AIUI, since I'm in the UK, the only part of my cryopreservation that my US-based provider would handle is final cooldown and storage; the rest would be done by Cryonics UK in either instance. I think that means there's currently no downside in going with the cheaper provider.

A while back I decided it was time to stop cryocrastinating, and discovered that CI do not offer any collection services to where I live and seemed to be largely "you're on your own if you're outside the US" while Alcor had... some kind of international process that I couldn't really clarify despite asking.

Eventually I got sick of Alcor seeming to only check their emails once per week and abandoned the whole quest. So I got pushed away from CI because they refused to help me in Australia, and pushed away from the other org because they consistently gave the impression of being hugely uninterested.

Now I just hope I don't die until A) one of the existing organisations starts acting like they actually want me to sign up, or B) someone better opens up shop.

Because it was an excuse to bring in the hope function by way of correcting Max's statistical reasoning, something I find really cool given how simple & obscure it is.

In my role as an Alcor director, I had the painstaking and unpleasant task of investigating the veracity of Johnson's book allegations to determine which of them required legitimate corrective action or litigation for defamation. Some of the allegations published in New York Daily News and wire services in 2009 promoting the book weren't even anywhere in the book (e.g. allegations that Alcor dismembered live animals). Such lies about the book itself were apparently just invented to get international media attention two days before the book's release. Some of the allegations inside the book were so outrageous that no reasonable person knowing anything about cryonics could believe them, such as Alcor kidnapping teenagers and homeless people and burying them in the desert, or engaging in drug trafficking and wild car chases. Other allegations, such as certain cryonics cases being "botched," I knew immediately were false because I had personal knowledge of the cases, or because they were repeats of false allegations Johnson made during his previous reach for fame in 2003.

http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/sportsillustrated.htm

Many other allegations required investigation. In some cases, such as false allegations of illegal waste disposal, public sources were sufficient to refute them.

http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=22461

To summarize, although there was enough superficial truth in "Frozen" and enough real controversy in Alcor's history to establish a veneer of credibility to the casual reader, the vast majority of the book is deliberately crafted to depict Alcor and cryonicists in the worst possible light, and uses literally hundreds of false claims and allegations to do it. It's not just a matter of poetic license, but fabrication of entire anecdotes and conversations that never happened. In some cases there was also editing of conversations to create completely different meanings than the original conversations (editing that ABC News co-participated in, but that's another story). There were accounts of cryonicists having loathsome medical conditions that they did not have (one of the legal definitions of defamation per se), partying with human remains, animal abuse, cultism, brainwashing, deviant sex, and poor hygiene. As one commentator on Amazon.com put it, Johnson could have been more credible had he not go so completely over-the-top.

Partial book rebuttals concerning matters they have personal knowledge of have been published by well-respected cryonicists Steve Harris and Charles Platt

http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/thread/1258263309/The+Instability+of+Larry+Johnson%27s+History

http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=32722

Alcor chose to litigate 32 defamation claims in the present New York lawsuit that is continuing against the publisher, Vanguard Press, and coauthor Scott Baldyga.

http://www.alcor.org/Library/pdfs/NewYorkComplaintAmendedJan2010.pdf

We could have added many more, but those are enough work as it is. Someday, once the litigation is done, I may write a 100-page tome of everything that is false in that book. But in the meantime my time and freedom to do is limited by the fact that the litigation is still ongoing.

It's unfortunate and unfair that news media keep rehashing this stuff. It's so much easier to destroy things than create them.

Upvoted to leave you beholden to me. BWAAAhahaha. I learnt that trick from Draco in HP:MOR.

The theoretical desirability and practicality of cryonics is what matters at this point. It's what the real controversy is about. If the given organizations are incompetent, they can be replaced with better ones. Or the people in them can be replaced. But, supposing that is necessary, we would need new people to replace them with. People who actually care about cryonics. Melody is not contributing to that cause, in my estimation. Rather she seems to be contributing to, and playing upon, the existing cocktail of mockery, misunderstanding, and marginalization that has plagued cryonics for years.

Isn't anyone else struck by the bizarreness of malpractice allegations that need to be vetted by hypothermic medicine experts for procedures that end with decapitated heads and brains likely fractured at liquid nitrogen temperatures??

No, why do you ask?

Against the technology, no (I'd say obviously not). Against the organisational robustness of present-day cryonics? I'd say it could well be. I suspect Charles Platt would agree.

(voted up as good question)

As a survivor of a recent heart attack, I would like to make a rather surprising suggestion. If you live in big city, get a job as a bicycle courier. If near a college campus, get a job as a bicycle pizza delivery person. Get someone to pay you for getting healthy exercise. Then you can spend your spare time on sedentary intellectual activities without damaging your health.

If you are like Mitchell_Porter, and wish to spend your spare time on serious math-like creativity, then you definitely need 4-6 hours of mindless physical activity in the middle of your wake cycle, with intense intellectual activity at the beginning and end of the day. No one can maintain peak intellectual productivity for long periods without some scheduled downtime.

I suppose it serves as a vote of less than infinite confidence. I don't know if it makes me any less confident than SIAI themselves. It's still worth helping SIAI in any way possible, but they've never claimed a 100% chance of victory.