The Anticult: "First off, once you are legally dead, you are legally dead. So whoever is taking over that "trust", is just taking total control of the money. They can do what they want with it. Its not the dead person's money anymore, but they try to make naive people think it is."

COMMENT:

Sorry, but this is self-evidently untrue, or otherwise nobody would do a trust. If the trustees could just do whatever they wanted with trust money, violating any and all terms of the trust, they'd all steal the money immediately and that would be the end of it. Obviously that doesn't happen.

Both Alcor and CI have a fair amount of money and both have unpaid or poorly paid staff. This is not predicted by your assertions.

You call for more "democracy," but historically democracies are NOT known for saving for the future. Many of the world's most famous democracies (Greece, Iceland, the U.S.) are broke or heavily in deficit/debt. As de Tocqueville feared, in democracies, politicians do tend to bribe voters with their own money.

Organizations doing well in saving for the future are not democratic (China). And consider the very non-democratic and closed Roman Catholic Church. Which was the model for Alcor, simply because it is the probably the longest continuous self-perpetuating institution known to history.

Finally, Alcor's finances are open. What exactly is your complaint?

[www.alcor.org]

Anticult: you have some great points here. Are you in touch with Larry Johnson? If not, you should be. I found a contact email address on the regulatecryonics.org website. I don't know if that leads to Johnson, but you might try. I did some research and I believe he is somehow connected with a medical science group that is into some heavy politics.

The strangeness of the closed-loop cryonics belief systems is on display in this thread.

"Outdated information on Quackwatch, How do we change this" [www.imminst.org]

Is Cryonics Feasible? Stephen Barrett, M.D. [www.quackwatch.org]

Cryonics believers feel very threatened by the fact that all of the worlds top Skeptics harshly criticize "cryonics", as there is no scientific evidence to support it.

You even have Mark Plus trying to come out against "skeptics" and making a false analogy about what Skeptics thought about exoplanets before they were discovered?
Carl Sagan, the grand-daddy skeptic, was the biggest promoter of the scientific search for exoplanets. He didn't sit around and mentally masturbate about exoplanet fantasies, like so many cryonics believer do about cryonics, like a recent Robert Ettinger post. [www.network54.com]
Robert Ettinger has been churning that stuff out for decades, and what has it accomplished? Nothing.

Carl Sagan didn't try to aquire peoples assets for imaginary trips to the stars in a thousand years, they tried to focus on current science.

Some of the cryonics believers are now trying to make the "skeptics" the enemy, as the skeptics are not going to be duped by the bullshit being peddled by the cryonics salespeople.
Guess what? The cryonics salespeople cannot dupe trained skeptics with their specious arguments, and the senior cryonics salespeople like David Pizer know that. They even know they have lost many of the Transhumanists who are scientifically minded.
So they want to target a more nonscientific general public, without training in science, and to use the religious impulse to Immortality to do it. New Age Sci-Fi.

Real skeptics are not closed minded, they just demand evidence and proof. Real proof, not sales stories, not horrible useless torture of dogs by Mike Darwin, not religious transference of Immortality.
But since the big name skeptics all criticize cryonics as being Quackery, they try to label those skeptics as being closed-minded, when in fact its the opposite.

The beliefs of many the cryonics believers, are very much like a religious sect in that sense, and the cryonic Venturists know that, and admit it.
And of course, in a free country, people are free to have their own strange religious and other beliefs.

But that does not apply to the cryonics financial scams, manipulative and dishonest sales tactics, personally attacking critics, constant lawsuits against the public, and the other outrageous behaviors by the cryonics community.
One needs to completely seperate the "freezing" stuff, from everything else. It appears the "freezing" is only perhaps 10% of what is going on in cryonics, the rest is sales, marketing, persuasion, propaganda, and attacking critics.
There are dozens of websites now trying to market cryonics, and not using science, but using emotion and the impulse for Immortality, combined with slick and deceptive marketing of the contracts and financial instruments. This is to try and target the scientifically illiterate general public, to try to get a piece of the funeral business.

More specifically about the bogus cryonics "trusts" and irrevocable trusts.
Obviously, once you are legally dead, the trust belongs to those who administer it. And the organization and trustee that administers it, can modify the terms, and use the loopholes that are there.
Obviously, that is the point I was making.
Once you are legally dead, those who are running the trusts, control them. Anyone knows how that game is done, and how salaries can be drawn down, expenses, etc.

