lsparrish writes: "Brian has actually provided a very solid motive for himself and other Alcor board members to oppose waste and procedural negligence. They are signed up for cryonics themselves."

Luke may not know I was encouraged to sign up, while I was working at SA, to appease Saul Kent, so that I could be eligible for the management position. The person encouraging me knew I was not interested in being cryopreserved, at the time. In other words, I was encouraged to trick Saul Kent, the man responsible for funding our very-generous paychecks. I was even told Mr. Kent could, most-likely, be convinced to fund my insurance policy, if I were willing to sign up. Contrary to what, the very naive, Luke Parrish believes, being signed up is NOT "solid motive" for insuring the quality of cryonics services. (I do not mean to cast doubt on Dr. Wowk's sincerity, but only to point out the obvious flaw in Luke's logic.)

For anyone who is interested, I was not interested in my own cryopreservation, due to the gross inadequacies of the protocols, the equipment and the personnel. I don't believe anyone who has been cryopreserved, thus far, will ever be revived. I am not inclined to pay $60,000 for a quack like Catherine Baldwin, to make sure I am REALLY dead, by keeping me at relatively warm temperatures, while she bumbles around, for many hours, trying to perform a vascular cannulation. Nor am I inclined to pay $200,000, to Alcor, for what I consider to be grossly-inadequate services. It seems the people in control of cryonics organizations greatly-underestimate the amount of education and training required, to be a REAL vascular surgeon, or perfusionist. It is absurd, for cryonics organizations to think they can train laymen to perform the tasks of these professionals, by practicing on pigs in the back of a van, or even through their very infrequent human cadaver experiences.

SA and Alcor, can each afford to fund the salary of at least one full-time staff member competent in performing vascular cannulations, and one full-time staff member skilled in perfusion. That they do not do so, is only reflective of their extremely poor leadership. Of course, if they were to hire such medical professionals, for their staff, there would probably be a repeat performance of what happened, when I was at SA. The professionals would want to change things, which would set in motion tremendously-subversive efforts, on the part of the unqualified status quo, to maintain their positions and salaries. Either that, or they will hire medical professionals, who don't believe, for one second, that cryonics will ever work, but who are happy to "go along, to get along," since they see no harm in botching surgeries on the already-dead. Again, it all boils down to a leadership issue.

Finally, don't expect me to respond to the posts of Luke Parrish, with any sort of regularity. I have no time for someone, whose greatest contributions to these discussions are fantasies of how scientists of the future are going to repair the damage being done, by the crackpots of the present, or who has a habit of spewing forth uninformed criticisms of the critics of cryonics organizations. Besides, there's little hope of having a rational discussion with a boy who thinks a hydrogen atom, drawn on a piece of paper, is a real hydrogen atom. http://cryomedical.blogspot.com/2010/10/too-much-fantasy-not-enough-reality-in.html