersupply etc. Nevertheless. Then a few months ago I came across the word 'cryotank' somewhere, and for some reason I instantly knew what it was and ran an extensive Google search. In the days that followed, I was in a very euphoric state and under the impression cryonics was the last boat home, with captain Ettinger manning the steering wheel. In the weeks afterwards this feeling got replaced by the need to know everything about it, so I read pretty much half the websites around on the subject, printed hundreds of sheets on my new printer (hp laserjet 2200 - so you can print without replacing cartridges every two weeks..), analyzed the suspension contracts, emailed with some local cryonicist guy, and what else not.. I've spent half a year saving passionately for new stereo equipment, but I realized this money was not going to be spent on that anymore. Perhaps I jumped the boat at exactly the wrong moment in the boat's long history.. Nevertheless. What I saw in the last few weeks disturbs me. We have this Mr. Charles Platt, who is seemingly a great man on our ship, who is lowering himself in one of our lifeboats back into the ocean.. Coincidentally our ship already seems to be somewhat sinking for a while, with captain Ettinger tied up in his cabin. While Mr. Platt is lowering the lifeboat, he seems to be happy enough to point out to the rest of the travellers where the holes in the ship are.. In order to not make a too shocking perspective, he also points out a few places where the ship is looking good. But he continues lowering his lifeboat. Some try to call him back, but I don't think there's a need. Let me recall when I was younger and I wanted a very expensive wintercoat but my mom didn't want to pay for it.. My counterstrike was to cycle 16km (10 miles) to school at temperatures of 2-3 degrees Celcius in my 1mm thin summerjacket. It worked as expected. After a week I got the expensive coat. There's an analogy in Charles Platt' decision.. Taking the drastic opposite decision just to make a point. Someone with a history this long in cryonics will not make the choice to be buried/etc instead just for bureaucratic reasons.. While your pointing-out of the holes was correct, Tim Freeman makes a good point by pointing out emotional decisionmaking.. Your view of cryonicists and their deficits might be to the point - yourself among them as you said -, you should also look at the deficits in human beings in general and see yourself in that picture as well. It can be only emotions that justify a cancellation of cryonics membership, unless you really think this ship is sinking. So we can assume you'll be back when the time is right. About the "30-page memo" and Alcor in general.. I think Alcor is not a good business for cryonics. When I need to compare your organization with analogies in different businesses, I happen to see Alcor vs. CI as Microsoft vs. GNU/Linux. The shiny stable entity filled with holes vs. the idealists which sometimes mess up by pure accident.. Even without everything that happened recently, just by reading your website alone, this obscurity is evident.. I don't see how you can spend $250,000 or $325,000 or whatever the amount was, on marketing, while at the same time make such a big mess of issues that really matter and everyone focuses on.. That money you spent on marketing is pretty much lost as I see it.. First this Jerry Lemler guy.. If what the "30-page-memo" was quoted like in the news is true, then I can't stop grinning. What a mess. It is also "obscure" that he resigned on August 10th while on August 11th some important Larry Johnson issues saw the light.. But since this could be the true date on which he resigned, I don't want to make an issue of that. In that case, my gratitude. But right now it remains obscure. Second, the other things allegedly mentioned in this memo, like the things going on during TW's suspension in the operatingroom. Third, many issues listed on Rick Potvin's site.. Rick Potvin might seem into conspiracy theories, and off fact, as pointed out by Charles Platt a few times. Nevertheless he at least takes the time to try to make the facts known.. A sane person can balance for himself what's truth and what's fiction on Rick Potvin's site - it's what you supposedly also do when watching the news on TV. Yet I see an Alcor-member in Rick Potvin, usually even an Alcor-fan, posting things he sees. And from that perspective I reason that all the negative things he says about Alcor must be (at the minimum) a subset of the negative issues there are to say about Alcor.. If I need to quote all these Rick Potvin notices here, then this message would become too long. The URL to his site usually flies through Cryonet every few days. Everything said about Alcor everywhere might be off-fact. I must emphasize I'm not behind anything claimed by Larry Johnson.. Larry Johnson just tried to make the cryonics ship sink in a different way than Alcor is unwillingly doing. I can conclude on the Alcor subject by saying "it won't get you anywhere this way". These strange and obscure things going on, facthiding (willingly or not), private-open boardmeetings, and everything along those lines.. Cryonics is not something for bureaucraticness and scams. Ofcourse you need to find a balance between usefulness and idealisticness, and that's hard, I cannot tell how to do it. In your case you're making cryonics lean in the wrong direction.. And that's just a feeling I have. A feeling that says that Alcor will be the first organization that's out of business once the 'market' is getting popular and less monopolistic.. You seem to be currently working on finding new personnel here and there. My tip, bluntly as it is, find people that can blow a more idealistic approach back into Alcor.. Some people already said something on Cryonet about voluntariness vs. paid employees. One noted that money gives people a reason to stay with cryonics longer than volunteers generally do. That's correct.. But then again, I don't want to trust my body to people who're only watching it because there's a paycheck attached to it. These people sooner or later make mistakes which they don't even strongly regret: "It was just a job, I'll find a new one soon enough". The people guarding the ancient pyramids and the Pharaos' graves were seemingly willing to die on their watch.. That's the employees you need.. Realistically, you won't find them. That's not a reason to go searching on the other pole of the magnet. Now back to Charles Platt. If your memo was stating the facts, then I think you should come back aboard soon.. Pride is certainly not a reason to stay on the ocean when you somewhere inside don't really want to be there anyway.. Personally I think you did the right thing by writing this memo in the first place - again, if everything is according to fact.. Also, everyone can make mistakes, if this is relevant right now. Not a reason to kick anyone off the cryonics boat just because of that simple human flaw. There's always someone somewhere feeling suppressed, mistreated or misjudged by someone else, even on the cryonics boat, which is just a subset of humanity.. Scream what you want, just don't pay with your life. And don't expect others to do that. Concluding with this quote from Michael Price: MP>If I'm wrong, well I hope there will be an independent UK cryonics MP>organisation by then (but I doubt it). Since you're probably among the little handful of active cryonicists in the UK, it's not likely such a UK organisation is going to popup by miracle.. In other words, the chances are not increasing with you chosing to sit down.. I believe somewhere you posted you're 44 years old? I wonder, can you visualize yourself on your 88th birthday and verify if you would've taken this exact same decision? We need to look after ourselves, fools. I'm not amused by your titles, achievements, salaries, time-around-in-cryonics and pride. It's useless when you're six feet below the surface. And you all know that I assume. -- Signed, "Seriously wonders if interest in cryonics dies over time." Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22512