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
For those of us who don’t have any experience in this area, approximately how much would hiring “one full-time staff member competent in performing vascular cannulations” cost? How much would hiring “one full-time staff member skilled in perfusion” cost?
Alcor already employs a full-time paramedic with surgical training in large animal models to do vascular cannulations when it is possible to do so in the field. Cannulations at Alcor are typically done by either a contract neurosurgeon or a veterinary surgeon. I’ve written further details about who does surgeries at Alcor, and who has done them historically, here:
It’s misleading for people to keep saying that Alcor sends out “laypeople” to do vascular cannulations.
The standard being applied to Alcor in recent criticisms is not just that people doing the cannulations be competent, or even have a medical credential, but that they should be the same professionals who do vascular cannulations for elective surgeries in tertiary care hospitals, i.e. cardiovascular surgeons. According to this website
the average salary of a clinical perfusionist is $122,000 per year. The sum of these two figures is approximately equal to Alcor’s entire staff budget. Notwithstanding, a clinical perfusion credential was listed as a desirable qualification in Alcor’s last clinical cryonics job ad. No perfusionists responded.
Surgeons and perfusionists employed full-time by a cryonics organization might only do a couple of cryonics cases per year, quickly losing their clinical-level skills, and employability outside of cryonics. The perfusionist making all these recent criticisms against cryonics, and insisting that full-time cardiovascular surgeons and perfusionsts be hired (not just contract ones), herself never had the opportunity to work on even one cryonics case during her entire employment at SA four years ago. Cases are that infrequent.
Dr. Wowk is misrepresenting the situation, yet again. It is not misleading to say Alcor has allowed laypersons to have performed vascular cannulations. Not only have they done so, but they have falsely referred to such people as “surgeons,” and even “Chief Surgeon,” in their public reports, (something that is a violation of Arizona law). If they want to send a layman to do a surgeon’s job, FINE...but, let them so note, in their case reports, and on their website!!!!!
Dr. Wowk also distorts the truth when he writes that recent criticisms (mine, I assume) call for cardiovascular surgeons, at a price of $351,108 dollars a year. Personally, I think if SA tried hard enough, for Ms. Baldwin’s salary, they COULD convince a retired vascular surgeon to move to Florida and do their few cases a year, but MANY times I’ve also suggested other persons, familiar with vascular cannulations, (such as embalmers, scrub techs, or physician assistants). The average embalmer’s salary, in Florida, is $43,171, as per this site: http://www.cbsalary.com/state-salary-chart.aspx?specialty=Embalmer&cty=&kw=Embalmer&jn=jn013&tid=2523&sid=FL , Does Dr. Wowk think a skilled embalmer wouldn’t love to have Ms. Baldwin’s six-figure salary-and-benefits package, and an easy caseload? Wasn’t it an embalmer, not even employed by any cryonics organization, who had to perform the cannulation, for the Henderson case, because Ms. Baldwin could not do so, even in five hours time???
Dr. Wowk pretending SA and/or Alcor would have to pay $122,000, for a perfusionist is equally absurd, and has already been proven to be untrue. I am a perfusionist, and I worked at SA. My salary was $75,000 a year, and if it would not have been for the unprofessional and unethical activities, it would have been the highest-paying, least-demanding, job I had ever had! (Perfusionists who make the kind of salary Dr. Wowk quotes, work in demanding positions, doing MANY scheduled cases, AND getting called out in the evenings and on the weekends, on a regular basis.)
I could come and go, from the SA facility, as I pleased, and do whatever I wanted, as long as I did not complain about any of the totally absurd projects, (for which one of Dr. Wowk’s peers was earning a whole lot of money!). As Dr. Wowk points out, I never even had to do a case. Who is Dr. Wowk trying to fool??? Many people would love to have a high-paying job, in sunny Florida, with so little to do, and so much freedom!!!
There was no supervision, at SA, for the most part. Some people punched in, and then left the building; some people played on the Internet, all day. If the surf came up, in Delray, some of the employees grabbed their surfboards, and left. When Bary Wilson (SA’s manager, for a short time), complained about not being able to complete projects, because no one was ever there at the same time, (even in the middle of the day), they banded together and got rid of him. It was a total, and absolute joke, and not one meaningful thing was being accomplished. (Bill and Saul seem to be clueless, as to how much they have been taken advantage of.)
