CryoNet #33134 - #33138

CryoNet - Sun 26 Dec 2010

    #33134: AW: #33133 Max More [Jens Rabis]
    #33135: Max More: find the right dog whistle to grow cryonics [un person]
    #33136: Achievements # 3 [Ettinger]
    #33137: Scoring Cases [Charles in Arizona]
    #33138: New CEO Max More [Steve Jackson]

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Message #33134
From: "Jens Rabis" <[email protected]>
Subject: AW: #33133 Max More
Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2010 12:39:51 +0100

Hi Kitty, hi cryonauts

Quote: "... and accelerate that growth while keeping a primary focus on
protecting our existing patients." End of Quote
http://www.kurzweilai.net/alcor-life-extension-foundation-names-max-more-phd
-as-chief-executive-officer

My comment: "Responsible! Nothing is more sacred than the already frozen. We
expect the same from the living, if we are frozen. We have now our task /
vision / religion / mission. We should be more worried about a beautiful
human ritual, that people can say goodbye to us ... with running / during
suspension process."


****

Zitat: " ... Wachstum unter Beibehaltung des Primats Schutz unserer
bestehenden Patienten."
Quelle:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/alcor-life-extension-foundation-names-max-more-phd
-as-chief-executive-officer


Mein Kommentar: "Vernunftig! Nichts ist uns heiliger als die bereits
Eingefrorenen. Das Gleiche erwarten wir von den Lebenden, wenn wir
eingefrorenen sind. Wir haben jetzt unsere Aufgabe/ Vision / Religion/
Mission. Wir sollten uns mehr Gedanken uber ein schones menschliches Ritual
machen, dass sich Menschen von uns verabschieden konnen ... bei laufendem /
wahrend des Suspensionsprozesses." 

Best greetings
Jens Rabis
Berlin-Germany



Message #33133
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 21:25:00 -0700
From: Kitty Antonik Wakfer <[email protected]>
Subject: New Alcor CEO!

--------------000001080708010208080101

I just happened across the 4 hour old announcement at Max More's blog - "My
new responsibility as CEO of Alcor Foundation". He takes over Jan 1!
Read the entry -
http://strategicphilosophy.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-new-responsibility-as-ceo
-of-alcor.html

My comment at the blog is currently "awaiting owner approval" therefore I'll
copy it here in case that is delayed/lost:
Wow! We (husband Paul Wakfer, friend David Jackemeyer and I) were just
talking about you. I looked up what you were doing these days since you had
terminated the Extropy Institute. I checked your blog; surprise is an
understatement at what I saw for today's entry and then read to the two of
them.

Since I and Paul have been signed with Alcor since Dec 2005 - after our
individual experiences with CryoCare in the 90s - we are pleased to see you
take on the job as CEO. We are not pleased with Alcor's use of funds these
past years and had been seriously debating (almost decided) not to pay our
dues this year, increased now and to be again next year. But we will likely
now go ahead and pay again to see how things work out next year with this
major change of leadership.

So welcome aboard, Max. We hope that you will succeed at making Alcor an at
least more financially sound and cost-effective organization at promoting
cryonics and processing cryopreservations. Paul says:
"Don't take orders from the board which tends to want to micro-manage
everything. However, from my memory you are a person who can resist this. If
there is anything I can do to help, let me know."
Note that we are in Casa Grande AZ (just 50 miles from Alcor) from November
to April inclusive and the other 6 months at Paul's legal residence in
Ontario Canada.
-----end of comment----------

 
**Kitty Antonik Wakfer

MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org Reality based tools for more
life in quantity and quality The Self-Sovereign Individual Project -
http://selfsip.org Self-sovereignty, rational pursuit of optimal lifetime
happiness, individual responsibility, social preferencing & social
contracting


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Message #33135
Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2010 08:24:20 -0800 (PST)
From: un person <[email protected]>
Subject: Max More: find the right dog whistle to grow cryonics

We have to concentrate on OLDER people. Young people do not generally sign up. We have to look to those we really realize they are indeed going to die. Young people do not really realize this viscerally enough to get them to sign up.

But older people turn to religion instead of cryonics because....well, one reason is cultural and historical, but another reason is because people like Max More and Tanya Jones and Charles Platt and Ralph Merkle and MIke Darwin are not blowing a dog whistle they can hear, to use the political parlance of our times. 

Those cryonics leaders are blowing the dog whistle that you and I and the rest of the cryonicists can hear. They speak to us using the language, the vocabulary we understand. Their mindset is grounded in science fiction and a love of science and a mindset open to many possibilities. 

But we are very rare. 

They are hailing us on our frequency. But that communications band is one that few people have the receiver for.

I say to Max More, the new Alcor CEO--find a new dog whistle. Quit talking on the same frequency/channel you talked on in order to get the job. 99.9 percent of the people who know death awaits them (and thus might possibly sign up) do not pick up that frequency. 

Instead, blow the dog whistle that the majority can hear. Speak to them on the channel they carry, using the vocabulary and the mindset they have. Use the Bible. 

Religion is what those over 40 can hear, at least the vast majority of them....

That is, if you are interested in growing cryonics. If however you are only interested in the affirmation and support of your peer group, then just keep doing what you are doing....


An example for you: now I am not a fan of Bush, or of his father. But George W. Bush found the right dog whistle to get elected.

Let me tell you about a video interview Bush did back in the early 90s or thereabouts. Now Bush had run for political office once and had lost, primarily because his opponent had successfully painted him as some know it all Ivy League upstart. And Bush had been educated at Harvard and at Yale.

