I'm not responsible for what others say that are their opinions or fantasy. Erik emailed me once a few years back with a joking, "Will you marry me?" I told him I was happily married and not looking, we exchanged 3 or 4 emails and that was it. I never set up any possible date with him. I may have said that I hoped to meet him when I was in England, when I had briefly emailed him and that was back when I had been interviewed by an Oprah producer for a show on Cryonics that ended up being canceled for some scheduling reason. I attended some Cryonics UK trainings and some Humanity+ events while in the UK, also the SENS4 conference--but I never met Erik. I don't know him, what he does for a living (just read you said he does make-up, so maybe that?), have not met him--and never heard anything before about him being TOV or COS --I know some things on Richie's site, or Jill!'s site are true and some are not, I've not been able to verify them all. Regardless, I'm sure I have that email thread somewhere from two or so years ago--I never even emailed with him while I was in the UK, only that one time where a few had been exchanged--I never did, nor do I now, consider him someone I know. I do have friends within the cryonics community that I have not met in person, but know pretty well through continual communication, and by that I mean communicating at least every few months--sometimes talking by video chat or on the phone, nothing like that ever happened with Erik. I'm off to listen to my youngest read, I'll flesh out what I mean by responsible leaders when I get back.

Someone sent this link of a new doc with some cryonics in it.
At about 40 minutes, there is a part about cryonics, with interviews with the cryonics usual suspects mentioned in this thread.
(Robert Ettinger, Ben Best, The Blevins Family, Aschwin de Wolf, Chana de Wolf...)

Its an utterly naive and credulous presentation, but its unintentionally very revealing.

Corpus (2010)
[www.tvo.org]

[www.imdb.com] Chronicles Connie Diletti's journey across North America as she decides what she's going to do with her body after she dies.

[...] I do think most of the leaders are good people. I'm happy with the current board and staff at Alcor and CI. I just reviewed the lists and Alcor has a lot of great people on staff, medical professionals included, as well as their board. There are a lot of great people on the board at CI and staff at CI also. There is not one person that I'd want to single out to complain about. I've met in person only two of the CI board members, and one Alcor board member--people that I've stayed friends with since meeting. I've met four Alcor staff members, mainly because I've visited there three times (once during a conference). I've stayed in touch with the people I've met, and consider some closer than others--but all are intelligent people, none of which I've heard of being involved in unethical behaviour. When I looked over the lists of board and staff I only saw the names of two people out of Alcor and CI's staff and boards, some thirty names total, but only two that have had their names associated with any unprofessional behaviour on anti-cryonics sites --some of it true, some surely speculation. I feel that overall the board members and staff of Alcor and CI are responsible, committed and caring people--that make good decisions for their organizations and will continue to do so in regards to personnel and long term planning.

On transhumanism, not all cryonicists are transhumanists and not all transhumanists are cryonicists. Some cryonicists only believe it will work from a biological standpoint (rejuvenation of original tissues), some think it will work from a technological stand point (brain scans into robotic bodies or nano-bots repairing damage). If anything I've seen more transhumanists getting into cryonics, at least the younger cryonicists tend to be transhumanists.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2010 09:59PM by rrmoderator.

My messages have not been showing up until much later, is there a certain threshhold for posting within this forum before one is allowed to have their posts show up when they post? The link to the documentary will not work for me, it looks entertaining though.

Shannon Vyff:

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Quote
Shannon Vyff
[...] I do think most of the leaders are good people. I'm happy with the current board and staff at Alcor and CI. I just reviewed the lists and Alcor has a lot of great people on staff, medical professionals included, as well as their board. There are a lot of great people on the board at CI and staff at CI also. There is not one person that I'd want to single out to complain about. I've met in person only two of the CI board members, and one Alcor board member--people that I've stayed friends with since meeting. I've met four Alcor staff members, mainly because I've visited there three times (once during a conference). I've stayed in touch with the people I've met, and consider some closer than others--but all are intelligent people, none of which I've heard of being involved in unethical behaviour. When I looked over the lists of board and staff I only saw the names of two people out of Alcor and CI's staff and boards, some thirty names total, but only two that have had their names associated with any unprofessional behaviour on anti-cryonics sites --some of it true, some surely speculation. I feel that overall the board members and staff of Alcor and CI are responsible, committed and caring people--that make good decisions for their organizations and will continue to do so in regards to personnel and long term planning.

I don't think it is Shannon Vyff's intention to be deceitful, but I think what she wrote does misrepresent the situations at these organizations. In my previous post, I complained about her writing, "...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 complained because Alcor is selling specific surgical procedures at prices up to $150K, (and that's not counting the addition of membership fees, or other fees), and NO ONE...NO ONE PERSON...on Alcor's staff, holds the credentials needed to perform these procedures, in a conventional medicine setting. In other words, not one person on Alcor's staff would be allowed to provide the surgical procedures they are selling, in conventional medicine. Out of ten staff members, only one is a medical professional. Aaron Drake is a paramedic and a cardiovascular technologist, (someone who assists with diagnostic procedures in a cath lab). Of Alcor's nine Scientific Advisory Board members, there are eight PhDs and one JD...no surgeons, no perfusionists. On their Board of Directors, there are are a number of PhDs, JDs, a CPA, and one MD (a neurologist, not someone likely to be skilled in vascular cannulation, or perfusion, the procedures Alcor is selling.) YES...these people have "credentials," just not the right ones. On top of that, do any of these credentialed folks Shannon is so impressed by actually perform Alcor's procedures??? Other than Aaron Drake, I don't believe any of them do. There is extensive documentation of Alcor allowing laymen, or people with credentials which do not apply, to attempt to perform tasks typically performed in heart surgery, by cardiovascular surgeons and perfusionists. Is that what Shannon Vyff calls "good decisions"? I really don't think Shannon has a clue as to how destructive a perfusion circuit, in inexperienced hands can be.

