There was discussion about the emails several months ago on the CI yahoo group, I have not seen anything lately. I'm at the computer now watching a cute video my eldest made for Halloween (posted on her Facebook, a Jib Jab creation), she and her younger sister are home from school and I'm off in a second to get my son, I forgot earlier but my youngest has her Cheerleader camp today--things are busy, yet fun :). I just finished reading this article (as I was just checking out the recent Cold Filter discussion, I wanted to see what Ben wrote there) --but I think it is a good overview of the cryonics community: [www.informaworld.com]

Too many issues to deal with right now...but...

Who is interested in a person who is a self-proclaimed "Vampire" in Europe, to be in charge of draining the blood out of dead bodies, to prepare them for cryonics freezing?
Someone who calls himself a "Vampire" is going to drain the blood out of the dead body, and then replace it with their alleged cryonics antifreeze?

What is this "Vampire" going to do with that blood that gets drained out of the corpse?
It might sound ridiculous, but there are "vampire cults" [www.apologeticsindex.org] where there have been police reports of them drinking cows blood, and human blood, in a perverse ritual.
Of course most of it is goth-counter-culture fashion, but there are reports already of bizarre rituals in some cases.

So what is going on?


And of course, trying to cash-in on the TV shows like "Twilight" about vampires which are popular now, could be seen as another cryonics marketing move. After all, the "vampires" want to be immortal, so its a market of people who already hold that belief. Using marketing to try and transfer that to cryonics, sounds right up their alley.

Another important expose' [cryomedical.blogspot.com]

The question comes up, why are a couple big-shots apparently dumping millions into some cryonics organizations?
Of course, multimillionaires have to funnel their money around, or pay tax on it. So if they can dump money into various "non-profit" orgs, then they get that tax benefit.

The question then becomes, what is happening with that money? Where is it going, and to who?
Is it being squandered with bogus "research projects" with huge salaries/expenses going out?
Do the people who are getting those huge salaries, have connections with the same big-shots?

One does not have to be a rocket scientist to connect those dots.

There must be a name for Vyff's psychological disorder she really seems oblivious to all the dropped hints that no one on this website cares her childrens' activities, and she can't seem to refrain from rambling on about it! It's extremely weird, if you ask me!!!

Also on the other recent expose - That too me looks like the whole thing is tied into the whole supplements/life extension con. Its a $50 billion a year industry and Falloon and Kent have a slice of that pie. If you look at the websites which promote these things (cryonics/life-extension) like the immortality institute, Depressed Motabolism etc they all have links to supplement sales. They seem to be tapping in on the baby boomer fears of aging and dying and flogging them altenative medicines and other bullshit. Even Ray Kurzweil (on board at alcor) is flogging supplements and promoting them by telling people he takes over 200 supplements himself DAILY!

[www.lef.org] - Alcor, Depressed Motabolism
[relentlessimprovement.com] - Immortality institute
[www.rayandterry.com] - Kurzweil and Grossman of course

'One does not have to be a rocket scientist to connect those dots.'

I'll pretend to be a rocket scientist and guess at a sophisticated money laundering scheme, perhaps?

What is really quite suspicious is that the technology already exists, (tried, tested and proven-- to be bought from specialist manufacturers of medical suppliers, the same place existing hospitals aquire their equipment) and yet laymen--not engineers- are beavering away in garages and back yard workshops attempting--and failing-- to reinvent the wheel while being paid silly money for the unending 'research and development.'

Properly trained medical professionals are available for hire at standard rates to operate this machinery, yet some companies seem to prefer medically ignorant laymen teaching each other by trial and error who are paid at a much higher rate than a clinically trained operative could demand.

The anti-aging supplement industry, targeted at aging Boomers, is one of the biggest scams on the planet.
The profit-margins are incredible, selling powders and potions costing pennies, for hundreds of dollars.
There literally is no end to the snake-oil peddling.
And of course, the ultimate anti-aging is life-extension, with cryonics being marketed as part of that.

Its impossible to believe that such savvy businessmen, would be dumping millions into cryonics, without having a number of angles on the situation. Sure, they are positioning themselves as owning the cryonics industry, if they can make it take off.
But also, they always make it a win/win for themselves, in that they win on the tax benefits, money transfers, as well as owning it.

I recently read, Long For This World: The Strange Science of Immortality, Eternity Soup: Inside the Quest to End Aging, Selling the Fountain of Youth: How the Anti-Aging Industry Made a Disease out of Aging and made Billions, and The Youth Pill: Scientists at the Brink of an Anti-Aging Revolution.