But his opponent has been successful at depicting him as such because he spoke as such. That's right. In that video interview from the early 90s Bush came off as what he was--a highly educated man with an undergrad degree from yale and a graduate degree from harvard. 

But that sure wasn't the persona bush had when he ran for president twice. Oh, no. You see, Bush is smart, and he had smart advisors. He knows that a more homespun, "country", HUMBLE, a more SPIRITUAL persona is what wins over more people. So he became an actor, and he played a part. He found a dog whistle that more people could hear.

Max More, follow his lead....if you want to grow cryonics. Find another persona, another vocabulary, a different dog whistle, one that more people can hear....

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Message #33136
From: [email protected]
Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2010 13:11:17 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Achievements # 3

"Achievements" might be a bit of a misnomer  for today, since this brief 
discussion might be called partly speculation,  but what the hey. The topic is 
survivability of the cryonics movement, in the  face of recent rampant 
warnings of disaster. I offer some thoughts  pertaining to viability of the 
movement and its two biggest organizations, the  Cryonics Institute (CI) and 
Alcor.
 
 
The speculative reasons for impending disaster  range from merciless 
persecution by authorities or/and ideologues to allegedly  relentless economics. 
Specifically, Alcor is said to be on the road to  inexorable and major price 
increases which will outrun the members' life  insurance or ability to pay, 
and CI can't continue to preserve people at  ridiculously low prices. I 
think both arguments are flawed, as  follows.
 
 
As for Alcor, there is much to criticize, but  the overriding fact is that 
they can probably buy themselves out of almost any  situation. Recently, as 
I recall, they received a bequest of $7 million. They  have a passel of rich 
members who would probably pitch in for any emergency. 
 
 
As for CI, according to calculations a couple  of years ago which I believe 
are still appropriate, the MARGINAL cost of a new  patient, projected 
forward, is around $20,000. With minimum funding of $28,000,  CI's cash flow 
therefore increases by around $8,000 or more with each new  patient in the year 
of death, and does not go negative thereafter. 
 
 
 
Inflation is a false  bugaboo for CI. For  example, the cost of liquid 
nitrogen, once considered a major ongoing  expense at about $1,000 per year per 
patient is now less than $100 per year  per patient in the current 
cryostats.  We have only two full time paid  employees, and their compensation is not 
extravagant. Real estate  taxes in  the Detroit area are unlikely to spike 
in the foreseeable future. We don't use  much gas or electricity. Economies 
of scale will steadily help, with average  cost per year per patient 
diminishing over time (yearly overhead divided by  number of patients). We will not 
need an additional building to house patients  for quite a while, and if 
there is an unexpectedly large surge in demand our  resources will increase as 
well.
 
 
MARKET SHARE: I think Alcor can continue to  grow at least for a while, if 
they don't raise prices too fast, but CI will  probably grow faster because 
it will get the lion's share of  death-bed  cases, and that will happen just 
because deathbed cases must be funded by cash  on hand, not life insurance. 
 
 
 
Further, probably a considerable number of  people will be influenced by 
the history--never any price increases at CI,  relatively large and frequent 
increases at Alcor. The track record cannot fail  to impress anyone who pays 
attention. 
 
 
As a partial reminder, one of CI's available  plans is a one-time 
membership fee of $1,250 plus a one-time suspension fee of  minimum $28,000 (plus any 
local help and transportation, which might be a few  thousand depending on 
location). There are no yearly dues or other  fees.
 
 
Alcor demands a minimum of $80,000 for neuro  (head only) and $150.000 for 
whole body, plus yearly dues of $478 per year for  the first family member, 
plus $200 for a membership application, plus other  charges if there is 
delay in application or if the potential member resides  outside the U.S.
 
 
The Suspended Animation herring: Some within  CI advocate buying service 
from Suspended Animation Inc. (SA), at a huge price  increase which would make 
the total comparable to Alcor's, Elsewhere I have explained why I think 
this is a very bad  and unnecessary idea. Any member or small local group, with 
a bit of effort and  modest expense, can arrange standby that will be both 
cheaper and faster and  more reliable. This isn't just speculation 
either--it's what Mae and I did when  we lived in Arizona, and it worked very well 
when she died. Basically you  just hire local morticians, train them, equip 
them, and pay them an annual  retainer for a yearly practice session. Modest 
expense, quick  response, high reliability, none of which are offered by  SA. 
 
 
 
Rest ye merry, gentle people; let nothing you  dismay.
 
 
Robert Ettinger
 



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Message #33137
Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2010 13:19:04 -0500
Subject: Scoring Cases
From: Charles in Arizona <[email protected]>

Darwin as quoted by oberon states: " I have arbitrarily decided that
each minute of normothermic ischemia up to 5 minutes will count for
the loss of 1 point."

Any attempt to quantify damage is, I think, valuable, so long as we
realize that it's partly handwaving at this point. And of course those
who have the greatest confidence in molecular repair of the brain will
feel that it's mostly irrelevant anyway.

The frustrating part is that Steve Harris made the most sophisticated
attempt to quantify ischemic inujury, but never finished writing the
paper, so far as I know. He derived a number that he referred to as
the "E-HIT" score, meaning Equivalent Homeothermic Ischemic Time. See
http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/2008/07/10/critical-cooling-rate-to-prevent-ischemic-brain-injury/

The problem with Darwin's approach is that he is applying a linear
formula to a phenomenon which cannot be linear. That is, the damage
caused by the tenth minute of warm ischemia is highly unlikely to be
the same as the damage caused by the first.

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Message #33138
Subject: New CEO Max More
From: Steve Jackson <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2010 21:57:44 -0600
References: <[email protected]>

Thank you, Max, for agreeing to take on this responsibility. I believe you can do this job very well.

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