How many of you are Alcor Life Extension Foundation members?
Dale Harris
signing up myself but think that Alcor should establish subsidiaries in
other countries where euthenasia is legalized to increase the chances of a
successfull cryonic storage. So far they don't seem inclined to do so, for
some shady reason...
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
john
I doubt whether the reason is "shady".
I suspect more that they are unwilling to spend time debating such
issues with people who may or may not become members.
Another point worth considering is that, although it may appear to an
outsider that cryonics is an enormous industry, there are only a few
thousand people in the whole world who are actually signed up, and far
less under cryopreservation. Http://www.alcor.org and http://www.cryonics.org
have the latest figures from the two main institutions.
Signing for cryonics is more like signing on for a trip with a
Victorian explorer -- where you pay to be a crew member -- as opposed
to a trip on a modern cruise liner where you sit back and are waited
on hand and foot for the whole voyage. (Of course people are
unconscious when under cryopreservation, the self help comes during
the sign up process.)
Another reason why facilities are not established overseas to the USA
is regulatory cost. The two main cryonics facilities were both "garage
operations" for many years before bequests enabled them to get proper
premises. It would be much more difficult, that is to say costly for
regulatory reasons, to do this today. There is a relatively new
facility in Moscow, but in the USSR the legal profession had a low
financial profile and at present Russia is still building its
regulatory structure. But I suspect that both US cryonics
organisations do not have the capital to spend on setting up other
facilities. It is far more than just buying a building.