X-Message-Number: 30308
Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 21:49:32 -0800 (PST)
From: david pizer <>
Subject: MY OPINION OF ALCOR'S CURRENT CONDITION PART 2
Besides the members who are leaving, the existing
members no longer have the energy and enthusiasm for
Alcor that they did years ago. What has changed?
When I first joined Alcor very few people wanted to be
on the board. It was risky to be a cryonicist. Your
employer might fire you. Your friends and neighbors
might think badly of you. I used to go to the board
meetings which were packed with most of the Alcor
members. The board positions were token positions
then. You served as a director because you were not
afraid to come out of the cryonics closet. But many
of the leaders, or great thinkers, were not on the
board. Everyone, board members and regular suspension
member sat together and discussed the issues together,
and came to conclusions and decisions of how to
respond, together. All the issues, even the most
sensitive. The members made their will known and then
the board rubber-stamped their vote. The members felt
like they were running Alcor in those days. So they
contributed their money extra above the amount of the
dues. They volunteered their services and Alcor's
payroll was low compared to the amount of dues they
collected, compared to what that ratio is today.
Today Alcor has to pay almost everyone to do work for
them. The skilled people who used to volunteer their
work now feel that since they are being shut out they
don't want to do extra things for Alcor.
People used to bring their friends to Alcor to sign
up. They used to promote Alcor, come to events in big
numbers. Their collective enthusiasm helped everyone
to feel good about being an Alcor member.
The board recently complained that no one comes to the
board meetings anymore.
They blamed the members for
this as if the members were being bad. But why would
a member want to come to a board meeting. He can't
vote on any issues. If he stands strong on a point,
like I have done, and the board can't defeat his
argument, they begin to vilify him instead. They
attack his method of presentation. They build straw
man arguments about his motives. But they don't have
to answer the members' charges. They don't have to
defend their decisions or actions. They don't have to
engage any member's concerns. They don't have to
answer to anyone but themselves. At election time
they nominate each other, they vote for each other.
What is there motivation to vote for other directors
that they feel are not the best choices -- If you vote
for me, I will vote for you. If you don't support me,
I will support the opponent for your seat.
3. HOW TO MAKE ALCOR BETTER.
WHY ALLOWING THE MEMBERS TO VOTE WILL CAUSE THE
DIRECTORS TO DO A BETTER JOB.
Both director-elected directors, and member-elected
directors can be equally competent, personally self
informed, and well motivated. But member-elected
directors have additional motivations to do a better
job because they are held accountable to the large
pool of members (and therefore many more relatives of
the patients) at election time, where director-elected
directors are not. That reason alone (with all other
things being equal) will cause member-elected
directors to be MORE competent.
We all feel the patients are Alcor's biggest priority.
The close relatives of the patients are the ones most
likely to take actions and risks for the benefit of
the patients. There more friends and relatives of the
patients in a pool of 900 then in a pool of 9. The
general membership pool will always have a lot more
people who are closer to the patients.
I believe the evidence shows that Alcor is in the
early stages of floundering. To recap a little -
Membership growth is at an all time low. Member
support, pride and involvement are down. In the last
two years, for every 2 people that signed up, 1 person
left. This shows that people are coming to Alcor for
the idea it stands for, learning how Alcor is run,
finding out they have no say, and then half of them
are leaving. Alcor once held the reputation of being
the undisputed leader in doing research. Alcor once
had the reputation of
having the best technology in doing suspensions, now
many people think that CI with its involvement with
Suspended Animation may be as good or better. Alcor
employees have run off with hundreds of thousands of
dollars, and an Alcor president mismanaged even more.
The members feel there is too much secrecy and Alcor
president and director's main argument is that secrecy
is needed to keep us from getting sued. These are
major signs that something is wrong in the very
underpinnings of how Alcor is run.
The main thought here is: All other things being
equal, directors of a company who are held accountable
to stockholders, customers or members, will
have more motivation to do a better job then directors
who are not held accountable to anyone but themselves.
WHY ALLOWING THE MEMBERS TO VOTE WILL CAUSE THEM TO BE
MORE ACTIVE AND SUPPORTIVE OF ALCOR, AND WHY ALCOR
NEEDS THAT SUPPORT.
As I mentioned: The first major incident of not
allowing the members to have the vote came when I was
a board member. At the time I did not realize it, but
the dictator policy was making some members very angry
with Alcor and alienating them. If during the time
before the start of the Cryowars (when eventually
about 100 Alcor members left Alcor), the members would
have been able to vote for re-election of the
directors I believe they would not have felt that they
had to leave and try to start their own company.
In the past few years, I have had several people ask
me to help them start their own cryonics companies or
support research.
