X-Message-Number: 5613 Date: Wed, 17 Jan 96 13:42:35 From: Steve Bridge <> Subject: Cryonics in Australia, etc. To CryoNet >From Steve Bridge, Alcor January 17, 1996 In reply to: Message #5602 Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 16:11:26 +0000 From: Robert Horley <> Subject: Cryonics Organizations in Australia >Sorry for bothering the mailing list with a personal request, but since >I'm seriously considering joining one of the cryonics organizations, I >wonder if anyone could give me information about what options are >available when joining from Australia. The three organizations that >mainly interest me are Ettinger's group, Alcor, and Cryocare. Alcor has 12 members in Australia. I could give you glowing reports about the equipment that is there and the hard working members and the cooperative mortician. But this would ignore a simple, hard truth. It is damn difficult right now for ANY cryonics organization in the United States to service suspension members in ANY foreign country (although the Canadian situation is better than other countries, and the logistics of getting into Canada appear to have been solved). Alcor, Biopreservation (CryoCare's service provider), and CI are all several thousand miles away from Australia, England, and Europe, where we have members. Some of the challenges of doing a suspension in Australia should be obvious: -- long transportation time both directions -- even longer shipping time for equipment too large to take as luggage -- shipping frozen or chilled bodies back to the U.S. is still considered "cargo" and requires extraordinary efforts to get extra attention. -- "interested" authorities on both ends can clog the system with paperwork delays and legal "research", if they so desire. -- We don't know the laws and regulations in each country, and may not find out about them until we actually try to get in for a suspension or try to take a patient out. I guarantee there a lot more surprises and hassles waiting for us. Some of the more subtle challenges are even greater. -- Australia's 12 members are not in the same place. They are scattered all over a VERY large country (Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, and north Queensland). That makes it very difficult for them to gather for organization, training, discussion, or just general enthusiasm-raising. -- They can't just "drop by" Alcor USA for those things either. -- It's a long way for our team to go to train Australian members on site. And If we send Tanya or Hugh to Australia for a training class, we can't get them back here quickly for an emergency suspension. -- No obsessive, charismatic leader has yet emerged in Australian cryonics to spend all of his/her time promoting the idea and pushing the local organizations forward. Larger organizations can do well with less obsession and charisma; but little work gets done at the beginning of a new movement without that level of commitment and near-neurotic level of activity. This should not be surprising. It takes a certain critical mass of people before true leadership emerges. I am amazed in the United States, with less than 800 total cryonicists, that perhaps 200 of them spend several hours per week doing something connected with cryonics, from being employed by Alcor or other companies to attending meetings, making donations, writing articles, CryoNet discussions. etc. -- Typical suspension funding arrangements vary wildly from country to country, increasing the risk of a very expensive, unfunded suspension. For instance, the UK insurance contracts are so unlike the US contracts that we are never quite sure what the effect will be during a suspension and how long it will take Alcor to get paid (not to mention the risk of currency fluctuations). Other countries TAX insurance proceeds, unlike the United States, so getting the correct amount of funds to Alcor becomes prohibitively expensive. -- We in the US don't have very good solutions to these problems, at least not without spending full time on them, which would short the other work we do. Alcor, for example, has 53 members outside the United States. We could actually use a full-time person to work on solving the problems of foreign suspensions; but we cannot afford a specialist for that many people. In hindsight, from any normal business perspective American cryonics companies were wildly optimistic and premature in taking on members outside of the North American continent. But cryonics leaders are idealists and we want to save lives. So years ago, we took on foreign responsibilities that we were not really prepared to handle. Our Australian and UK members have some equipment and some training, and they have tried as hard as they can to make improvements, within the limits of small groups. The Australians do have a cooperative mortician (although I wouldn't consider one mortuary in all of Australia to be nearly enough) and have formed Cryonics Society of Australia; but they still lack enough people to provide the push ... to get more people. In the UK one Alcor member, at nearly ruinous cost to himself, purchased a building for cryonics use in East Sussex, and I suspect he has often regretted his enthusiasm. At least several UK members have been around long enough to become cryonics spokespersons in the media. Organization in Germany is now beginning, with Klaus Reinhard and two businessmen working toward forming a company with goals which include a local transport team and increasing the amount of cryonics interest in Germany and Austria. The long-term solution is obvious -- each country must start its own cryonics organization(s) so that eventually all of the legal responsibility, suspension work, and storage is kept in that country (Europe might be able to have some kind of pan-European organization.). Short term, that is MUCH more difficult. As one of the two leaders who started a cryonics company far from anyone else back in 1977 in Indianapolis, I know how exhausting, frustrating, and overwhelming that can be. And I had Mike Darwin as my co-leader, who at least knew how to do suspensions and was obsessed with being a cryonicist. One might think that as cryonics grows, we will be able to focus more attention on cryonics around the world. But as cryonics grows in complexity in the Unites States, it is entirely possible that it will become *harder* for American cryonics leaders to provide quality service in other countries, merely for lack of time to concentrate on those needs. Because of all these factors, Robert, if you want to sign up for cryonics in Australia, your questions should not just be concerned with "who can provide me the best service?" They should be concerned with "with whom can *I* best promote and improve cryonics in Australia?" You see, in any country with a small population of cryonicists, IT STARTS WITH YOU. It's still hard to be merely a cryonics "customer" in Australia. If you want the names and addresses of some cryonicists in Australia to speak with, please send me mail directly at Steve Bridge, President Alcor Life Extension Foundation Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5613