[...] My favourite of the group was The Youth Pill, just because the science was best in it. The whole concept though of how humans are trying to figure out how aging works, is interesting to me--there are some great ideas in The Youth Pill, I'd read most of the things in the other books before. There is an enormous problem with lack or regulation and education about a range of "anti-aging" treatments, that may do more harm than good such as hormone replacement. Now, most cryonicists that I've met see cryonics as a, "well its better than nothing" proposition because they'll be dead anyway --and I don't see a higher than average amount of cryonicists spending money on over-all anti-aging supplements or treatments (I have met some that do take supplements though) than the average population in industrialized nations --but still to me, it seems that the amount spent on cryonics is a drop in the bucket compared to what is spent on some other highly suspect anti-aging treatments, even with cryonics having as low a chance of working that it does. I practice Calorie Restriction (I started 9 years ago, and lost 85 pounds--gained energy, attended some conferences, kept up with the community and still am at--I like doing it because it is easy for me, I've adopted the once-a-day eating--and do that most days). Today I sat down to catch up here and write this, with a cup of tea, which I have instead of lunch ;)--but point is, that is all I do for anti-aging, along with exercising and enjoying my family :). I don't spend a lot of money on anything related to anti-aging (except books perhaps ;) ), because so far, the only thing I think has been demonstrated to actually slow aging, or extend the healthy years, is Calorie Restriction--plus my budget goes to my family, and social action. I don't spend much on cryonics, and I think it has only a small chance of working, but that seems rational to me--compared to what some people spend on anti-aging treatments that might actually shorten their lifespan. I do support people working on ending age-related degeneration over all and extending healthy lifespans, I think it needs to be in a balanced way--as giving money to vaccines in some parts of the world will do a great deal to extend life. There are legitimate ways to work on radical life extension that we may have hundreds of years from now, and ways to help with over all life extension now, world-wide. The supplement market, though, clearly makes a lot of money, and LEF is large, but not the largest player within that field. I've never ordered from LEF, but from following discussions at ImmInst I think they have high quality, and some of the better research into what may help and why. I do know they have had ads for Alcor before, but I don't know if many of their members are cryonicists. I've never met Saul or Bill, and have no idea if they think cryonics would ever make money--but I do know that it so far does not, also the amount a person pays goes towards upkeep that is planned for centuries, there is not "extra money". Of course, a converse view of that would be that the money could be stolen from the patient upkeep funds--so it is up to the organizations to keep reliable, honest people in leadership. I've got to run, don't know when I'll get to read over all 50 pages, but I suspect all the regular arguments for or against cryonics have been made--I will get to reading through eventually and will comment. The next few weeks are highly busy, every day we have lessons or camps, or homework or competitions... this weekend is my eldest daughter's first High School UIL Math Competition :) So, although I may think most of the people reading this particular thread think all cryonicists are naive or misguided, I will make the time to talk here some more. I have no intention of changing minds, and some may still think I'm crazy, but I think I'm a normal mom who took on being a mom with a passion, and who has a hobby of following the field of radical life extension --along with being a voting Democrat, bleeding heart, liberal UU church goer, roller derby referee ;). I support my husband and children, I have many other aspects to my life right now that are more in the forefront than being signed up to be frozen when I die. There may be some good that comes from the debates within this thread for the cryonics community, but so far most of the people within leadership in cryonics have been honest, credentialed people who continue to work on bettering the field.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2010 06:11AM by rrmoderator.

Shannon Vyff:

Please stay on topic.

The topic of this thread is Cryonics, not your personal life or reading list.

If you want to start another thread on "anti-aging" that would be alright.

Please don't post promotional links to sell books.

I don't know why I am bothering - but lets just say that Shannon Vyff is incapable of telling the truth.

She says - "I've never met Erik Bourgeoise, and didn't know he was, or if he is, COS or TOV. "

Go Here:

[translate.google.com]

On Eriks Dutch Blog he claims to know her well enough to arrange dinner dates and as talked to her about her potentially going on Oprah Winfrey.

I don;t know how you could forget knowing someone reasonably well - especially someone as Colourful as Bourgeoise! (hes a Make up Artist by trade) - I think we can safely disregard Shannon's comments and information as probable misdirection tactics. Its impossible to tell if she is trying to help, clear her own name or attempting to just muddy the waters.

Back to the point -

Stoic says - "What is really quite suspicious is that the technology already exists, (tried, tested and proven-- to be bought from specialist manufacturers of medical suppliers, the same place existing hospitals aquire their equipment) and yet laymen--not engineers- are beavering away in garages and back yard workshops attempting--and failing-- to reinvent the wheel while being paid silly money for the unending 'research and development."

It would be interesting to know how much of this medical equipment you can just buy "off the shelf" to set up your own Cryonics "Disorganisation". I would bet that pretty much all of it can be bought - In Larry Johnsons Book he goes into some of the "inventions" in greater detail. One of them the "cryo-star" apparently could not keep its tempreture and fluctuated through 10C up and down. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that isn;t going to work and the rapid expanding contracting will cause fractures in whatever is being frozen. Put a very hot plate in cold water and watch it shatter - 10C fluctuation with nitrogen goes through liquid and gas states. So some of this equipment doesnt even work properly and all they would of had to do is go down to a Medical Supply Warehouse to repace it!

I also agree with you on the "baby-boomer life extension con". One of the things I noticed with the whole transhumanism/futurism thing was that a lot of it seemed to be based around aging, life extension and defeating death. I never really got it - Its like the futurists want to live in the future they are predicting like some sort of reverse nostalgia or its part of the supplements game, take your supplements and you might live to see the S+. Hardcore Transhumanist/Extropians have been promoting Cryonics in thier writings and blogs as some kind of route to the technological singularity if your old and unlikely to live 30 years or so. When you have people with gravity like Aubrey De Grey and Ray Kurzweil endorsing cryonics to these movements its very persuasive. However that being said I think the Cryonics People are moving away from the transhumanist meme as some of it seems to conflict with their views.

Quote
Shannon Vyff
...but so far most of the people within leadership in cryonics have been honest, credentialed people who continue to work on bettering the field.

I wish Shannon would name those cryonics leaders, who have been "honest, credentialed people who continue to work on bettering the field."

MANY, (if not most), cryonics "leaders" have been people with little-to-no formal medical or scientific training, or experience, and MANY of them have been accused of extremely unprofessional, and unethical, behavior.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2010 07:33AM by melmax.