Dr. Wowk’s facility might be doing some valid research, but the “research” at SA consisted of things like seeing how many tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of dollars one could spend on “reinventing the wheel.” Want to buy a reasonably-priced, professionally-built cooldown and transport box, from a company that had specialized in cryogenic containers, for many years? Forget it. SA’s answer to something like that was to run out to Home Depot for materials, and engage in endless email discussions, (with Dr. Wowk, and others), in regard to the project.
Dr. Wowk is just making excuses, including those about professionals losing their skills, due to the low frequency of cases. People who have been performing cannulations, or perfusion, for many years, don’t just forget how to do those things. Even if their skills get “rusty,” they would certainly be preferable to laymen, who have only practiced on a few pigs, in the back of SA’s van. It’s insane, and I don’t understand how any reasonable person could defend such activities. It seems dishonest for Dr. Wowk to pretend money is the primary issue, here, when most, (if not all), of the salaries at SA, are significantly more than salaries earned by paramedics, nurses, and other medical professionals.
Finally, Dr. Wowk misses the key point…that being HONESTY. If SA is going to send golf pros, metal fabricators, and other laymen to perform their procedures, THEY SHOULD JUST SAY SO, ON THEIR WEBSITE, AND IN THEIR CASE REPORTS. Not disclosing that information, and writing case reports in a manner intended to deceive the public into believing their cases are being performed by competent medical professionals is DISHONEST. Dr. Wowk wrote, (in another post), that SA’s manager, Catherine Baldwin, did not refer to herself as a “credentialed surgeon.” Does Dr. Wowk think the readers of lesswrong are unintelligent??? I’m sure most intelligent people are able to ascertain that, when someone fills a report with medical jargon and refers to “surgeons” and a “backup surgeon,” their intent is to deceive the reader into believing qualified medical personnel were present. It’s ridiculous for him to maintain that it was acceptable for Ms. Baldwin to refer to herself as a “surgeon,” because she did not place “credentialed” in front of it.
Do what you want, at Alcor and SA, Dr. Wowk, but at least be honest about it!!!
I’m sure most intelligent people are able to ascertain that, when someone fills a report with medical jargon and refers to “surgeons” and a “backup surgeon,” their intent is to deceive the reader into believing qualified medical personnel were present.
The other explanation would be that she was honestly concerned for the image of the company and did not think things through as to whether this would be deceptive or not.
Assume good faith. Why not? Most people are neither particularly malicious nor particularly stupid, but are subject to the same standard cognitive biases that every other human is.
Do what you want, at Alcor and SA, Dr. Wowk, but at least be honest about it!!!
I agree with this sentiment. I wish that you would stick to this line more rather than jumping to demanding regulation and alleging fraud. People need to be honest, not only with others but themselves (which is often harder). If they aren’t, then being legal (credentialed, etc.) won’t help.
You need to be honest about your own limitations, too. Your experience with SA was 6 months long, happened two years ago, and did not include any cryonics cases. Up front disclosure of things like this would make it easier (for myself at least) to accept your arguments as being said with sincerity and self-awareness.
Your quickness to say things like “Dr. Wowk is misrepresenting the situation” strikes me as needlessly antagonistic even assuming its factuality. Compare to Dr. Wowk’s statement “It’s misleading for people to keep saying …” when he could have instead said “It’s misleading the way Melody keeps saying …”. The goal should be to reach agreement, not antagonize the other party. Assume good faith. Excuse-making, rationalization, laziness, self-deception, etc. are normal human behavior and shouldn’t always be derided instantly upon their apparent discovery.
Consider this. You are attacking me based on a misunderstanding of something I said on another forum, on an unrelated topic. I think this is questionable debate ethics at best.
In a nutshell, my position in the argument you reference is that a description is a real entity, and in Robert’s hypothetical example he described something exactly equivalent to an atom at a moment in time. At the level of abstraction he was talking about, the atom was a real atom to the exact same degree and for the exact same reasons that a physical atom (in a given instant of time) is a real atom. Your comment about atoms exploding and undergoing fission because of the paper being torn makes no sense in the context of the argument I was making. The paper is not a part of the framework in which it makes sense to think of the atom existing, nor is the atom undergoing time in the same framework as the paper.