I've met some of these "credentialed" people, and I find them not only fascinating, but funny and friendly. Aubrey de Grey invited me to Alcor's 2008 meeting of Alcor's Scientific Advisory Board, where I met Ralph Merkle, Robert Freitas, and others. I enjoyed that, immensely, truly, I did. But, I don't believe any of these very intelligent and charming men are capable of advising someone on how to perform vascular cannulations and perfusion, anymore than the vascular surgeons and perfusionists I know would be capable of advising people on nanotechnology!

For nearly 40 years, cryonics has been trying, and failing, to competently perform surgical procedures, (vascular cannulations and perfusion), that conventional medical professionals have been delivering with a tremendous success rate, for many decades. Yet, for nearly 40 years, cryonics "research" has been largely comprised of equipment that already existed, and having laymen train other laymen how to perform the tasks of medical professionals??? I don't see that there have been many "good decisions" made, in cryonics...not in regard to performing medical procedures, or in handling financial matters.

Again, I think Shannon Vyff's intentions are good, but I think she does not really understand the medical procedures involved, and I think it is endorsements like hers that lead to people handing over $150K, or even their entire estates, to companies that might send someone with nothing more than a high school diploma, (if that is even a requirement!), to perform the tasks of vascular surgeons and perfusionists...all with the implied promise that the recipients of these procedures have some chance of being resurrected in the future.

I will probably write a lot more about this, on my blog, over the weekend.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2010 10:27PM by melmax.

I don;t know whats worse having dumb "misguded good intentions" thinking you are doing the right thing - or just being a plain dumb "tool".
Those idiots who protest about genetically modified crops being grown in africa while people starve to death using "traditional farming" have "misguided good intentions" too!
Ms Vyff is not dumb (she can write books) but I suspect her calorie restricted diet gives her low blood sugar and effects her decision making process.
We can all be life extension theorists - my "theory" is that by smoking 50 cigarettes a day it will actually make you live longer because they kill flu germs and other
airborne bacteria. :)
Thats right I am not a doctor so if I publicise my misguided claim and people get cancer - who's to blame?
Vyff could easily have written books/articles about other subjects not just what she thinks is a good idea through her "groups".
These people are pretty smart (hell smarter than me) but that does not make them right.

The whole cryonics/Life extension thing is like the religion of the people with a IQ of 140 - its like some kind of technological intelligent design movement to sell dodgy alternative "medicine".
Its just a shame that its more vocal supporters don't even seem get what they are selling - just because they think they understand the science behind it all doesnt mean they actually do. Its this kind of "misguided good intentions"which will make the money men at the top rich and them look stupid when the scams and abuse are revealed as we have seen.

Douglas Hofstadter once said of Kurzweils books "It’s as if you took a lot of very good food and some dog excrement and blended it all up so that you can't possibly figure out what's good or bad. It's an intimate mixture of rubbish and good ideas, and it's very hard to disentangle the two". I think this is pretty true of a lot of the technology cults like cryonicists - they are populated by intelligent people who have mixed up so many good and bad scientific/medical theories in their "philosophies" that it seems very credible. Which is why people who have "good intentions" have been promoting them "misguidedly" I don;t think that Vyff is a out and out evil marketer of cryonics cults but she is one of these people that happily self publicises herself and these weird beliefs by having "misguded good intentions" and justifies it by saying things like "just wanting to help people live longer". Doesnt make it right especially if through her actions people have signed up to cryonics and life-extension scams.

Now im off for a smoke a couple of lovely healthy cigarettes.... :)

I came across a rather fabulous review on a book pseudonymously written by Chet Fleming, aka Patrick Kelly who holds a US patent on technology that would be of interest to cryonicists.

[oddbooks.co.uk]

It was the title that grabbed my interest 'If We Can Keep a Severed Head Alive ...' but who could resist the schematic drawing of the pipework attaching the severed head to the torso?
It does beg the question though of why bother severing the head in the first place if you are then going to re-attach it to the torso with few feet of added piping.

I see that the emails that ran to and fro from CI and others have been removed (again?).

They were here: [thecryonicscache.webs.com]

You don't think these pervs were actually embarressed (well them bare assed really!)
by the content do you?

No doubt many saved copies and I expect they'll resurface again soon. Hope so.

Well Transvison 2010 let themselves down by allowing that Con Artist David "Langueasesta" Styles go ahead with his snake oil presentation - You would of thought Shannon Vyff (on the board of Transvision) might of tried to pull him being the person he is and who else is behind Eucrio (Temple of Vampires Adepts George C Smith and Erik Bourgouise).


Video - [telexlr8.blip.tv]

Also Speaking in other video's are usual Suspects Max More and Aubrey De Grey and other Cryonics Activists Natasha Vita More, Anders Sandberg and Eugene Leitl.

Just show's they don't care - despite all the "dirt" coming out about Cryonics they are still mass marketing to us Europeans. You would think that some of these so called "progressive thinkers" would have some integrity and not want to be associated with the Eucrio Scam by now.
I suppose they are hoping that European Transhumanist's don;t read english websites and are unaware that David Styles and The Eucrio Crew used to run a Vampire Pyramid Scheme.

I still maintain that some of the more fanatical transhumanists view cryonics as a stepping stone to the Technological Singularity.

Maybe we should start a thread on other "techno-cults" and this whole "singularity faith" too - :)