Who is going to monitor what is going on with the trust? Not the dead person or their family, of course. The cryonics "trust" is just a flagrant scam, for those who are running them to get control of those assets.

The contracts at Alcor, as Melody Maxim has shown, there are untrained people pulling salaries above market value for trained people. That is called cryonics cronyism.
And the current cryonicists always point to the recent past, when in fact the cryonics salespeople are talking about the near future. They are TRYING to grow and get a piece of the funeral business, and they want to bring in millions and even billions.

And as far as "democracy" in Alcor, probably if there was more democracy, the Venturists would just take everything over.

But its good to know that Alcor was modeled after totally secretive totalitarian religious organizations.
That explains a lot, actually.

And some cryonics promoters have stated they want to eliminate the coroner from the death process.
Then who is going to sign the death certificate?
A cryonics friendly local doctor on a cryonics company contract?
What about the large financial payouts coming to the cryonics companies on the death of their members?

Of course those in the cryonics business know they are already "regulated" under the,
Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (“UAGA”) [www.anatomicalgiftact.org]
Just like giving your dead body to a medical school to be sliced and diced by students, cut into a hundred pieces, and then buried as parts.
That is the "regulation" they want in cryonics, as it has nothing to do with "cryonics". Under the UAGA one assumes they can mutilate your head and put them on a tuna can.
[SEVERE WARNING, graphic photo] [frozenbook.net]
They don't tell you that in the glossy cryonics sales brochures.

Quote
SteveHarrisMD

Only two pieces of paperwork are required for this, and neither needs to be signed by a funeral director: one is the death certificate and the other is the disposition permit (which is filed with the state records department).

Quote
The Anticult
And as far as "democracy" in Alcor, probably if there was more democracy, the Venturists would just take everything over.

But its good to know that Alcor was modeled after totally secretive totalitarian religious organizations.
That explains a lot, actually.

So basically what you're saying is that if Alcor remains totalitarian, that's bad. And if Alcor takes a more democratic route, that's bad too.

Thank you for clearing that up for me.

Quote
SteveHarrisMD
I wasn't there, and nothing like that has ever happened in my presence in cryonics. Nor would I allow it. I prefer to think it a tall tale. If people tell a story long enough, pretty soon they "remember it" that way.

If did happened it would have been illegal (as euthanasia of a dying person). Steve Harris, MD

Steve Harris writes, here, that he would never allow someone to be illegally euthanized, in his presence. Ironically, he recently endorsed giving an injection of propofol to people who show "signs of awareness," while undergoing the initial steps of a cryopreservation. As we all know, only living people show signs of awareness. (As explanation, the cryonics standby teams Harris advises submit these people to CPR, immediately after "legal death," so it is possible one of these people might be revived.) Harris' plan is, if a person shows "signs of awareness," one of the cryonics standby team members will give the person an additional injection of propofol, (rendering them unconscious), and then they will continue with their cryonics procedure. In response to my comments that what he was suggesting was probably illegal, Harris came back with "they're legally dead, unless someone declares them otherwise." When Harris wrote that people have been revived during the embalming process, I asked if the embalmer was allowed to keep on embalming, unless someone showed up to declare the person "legally alive." Harris never answered that question.

Also, after my comments, Harris came back, (either here, or on the Cold Filter cryonics forum), and tried to pretend he had been discussing involuntary muscle movements that might occur after death. That wasn't what he had been discussing, at all, when he specifically referred to "signs of awareness," "shivering" and "eyelid movement," and he knows it.

Harris and his family members get paid a lot of money, to work in cryonics. According to former Riverside County Coroner Investigator, Alan Kunzman, if someone asks Harris to sign a death certificate, he signs it, even if he knows information on it is incorrect. Harris has made it quite clear he has no qualms about writing prescriptions that allow laymen, whom he may know little-to-nothing about, to have access to propofol and other prescription medications. Though he claims he would never allow an illegal euthanization to take place "in his presence," would he tell a cryonics standby team to inject that dose of propofol while he was advising them over the phone? (He's been known to advise laymen attempting to perform cryonics procedures, via the telephone!) He's already stated, quite clearly, that giving an additional dose of propofol to someone showing "signs of awareness" is the protocol he endorses, so I think it's safe to assume he would.

