X-Message-Number: 973 Date: 09 Jul 92 18:49:41 EDT From: Charles Platt <> Subject: CRYONET To: Kevin Brown In reply to Mark Voelker: There's no great mystery about the way in which Michael Paulle was able to intervene or interfere in the Boston standby situation. The sequence of events went something like this: 1. M.P. started coming to Alcor New York monthly meetings as a result of an announcement that we were able to get published in a local newspaper. M.P. didn't say much or do much at first. 2. Mike Darwin came and gave a slide show which revealed the kind of freezing damage that patients may currently be sustaining. M.P. was deeply worried by the pictures and wanted to do something to help cryonics. 3. M.P. correctly figured that the prime movers of the New York group were (are) Brenda Peters and Courtney Smith. He befriended them and made a lot of offers that they would have been crazy to refuse. He offered to pay for an 800 number for Alcor New York. He agreed to research and partially finance the possible purchase of an ambulance company, which we could run for profit AND use to collect Alcor patients when necessary. He was enthusiastic and he had a lot of free time. Each month, he made a point of paying twice the usual monthly dues. He brought cookies to the meetings. And so on. 4. After a couple of months, M.P. became impatient with Alcor and with its membership. He felt that Alcor was not bold enough, and the members were too passive. He decided to do more on his own initiative. He joined our local suspension team and started taking an EMT training course. 5. He made a lot of phone calls to cryonicists all over the country, and was extremely resourceful at getting people's phone numbers. He established regular phone contact with everyone from Bob Ettinger to Saul Kent. Through this, and through the contacts he had made in New York, he kept up-to- date on everything that was happening, as it happened. He also became a memorable presence on the net. 6. M.P. heard about the patient in Boston. At one point, M.P. wanted to go there and lend a hand. Since he had already participated in some washout/cooldown training sessions, his presence could have been useful. There was a period of confusion near the start of the Boston standby, because another patient was in serious condition in Colorado, and Mike Darwin was afraid he might not be able to get to the East Coast. Gerry Arthus, Curtis Henderson, and Stanley Gerber were sent up to Boston and were told they might have to deal with things on their own. They needed help and were in telephone contact with several people back in New York. 7. Clearly, at this point, M.P. must have found out the name and location of the patient, and could have done so from three or four different sources, all of whom were accustomed to talking to him on a regular basis. I have already discussed M.P.'s motives for his subsequent actions. Clearly, in an organization where there is a shortage of volunteers, everyone feels a strong tendency to encourage someone who is willing to put in his money and do more than his share of the work. I think it would be a mistake to "clamp down" as a result of this sequence of events. We see again and again, in macropolitics, the "clamp down" response, which ALWAYS comes as a result of an isolated incident and ALWAYS is justified on the grounds that "we need to do something because if we don't do something it will look bad." I suggest, as I did in my last letter, that we simply need to exercise commonsense and discretion, and be careful about whom we let into our confidence. I already listed some rule- of-thumb personality tests, every one of which M.P. would have failed. --Charles Platt Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=973