So far it has been my opinion that it is better to try
to save Alcor. But if we cannot convince the
directors to give the vote to the membership I believe
that new competitors for Alcor will more likely spring
up. Already CI is doing a better in getting people to
join their organization instead of Alcor. I think
if we have to split up the small cryonics membership
pie between three of four more companies, things will
be much worse for Alcor. I think it is better for the
cryonics movement to fix Alcor then to motivate Alcor
members to keep leaving and eventually help lead to
the formation of other new competitors.
Not allowing the members to vote is telling the whole
pool of 900 that your group is not as smart and
knowledgeable as our group of 9. Some directors
believe this. I have heard them say it.
OTHER ARGUMENTS
THE AGRUMENT FOR PROTECTING ALCOR FROM TAKE-OVER BY
HOSTILE GROUPS.
Basically their (most board members) argument goes
like
this: We are the smartest people in Alcor. The proof
for this is that we are the directors. Therefore it
will be harder for a hostile group to take over from
the smartest people then from the dumbest people.
This is like say that the Bible is God s word.
The Bible says so. Since, the Bible is the word of God
so it must be
right.
The simple fact is that the larger the number of
people in the voting group, the more people it takes
to
mount a takeover. If you have 9 board members, it
only takes 5 evil people to take over the board. They
get 5 positions and they control Alcor. Some people
have argued that Alcor board has already been taken
over by people that are not competent to run a
business the size of Alcor. With the exception of Saul
Kent, those people have good intentions but do
not have successful business experience. There are
now even board members who do not have a long history
of Alcor Activism.
To take over the Alcor membership of 900 people (if
the members had the vote) you would need 901 new
members to join, pay their sign up fees and then take
over.
THE ARGUMENT THAT A DICTATORSHIP MANAGEMENT STYLE IS
THE MAIN REASON WHY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS SURVIVED
SO LONG.
The argument claims that the Catholic Church's
longevity is mainly because of the dictator system
they have and that it is similar to Alcor's. Since
Alcor elects board leaders like the Church elects its
leaders that main reason proves that Alcor's dictator
system of electing its leaders will cause Alcor to
have similar longevity.
The Catholic Church has survived ONLY because their
members believe the Church represents GOD. The
non-democratic way it is run has allowed the church
leaders to take away property from the members, and
kill, burn and rape them and their children, but the
Church has survived in spite of the way it is run, not
because of the way it is run, and only because of main
idea of representing God that the Church stands for.
It also creates the most amount of dissatisfaction and
mistakes possible. I submit this is exactly the same
case for Alcor. Alcor's similar government has
angered its members and the monopoly they once owned
is eroding. Catholics are becoming Protestants.
Alcor members are becoming CI members. Unless Board
members are soon planning to announce they represent
God I think Alcor is in big trouble.
People come to the Catholic Church and Alcor because
they like the ideas these organizations stand for,
they see how they are run, and then many of them
leave.
THE MEMBERS MIGHT ELECT THE DIRECTORS AND SOME
POSSIBLE SUGGESTIONS ON HOW TO BUILD IN PROTECTIONS IN
THE SYSTEM.
(here are some beginning ideas on how to build in
protections. I am sure the membership can think of a
lot more.)
There should be three classes of leaders at Alcor:
directors (who run Alcor) and advisors (who advise and
are training to be directors) and voting
cryopreservation
members of 2 years membership who will vote for
advisors and directors each year.
DIRECTORS
1. Directors will be elected from the existing pool
of advisors. Anyone who has been an elected advisor
for two years before the date of the annual election
for the director's office they are seeking can
announce his desire to be a candidate.
2. The Members will elect the directors (see
requirements for members to be able to vote below)
from the pool of qualified advisors who have asked to
be a candidate and from the pool of existing directors
who want to stand for re-election.
ADVISERS
1. To be a candidate for advisor a person must be an
Alcor cryopreservation member for 3 consecutive years.
2. The pool of advisers can be up to 5% of the total
amount of Alcor members as figured 60 days
before the election for advisers.
3. Any person who wants to be an advisor announces
that intention 30 days before the election and the
qualified members then vote.
4. At the monthly board meetings, or special
meetings,
when motions were to be voted on by the directors,
first the advisors would vote on the motion. A roll
call vote would be taken and each adviser's vote would
be recorded. So a record of how each adviser had
voted would be made. This record would be published
in the Alcor monthly magazine that goes to the members
and a two-year record would be available at election
time when an Adviser ran for a director's position.
So we would have at least a 2 year record of how
advisers felt about various matters that had come
before the Alcor board.
WHO CAN VOTE FOR ELECTORS AND/OR ADVISERS
1. Any person that has been an Alcor member for 2 or
more years can vote for advisors and directors.
____________________________________________________________________________________
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