X-Message-Number: 6954 From: Peter Merel <> Subject: Hooray for TimeCat! + An Alcor/CC Option? Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 01:19:47 +1000 (EST) TimeCat writes, >[...] they will freely distribute and make freely available and for public use >without fees of any kind all information they may come into posession of >regarding methods and research pertaining to cryonics. > >Whoever does this proves that they have their subscribers best interests at >heart, not their organization. Whoever doesn't, well, they prove the >opposite. Indeed. TimeCat's message is the first in this unfortunate thread to make any damn sense to me. I did not pledge to PP because I wanted to turn a buck; I pledged because I wanted suspension technology to improve to the point where real live humans could rely on it. I have no sympathy for anyone who tries to turn a buck by controlling such technology, because to do so neither encourages the growth of cryonics as a movement nor improves its accessibility as a medical technique - quite the opposite. So I agree entirely with TimeCat: if you want my donation, forget patents, profiteering, and secrecy, and just post your methods and results for everyone's benefit. If you don't intend to do this, then you don't deserve a dime of donations - no matter whether your methods are real or just another parlour trick. Now I imagine TimeCat's post may be rewarded with a flood of vitriol from certain quarters, probably thud and blunder about missing the boat, losing the nerve, failing the test, courageous scientific pioneers and parents of cryonics, etc, etc, blah blah blah. Such rhetoric is not the hallmark of trustworthy businessmen or reputable scientists, and I encourage TimeCat to disregard it should it occur. -- On The Missing Option: I've said before that my choice of provider will have much less to do with technological perfection and much more to do with trustworthiness, temper and rationality. After all, should I be suspended, it may be decades or even centuries before I am revived, if ever - therefore, if the management of an org cannot instill faith in me that the org is likely to be stable for this period, technological excellence or no, I cannot feel I will be likely to survive. Now, being based in Australia, I have had the luxury of procrastinating about my choice of provider for years. Should I decease on this continent, my successful suspension seems unlikely. However, this luxury is about to be lost to me; I will be moving my home and business to San Diego within the next year, and then I will have no more excuse. So, for the record, having spent several years on this forum trying to size up the various correspondants, at this point I see Alcor and CryoCare as neck and neck in my estimation. I am most impressed with CC's corporate structures; I am likewise impressed with Alcor's size and the quality of its leadership. So I would like to ask Steve Bridge and Brian Wowk to do me a favour - and I think this may be a favour that others here would also appreciate: Could you make it possible for me to use a CC/Alcor combination? I really would see this as the best of the available choices. I know that there's a lot of politics in this, but isn't there some way that you could work it? It wouldn't harm either organisation, and in fact it might do both a lot of good. It might also encourage the people involved here to stop tearing eachother up, and to start thinking about how to unite against the common and implacable foes cryonics faces outside the movement ... Peter Merel. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6954