You seem to be claiming that your disinterest in the service is solely motivated by it is not being good enough to justify the investment. But you also say you were offered the possibility of getting the service for free, with a promotion thrown in.
I’m having a hard time being convinced that your rejection of cryonics is motivated solely by a financial cost-benefit analysis.
Luke misses the obvious point, as usual. I am not inclined to endorse, (or allow someone to endorse, on my behalf), the activities of those I consider to be quite incompetent, unprofessional and unethical. These organizations have consistently failed to provide the services they sell, with any degree of skill and finesse. They’ve made a mockery of all that is dear to me, in regard to hypothermic medicine. In my opinion, to provide any sort of funding to them, (whether directly, or indirectly), would constitute participating in fraudulent activities, perpetuating extremely substandard services, and delaying any possible real progress, in the field of cryonics.
In my opinion, to provide any sort of funding to them, (whether directly, or indirectly), would constitute participating in fraudulent activities, perpetuating extremely substandard services, and delaying any possible real progress, in the field of cryonics.
What would be useful to know is whether that was your opinion at the time you made the decision not to accept the services. Also it would be useful to know if you plan to accept the services of an organization that does meet your standards, once it has come into existence (by whatever route—be it regulation, reform, or replacement). If you are simply not planning to sign up at all, that’s fine of course—but it should not be surprising if this does not exactly inspire trust among cryonicists.
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
For those of us who don’t have any experience in this area, approximately how much would hiring “one full-time staff member competent in performing vascular cannulations” cost? How much would hiring “one full-time staff member skilled in perfusion” cost?
Alcor already employs a full-time paramedic with surgical training in large animal models to do vascular cannulations when it is possible to do so in the field. Cannulations at Alcor are typically done by either a contract neurosurgeon or a veterinary surgeon. I’ve written further details about who does surgeries at Alcor, and who has done them historically, here:
http://www.imminst.org/forum/topic/44772-is-cryonics-quackery/page__p__437779#entry437779
It’s misleading for people to keep saying that Alcor sends out “laypeople” to do vascular cannulations.
The standard being applied to Alcor in recent criticisms is not just that people doing the cannulations be competent, or even have a medical credential, but that they should be the same professionals who do vascular cannulations for elective surgeries in tertiary care hospitals, i.e. cardiovascular surgeons. According to this website
http://www.studentdoc.com/cardiovascular-surgery-salary.html
the lowest reported salary for a cardiovascular surgeon is $351108 per year. According to this website
http://www.bestsampleresume.com/salary/perfusionist.html
the average salary of a clinical perfusionist is $122,000 per year. The sum of these two figures is approximately equal to Alcor’s entire staff budget. Notwithstanding, a clinical perfusion credential was listed as a desirable qualification in Alcor’s last clinical cryonics job ad. No perfusionists responded.
Surgeons and perfusionists employed full-time by a cryonics organization might only do a couple of cryonics cases per year, quickly losing their clinical-level skills, and employability outside of cryonics. The perfusionist making all these recent criticisms against cryonics, and insisting that full-time cardiovascular surgeons and perfusionsts be hired (not just contract ones), herself never had the opportunity to work on even one cryonics case during her entire employment at SA four years ago. Cases are that infrequent.
Dr. Wowk is misrepresenting the situation, yet again. It is not misleading to say Alcor has allowed laypersons to have performed vascular cannulations. Not only have they done so, but they have falsely referred to such people as “surgeons,” and even “Chief Surgeon,” in their public reports, (something that is a violation of Arizona law). If they want to send a layman to do a surgeon’s job, FINE...but, let them so note, in their case reports, and on their website!!!!!
Dr. Wowk also distorts the truth when he writes that recent criticisms (mine, I assume) call for cardiovascular surgeons, at a price of $351,108 dollars a year. Personally, I think if SA tried hard enough, for Ms. Baldwin’s salary, they COULD convince a retired vascular surgeon to move to Florida and do their few cases a year, but MANY times I’ve also suggested other persons, familiar with vascular cannulations, (such as embalmers, scrub techs, or physician assistants). The average embalmer’s salary, in Florida, is $43,171, as per this site: http://www.cbsalary.com/state-salary-chart.aspx?specialty=Embalmer&cty=&kw=Embalmer&jn=jn013&tid=2523&sid=FL , Does Dr. Wowk think a skilled embalmer wouldn’t love to have Ms. Baldwin’s six-figure salary-and-benefits package, and an easy caseload? Wasn’t it an embalmer, not even employed by any cryonics organization, who had to perform the cannulation, for the Henderson case, because Ms. Baldwin could not do so, even in five hours time???
