Re: Trouble on the horizon for Alcor?

From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Sun Feb 23 2003 - 13:48:55 MST

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    John feel free to cross post this to cryonet.

    John Grigg wrote:
    > ...
    >
    > The author of this article is stuck in very conventional
    > modes of thought.

    Of course he is, however those who are stuck in
    conventional modes of thought are those who cause
    the most trouble for Alcor. I had some ideas which
    I think can help everyone to win. Please read on.

    > Alcor is much too expensive and time
    > intensive to be a cold storage mausoleum.

    Alcor should look into becoming exactly that:
    a mausoleum. Let it get whatever legal status
    a mausoleum has. Let it sell itself as just
    a mausoleum. {They might already do this.}
    That the bodies are frozen is immaterial to the
    fact that these are hallowed grounds, with human
    remains present, etc. Let Alcor get the same
    superstitious benefits that any cemetery enjoys.

    > Meanwhile, no one with close ties to Williams was allowed access to the lab
    > as Williams' body hung suspended in a giant cylinder.
    >
    > Hamon couldn't accept that.

    OK, this seems like an easy one to solve, without
    running up the cost too high.

    Make dewars that have the right dimensions
    to allow the patients to lie horizontal, just
    like they would in any cemetery. I can't
    imagine this would be all that technically
    difficult. Get plaques that say Here *lies*
    the Splendid Splinter, etc. Allow the same
    access as an ordinary mausoleum would allow.

    Let us deal with superstition the way a
    surfer deals with waves: dont fight it, ride it.

    Seems to me you could even place the corpsicles
    in "coffins" of sorts, smaller than the traditional
    ones, custom fit so as to not use up a lot of room
    in the dewar. Then if the proles get jiggy about
    several bodies sharing the same dewar, one could
    argue, no, each has its own coffin. They share the
    same liquid nitrogen in the same sense that everyone
    in the cemetery shares the same soil.

    If it makes people feel better, we could even place
    the dewar underground, so the families could imagine
    their ancestors are buried.

    Please indulge me in one more comment on upside-ism.
    As one who has talked to a number of innocents
    about cryonics, I can assure you that these minor
    points do matter. Those of you who are trained in
    christian lore, recall that when the Apostle Peter
    was to be crucified, he asked to suffer the ignominious
    fate of being hung upside down. This practice was
    intended to heap further shame upon the prisoner
    in his final hours, but Peter requested this because he
    felt he was unworthy of the honor of being crucified in
    the same manner as Hoerkheimer Christ.

    Be that as it may, Alcor really needs to rethink
    the upside down posture, even if it makes sense
    from a technical point of view. And failing the
    coffins in the dewar bit, perhaps us a body bag, so
    as to satisfiy the squicked yahoos that think that
    it matters. {Again, they might already be doing
    this or something equivalent, but it did not come
    out in the hysterical news article.}

    It is in the best interest of all of us to protect
    Alcor and its sister organizations from these kinds
    of criticisms raised by uninformed or misinformed
    proles, for we all know we have an inexhaustable
    supply of these kinds of people, and plenty of lawyers
    with nothing to do and plenty of news organizations
    eager to print all the news thats fit to sell papers.

    spike



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