X-Message-Number: 33442 From: Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 01:58:19 EST Subject: All About Evil, Part 2 Content-Language: en Furthermore, in looking over the study materials, I doubted I could handle the math exercises - the same reason why I gave up any consideration of pursuing an undergraduate degree in biology, with the objective of getting a doctorate, and doing research. The points here are that I was in no way trying to pass myself off as equivalent to a Board Certified perfusionist, and in fact, in every human case that my company, BioPreservation did, I had a skilled (and often Board Certified ) perfusionist pumping the case. This lengthily detour is germane in responding to your (George's) comment, because Maxim did not bother to ask clarifying questions, or even to in any way qualify her remarks - rather she attacked and accused. In the first instance, by incorrectly and unjustly calling me a liar. That indicates pre-judgment, and it also cuts off further communication. This has been her pattern of interaction with virtually everyone in cryonics. This would be understandable, if she had had the level of interaction and bad experience she endured at SA - which was indeed a mad and incompetent place (one which nearly drove me crazy in the 6 days I spent there in 2006) with everyone else in cryonics. But this is not the case. All of my direct interactions with her are here: _http://cryoeuro.eu:8080/download/attachments/425990/Maxim+-+Darwin+Cold+Filter+Exchanges+February%2C+2009.pdf_ (http://cryoeuro.eu:8080/download/attachments/425990/Maxim+-+Darwin+Cold+Filter+Exchanges+February,+2009. pdf) I don't see anything there that justifies her attacks, or her judgment that I am technically incompetent, or otherwise worthless. 8) There are also people like the deWolf's, in cryonics, who are working quite hard to improve things. Maxim worked with Aschwin deWolf during her time at SA, and I note that, so far at least, she has had little or vitriol for him, or his wife, Channa - and also notably zero positive cooperative interaction. There are also the many other "unseen" medical professionals and technicians in cryonics who are not active, largely because they have no way to be, given the attitudes of the two dominant US cryonics organizations. Attempting to make meaningful technical change at CI is a frustrating, micro- incremental, and mostly unrewarding process. Most suggestions are met with the ripostes that they are "unaffordable, impractical, or unnecessary" (again see the communications at the URL above). This is also an artifact of CI President Ben Best considering himself an expert in just about every technical area of cryonics, with the added handicap of being unable to " weight," scale, or do cos- benefit analyses on various technologies - as well as also frequently lacking the necessary experience base to understand them. In Alcor's case, a culture of exclusion, fear-driven, and excessively risk adverse decision making, coupled with truly chaotic and incompetent management over the past 15 years (at least!) has made participation by high quality medical and scientific people virtually impossible. Brian Wowk, a genuine scientist of high caliber, who is actually on the Alcor Board, has had an incredibly difficult time just maintaining a patina of "scientific and technically competent" patient care. 9) Given all of the above, I think it is fully justified to say to Maxim, in particular, "Because you have embarked on a vigorous course of action to hobble or destroy a tiny field of endeavor, without making the requisite positive efforts to change it, you have put yourself in a difficult and arguably indefensible position. One of Maxim's working partners, who refers to her as "Mel," recently posted this: "Personally I think we are obserivng the last crys from a very damaged cryonics industry before it dies completely. In 10 years i think there will be a few dewars around but no active companies once regulation hits them. Thres no conspiracy i suspect to make cryonics a billion $ industry - its too shabby and the companies left are barely keeping themselves afloat let alone in LN2 - Chatsworth 21st century style is on the cards and once regulatory officials look at these cryonics firms properly they will shut them down and prosecute the organizers" - _http://forum.rickross.com/read.php?12,64749,98188#msg-98188_ (http://forum.rickross.com/read.php?12,64749,98188#msg-98188) \ That is not productive, and it constitutes the threat of destruction of cryonics patients - people who were not only not responsible for the current (or in most cases the past) deficiencies of cryonics, but who are also powerless to defend themselves, and are, in fact completely helpless. How is this just? What good will this do? 10) A constant theme of Maxim's is that cryonics is "consumer fraud" and that people are being ripped off, and taken advantage of. The working definition of fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain, or to damage another individual. There are several problems with this in cryonics. The first and most serious is the issue of deception. Whether it is intentional or unintentional, there must be deception. It is only necessary to look at CryoNet, to look at Cold Filter, and to look at the reams of internal criticism of cryonics BY cryonicists TO other cryonicists, to understand that the vast majority of people signed up simply don't care. They are informed of the screw-ups, the incompetence, and the often grotesque errors, and THEY SIMPLY DO NOT CARE. One of the really good things about Ben Best's nightmarish CI case reports, are that they constitute due diligence documentation to CI members, to prospective members,and to the public, of just what a mess they can expect to have made of their care. Alcor's and SA's case reports express it less coarsely, but the incompetence is still there, for all to see - thus, there is full disclosure. So, you have a situation where BOTH the critics and the cryonics organizations are telling both members, and prospective members, exactly what is being done - and no one cares. This raises the most important issue of all, and that is, how do you change that attitude? External regulation won't accomplish it, because regulation is designed to protect people from harm they are at a disadvantage, or are unable to perceive, or who are in situations where they can be effectively lied to. That isn't the problem in cryonics! The problem is that the " members" or the "customers" simply do not agree that high quality, error (iatrogenesis) free care is material to the success of the procedure. Pump air during perfusion? No big deal, "our (supermen) friends in the future will sort that out." Have an extra day, or 3, or 4, of cold ischemia? Not to worry, our friends in the future, with their Nanotechnological repair machines, will figure out a fix. Short of cremation, there is nothing that matters to these foolish people, and THAT is the real problem. The fact that they are being perfused by incompetents, let alone that there are no "Board Certified Perfusionists" doing the job (when, in fact, there are - SA employs some of Maxim's Florida colleagues!) is IRRELEVANT. And that it is irrelevant is the problem; and no government can change that. And because cryonics is considered a "life or death matter" by cryonicists, if it is effectively banned, by virtue of the supposed fact (to quote Maxim's colleague Arnold) that: "once regulatory officials look at these cryonics firms properly they will shut them down and prosecute the organizers," it will only be driven underground, where it will be even further removed from public and governmental scrutiny. I would also note that there is often nothing quite so good for popularizing this class of idea (i.e., perceived as essential to survival, and achieving immortality in the next life) as to make it illicit and a crime. Everything from Christianity to Mormonism comes to mind. I think that would be a very bad thing for both the culture, and for cryonics in the long run, and I note with irony that while I am the one being accused of trying to make cryonics into a secret cult, it is Maxim, and others like her, who are really taking the actions that could result in just this outcome. Finally, all of the people putting big money into wasteful and misguided cryonics enterprises are not "the gullible public," but rather long time and experienced cryonicists, and no amount of criticism, nor reasoned arguments, have dissuaded them from doing so to date, nor will they do so in the future. He who has the gold makes the rules; and there is no cure for either stupid, or foolish. - Mike Darwin Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=33442