X-Message-Number: 26722
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 18:18:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: boasts

I find the recent exchanges regarding membership numbers
embarrassing for both of the organizations involved. All
three cryonics organizations attract minuscule numbers of
clients compared with other special interest groups,
especially considering that the procedure has been available
for four decades and has received huge amounts of publicity.
I don't think anyone is going to be very impressed when one
tiny organization claims that it is slightly less tiny than
another tiny organization.

Low numbers are rooted in the same old problem: Our
technology is not mature. If higher membership figures are
desirable (which is not necessarily true--see below)
organizations would benefit much more from factual, properly
documented reports of procedural improvements than from
feature checklists which are obviously contrived to present
each group in the most favorable light.

I believe Alcor has been making substantial progress in areas
such as transport and perfusion, yet the only information I
have seen consists of brief, nontechnical reports with no
pictures or diagrams. Similarly the Cryonics Institute claims
to have developed vitrification capability, yet has not
supported that claim with technical disclosure. So long as
people are asked to accept cryonics to some extent on a basis
of blind faith, even early adopters will be reluctant to make
arrangements.

In any event I must point out that the absolute number of
members alone does not mean much. Each new member represents
a very significant future liability, in much the same way
that life-insured people represent a future liability for an
insurance company. The ratio of members to future resources
is far more pertinent than the number of members alone.

Alcor has more than 10 times as many living members as
cryopreserved patients. Therefore, cryopreserving its current
members in the future will require at least 10 times the
already monumental effort that has been expended to
cryopreserve all existing patients over the past 30 years. I
believe Alcor will cope with this one way or another, but it
will be a major endeavor. Since Joe Waynick is no stranger to
the use of spreadsheets, quite possibly he has done the
numbers on this. If so, they would be more enlightening than
a raw membership count.

As for CI, it does not face such a heavy future burden,
simply because it doesn't commit itself to providing standby
service. While some people may regret that the basic price
excludes standby, others may feel that this is "not a bug,
but a feature," to use a phrase familiar in the software
industry.

To sum up, all the numbers are embarrassingly low, and the
numbers themselves don't mean much on their own anyway.

Instead of the recent self-congratulatory posts I would be
far more impressed by a list of problems in each person's
organization, especially if each list was accompanied by
commentary suggesting how the problems may be overcome.

--Charles Platt
speaking for myself, not Suspended Animation

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