I found this online this morning. Looks like propaganda written by this group. I have read an enormous amount of information within the last couple of days about this issue. This should prove interesting should this case ever go to court, especially when it comes to Larry Johnson’s tape recordings. Those recordings should prove Johnson’s position and further expose the soft underbelly of this organization. The media is going to eat this up.

[www.digitalnewsreport.com]

Captnims,

The case HAS been to court, in both Arizona and New York. There was a judgment rendered against Johnson and his wife, back in July, in AZ, which I believe Johnson is appealing. I haven't seen many of the AZ court documents, but I believe the court ruled in favor of Alcor, mostly based on an old handwritten settlement agreement between Alcor and Johnson. (Johnson never accepted the settlement payment, or signed the type-written document.) In other words, I believe the court felt Johnson had an obligation to keep his mouth shut, more than anything else. While this is a small victory for Alcor, the book is still selling, and it doesn't prove the information in the book to be false.

There is a NY "Supreme Trial" scheduled, in April. You can read a lot of the court documents by going to Web Civil Supreme and searching for Index Number 113938/2009. [iapps.courts.state.ny.us]

I think it is highly possible the NY courts will follow the AZ courts. (Personally, I would like to see the courts rule on the contents of the book, as I feel it was "whistle-blowing," (should the contents be proven to be true), and should be protected as such.) I've got to believe Johnson and his publisher have spent a lot of money, at this point, so I suppose there is another possibility that they will settle, but I hope not. While I believe Alcor would be glad to be handed that empty victory, if they are everything they say they are, it seems they would welcome the opportunity to prove the book was filled with "lies," as they have maintained. I also think, if Johnson has been telling the truth, (and he supposedly can back up the contents of his book with audiotapes), he should be filing defamation charges against everyone who has saying the contents of his book are fabricated AND he should attempt to argue "free speech."

Quote
captnims
I found this online this morning. Looks like propaganda written by this group. I have read an enormous amount of information within the last couple of days about this issue. This should prove interesting should this case ever go to court, especially when it comes to Larry Johnson’s tape recordings. Those recordings should prove Johnson’s position and further expose the soft underbelly of this organization. The media is going to eat this up.

-new-york-lawsuit-against-larry-johnson-expands-to-include-defamation/3537

If you really want cryptic doublespeak, read the cryonics and Alcorian sales materials and PR materials, and compare them to the legal financial contracts fine-print.
Its a moot point anyway. The self-perpetuating board of Alcor will NEVER allow Alcor to slip from their grasp...only from their cold-dead hands...or if they are forced to by the authorities.

But the information that Alcor was based on the Roman Catholic Church "because it is the probably the longest continuous self-perpetuating institution known to history."(SteveHarrisMD)

That sounds like an honest statement about the cryonics companies like Alcor, and explains so much.
Of course the main cryonics players are true believers in cryonics, and also salespeople. They see themselves as the Popes and cardinals of cryonics. That perfectly explains why they are so asset and money hungry, they want that powerbase, and they want to put that power beyond the reach of anyone but them.
They want to resist all regulation, as that gives them the most possible power.
Like The Catholic church, they want to build up millions/billions in assets stashed all over the place, with absolute control at the top of the organization, from the inner circle.

And the cryonics true believers do probably deeply believe that they have a holy trust to hold those frozen body parts until the Cryonics Resurrection and Quickening.
But if so, why have so many body parts been so horribly mistreated? Why the hypocrisy and abuses?

And just like the catholic church, when things start going bad, they cover them up, and they get worse.
Now Alcor has a strategy to sue everyone that criticizes them, to try and create a libel-chill in the media and against whistleblowers and former staff and the media.

The methodology is quite similar to Scientology, all power at the top, use deception to recruit fresh meat, try to use celebrities, try to get all of the personal assets of the members with various schemes, sue everyone and attack your enemies, tell your members your are selling them Immortality...

Quote
enoonsti

Quote
The Anticult
And as far as "democracy" in Alcor, probably if there was more democracy, the Venturists would just take everything over.

But its good to know that Alcor was modeled after totally secretive totalitarian religious organizations.
That explains a lot, actually.

So basically what you're saying is that if Alcor remains totalitarian, that's bad. And if Alcor takes a more democratic route, that's bad too.

Thank you for clearing that up for me.