Saul Kent's vision for cryonics might be seriously flawed.

It looks like Saul Kent still has serious prominance in cryonics. The latest fiasco associated with SA Inc indicates that his vision for cryonics, however, might be flawed-- and that therefore other cryonicists should look at the historical and general situation and put Saul Kent and his vision into perspective.

The first thing that came to my mind this morning on the matter of Saul Kent-- as I read through the latest cryonics posts by Maxim-- is that Saul may have differentiated himself financially in cryonics to the point where what he's selling is no longer credible-- because he isn't selling what he himself has bought. He's created something unreachable by other potential buyers.

For example, he's a board member of Alcor and an Alcor member-- and yet he is not selling Alcor, nor depending on Alcor to cryorescue him. The scheme involving SA is looking worse and worse with each passing day-- and now FD and Maxim point to the possibility that Saul has his own perfusionist-- on call-- something the average cryo cannot afford. [+] He's taking a position that isn't marketable. And this is another reason why cryonics might fail-- there is no "standard" product.

It could have been different. Had Saul and other high net worth cryos who differentiated themselves out of the standard product idea by getting perp trusts instead of investing in the next generation of cryonicists thought about a couple of different products that anyone considering cryonics could get into, cryonics might be increasing its numbers today. I think that anyone new looking at cryonics now can plainly see that the high net worth people have their own game going-- and on that basis alone-- will be a lot less likely to join. Why should they commit to the faction of cryonics that apparently isn't good enough for the wealthy?

I was at a board meeting where Saul indicated that he was very much interested in product differentiation. I suppose product levels are good to a certain extent-- like coffee comes in small, medium and large. But I also think that there is a distinct possibility of confusing the marketplace with undefined and generally unattainable versions of a product. In the case of cryonics, it appears that there really is nothing less than more confusion and therefore disgust over the differentiation attempted by SA Inc.

Saul wrote "The failure of cryonics" a few years ago and tried to answer the problems he set up for himself with his approach. I'm afraid, however, that his behavior in cryonics history can just as forcefully be argued as having caused the failure of cryonics as having solved the problems to prevent it from failing. An Alcor member who doesn't even "buy into" Alcor's services isn't much of a member, let alone a very good board member.

There's a book on my desk I'm perusing lately titled "the Logic of Collective Action".[+] I think that this failure-- and it is a failure-- of SA Inc-- in my view-- and by the standards of what was promised and what the situation is as described by Maxim-- is a signal that cryonicists should start thinking beyond Saul Kent and his vision and instead look at true collective action and well-defined product lines. I would have meetings with CI and Alcor where well-defined product lines can be described fully so that the cryonics industry as a whole comes to some agreement on standards. Hopefully, Melody Maxim's input as I see occuring-- can help us all begin to think along those lines again.

As for Saul and Bill, they should drop their renegade lab effort-- and invest more attention, focus and money on the organization that they themselves are signed up with-- Alcor. If they have problems with Alcor, then they both should be blogging about those problems so that we can solve them together.


Follow up-- Fri. July 13, 2007-- posted here for link-followers from Steve Harris's post in Cold Filter about my analysis here.

First-- note how a threaded forum and a blog can interact. In terms of media, we see that contrary to what Jon Hinek thought before he banned from Cold Filter, posting a link to my blog does not "steal" readers-- but gives a forum added flexibility. More cryonicists should consider blogging. See Melody Maxim's new blog-- a very effective way to present her analysis and other ideas on SA without the random "fire" that removes context and diverts attention-- as occurs in a forum. [+]

Second-- Harris indicates that FD's speculation that Saul has his own perfustionist is false. That's believable-- and I take that as a valid point. It was FD who speculated on that possibility however-- Harris thought it was my idea. It wasn't. Here's the FD post I got that idea from... [+]

Third-- Minor point of order-- when posting a link to a blog post, make sure it goes to THAT particular post and not just the blog in general. As a result of Steve Harris's link, future readers will not see the post he refered to. This is a general media point-- that's true on all blogs so it's worth becoming good at becuase it's generally applicable. Always link to the precise page. Alcor's blog works the same way... when referring to it, link to the exact page-- not simply the blog home page.

Finally-- This whole business of who uses what perfusionist is new to me. I had little appreciation for the perfusion part of cryonics in the first place. This indulgence in controversy over the SA situation and the perfusion situation is interesting-- and so the point here is that engaging in controversy allows learning to take place. Here's a page describing the Master of Perfusion degree program at Milwaukee School of Engineering. [+]. It's interesting to note that there is no perfusionist on Alcor's Staff page. [+]. There is no perfusionist on the Scientific Advisor page either. [+]. In fact, it's difficult to find references to Alcor's perfusionist on their website. Here's one that refers to paying perfustionist $20 per hour (?!) in 1990. [+]. Most references to 'perfusionist' on the Alcor site are very old-- at least 10 years. Here's a 1991 case where Russell Whittaker is the perfusionist [+] with Ralph Whelan assisting. Whatever happened to Whelen? There is no call for a perfusionist at Alcor on the job page. [+.

CI makes reference to their own perfusionist here-- who is a funeral director. [+]. It appears that Jim Walsh, a local cooperating funeral director, was the perfusionist on the latest CI case. [+]. I suppose that for the average cryonicist like me, it might be of interest to compare and contrast the perfusion skills of a funeral director with that of, say, Melody Maxim. I adopted the motto that there is no such thing as a stupid question but I think I'm verging on one, nevertheless here-- what IS the difference between Jim Walsh and Melody Maxim?

World Situation

Rense published this today-- interesting.
[+

Homeland security Chertoff's stupidity knows no bounds. And he looks like a freak too. This is all aside from the fact that "homeland security" is a misnomer. There's no such thing as "homeland" unless you're an empire. The USA's national security should not be called "homeland security". Britain has "homeland" departments because they're still an empire. The "Brutish Commonwealth" is a euphemism for "Brutish Empire".
[+]

Simply 94-- as a cause of death? I don't think so. There must have been a more detailed cause than that. Mitochondria failure? Liver failure? Immune depressent? If we don't get smareter about causes of death-- which are never covered in the newspaper obits, we probably won't understand death or life extension better.
[+]

Shapeshifter-- Fake democrat votes to refund Cheney
[+]

Cheney-- This mad dog needs to be impeached before he drops nuclear bombs on Iran. I think the military should plan for a counter-coup against the insider rogues who did 9/11-- who Cheney is associated with. The entire war on terror is orchestrated and stupid. The only sane analysis of Cheney and his sponsor, Shultz, is found on the Larouche site, but cryonicists absolutely refuse to look at it. I've been banned from all cryonics forums because if, I think, my political views. Mark Plus scanned and promoted an article recently from Future magazine that ridicules nation-states-- and promotes globalism. Globalism is nothing but warmed over imperialism-- as it turns out. And the configuration of an international community of soverieign nation states is still the best format for world order... cryonics is perfectly consistent with Classical World Order. Anyway, stay up to date on Cheney-- and his coming impeachment-- at google news under keyword cheney.
[+]

Melody Maxim's cryonics and SA Inc blog is now findable on Google blogsearch under keyword cryonics
[+]

FD's accusation of my shapeshifting on narrow issues is correct-- but his/her notion that cryonics is disconnected from the world at large is not.

FD continues to misrepresent my representations. [+]. I DID change my mind about narrow confinement to cryonics when it occurred to me that I could use a piggy back method where instead of making unique world-view posts to my cryonics blog, I could piggy-back world-view-news updates on each cryonics post. I've been toying with it and it's interesting. It places my cryonics post at the top-- and the rest of the world-view news lower on the page. Of course, the world news isn't the primary focus in each cryonics post-- but it gets played. So I admit shapeshifting there. I deny that it's not relevent to cryonics however or that it's "pseudopolitical" or "sad". But that's for another day. Note that FD makes no specific mention of anything. I guess he/she thinks that Cheney dropping nuclear bombs on Iraq isn't relevent to cryonics-- or that the Globalist agenda to destroy nation-states warrents a shrug of the shoulders. Note that FD shows no cards when it comes to politics-- which indicates FD plays a psuedopolitical game of secrecy... which in itself is political. Now THAT is sad.

I also deny extending FD's speculative remark into near-truth. I referenced his remark with a link and merely expounded on that in a direction AFTER making sure the reader understood that it was a speculation. To deny that I properly contextualized my expounding is silly. I no more indicated that Saul had his own private perfusionist than FD speculated that he may. The difference was that I extrapolated the idea into what the implications of that would be if it were true. As far as it being true or false, so far we only have Harris's categorical denial which I trust. But who knows? I mean-- where there's motive and opportunity-- there is possibility. Certainly it can be said Saul has the opportunity closer at hand to have his own perfusionist if and when that time came-- the geographical location is right-- the lab is there-- Saul lives around the corner-- I mean c'mon. Harris COULD deny it and either not know for sure, or he could be "pretty sure"-- or Saul could have an arrangement unkonwn to Harris. The speculation was excellent. And Saul and other high net worth people in cryonics are not beyond making special arrangements for themsevles that noone else can get.

FD tries to make it look like I'm out of line both in continuing speculations that he opened up-- AND make it look like cryonics isn't part of the REAL larger world-- that it's an isolated science-- which it isn't. It's part of the world which is being run by international bankers who have no national loyalties. To deny THAT is to collude with them. Earlier in CF, FD said he/she didn't see anything wrong with Globalism. Globalism is a euphemism for Empire-- So to go along with Empire is, essentially an attack on the Republic. And that is an attack on America. Therefore FD is essentially un-American. OR worse-- anti-American. FD doesn't know his own American history. He/she is to be totally discredited in politics and economics. And anything he/she says about me is to be taken as a direct attack on me because I'm associated with Larouche, a Classical Humanist.

Furthermore FD isn't even signed up with Alcor or any cryonics organization making the EXCUSE that none of them are good enough yet. Well, newsflash for FD. NOTHING is ever good enough-- ultimately-- so you have to approximate. FD's credibility begins at zero-- in my book-- and every point he/she makes is to be re-evaluated on its own merits. He/she makes some good points-- but again-- coming from a non-cryo you have to wonder who he/she REALLY is and what his/her motives REALLY are. He/she is the most prominent poster on Cold Filter, Hinek basically having turned the reigns of power over the FD, effectively. FD cooperated with my ban at CF-- a ban that was unwarrented. Ultimately FD has to be judged in a political context on Cold Filter-- and THAT politics is bad politics.