Dr. Wowk pretending SA and/or Alcor would have to pay $122,000, for a perfusionist is equally absurd, and has already been proven to be untrue. I am a perfusionist, and I worked at SA. My salary was $75,000 a year, and if it would not have been for the unprofessional and unethical activities, it would have been the highest-paying, least-demanding, job I had ever had! (Perfusionists who make the kind of salary Dr. Wowk quotes, work in demanding positions, doing MANY scheduled cases, AND getting called out in the evenings and on the weekends, on a regular basis.)
I could come and go, from the SA facility, as I pleased, and do whatever I wanted, as long as I did not complain about any of the totally absurd projects, (for which one of Dr. Wowk’s peers was earning a whole lot of money!). As Dr. Wowk points out, I never even had to do a case. Who is Dr. Wowk trying to fool??? Many people would love to have a high-paying job, in sunny Florida, with so little to do, and so much freedom!!!
There was no supervision, at SA, for the most part. Some people punched in, and then left the building; some people played on the Internet, all day. If the surf came up, in Delray, some of the employees grabbed their surfboards, and left. When Bary Wilson (SA’s manager, for a short time), complained about not being able to complete projects, because no one was ever there at the same time, (even in the middle of the day), they banded together and got rid of him. It was a total, and absolute joke, and not one meaningful thing was being accomplished. (Bill and Saul seem to be clueless, as to how much they have been taken advantage of.)
Dr. Wowk’s facility might be doing some valid research, but the “research” at SA consisted of things like seeing how many tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of dollars one could spend on “reinventing the wheel.” Want to buy a reasonably-priced, professionally-built cooldown and transport box, from a company that had specialized in cryogenic containers, for many years? Forget it. SA’s answer to something like that was to run out to Home Depot for materials, and engage in endless email discussions, (with Dr. Wowk, and others), in regard to the project.
Dr. Wowk is just making excuses, including those about professionals losing their skills, due to the low frequency of cases. People who have been performing cannulations, or perfusion, for many years, don’t just forget how to do those things. Even if their skills get “rusty,” they would certainly be preferable to laymen, who have only practiced on a few pigs, in the back of SA’s van. It’s insane, and I don’t understand how any reasonable person could defend such activities. It seems dishonest for Dr. Wowk to pretend money is the primary issue, here, when most, (if not all), of the salaries at SA, are significantly more than salaries earned by paramedics, nurses, and other medical professionals.
Finally, Dr. Wowk misses the key point…that being HONESTY. If SA is going to send golf pros, metal fabricators, and other laymen to perform their procedures, THEY SHOULD JUST SAY SO, ON THEIR WEBSITE, AND IN THEIR CASE REPORTS. Not disclosing that information, and writing case reports in a manner intended to deceive the public into believing their cases are being performed by competent medical professionals is DISHONEST. Dr. Wowk wrote, (in another post), that SA’s manager, Catherine Baldwin, did not refer to herself as a “credentialed surgeon.” Does Dr. Wowk think the readers of lesswrong are unintelligent??? I’m sure most intelligent people are able to ascertain that, when someone fills a report with medical jargon and refers to “surgeons” and a “backup surgeon,” their intent is to deceive the reader into believing qualified medical personnel were present. It’s ridiculous for him to maintain that it was acceptable for Ms. Baldwin to refer to herself as a “surgeon,” because she did not place “credentialed” in front of it.
Do what you want, at Alcor and SA, Dr. Wowk, but at least be honest about it!!!
The other explanation would be that she was honestly concerned for the image of the company and did not think things through as to whether this would be deceptive or not.
Assume good faith. Why not? Most people are neither particularly malicious nor particularly stupid, but are subject to the same standard cognitive biases that every other human is.
I agree with this sentiment. I wish that you would stick to this line more rather than jumping to demanding regulation and alleging fraud. People need to be honest, not only with others but themselves (which is often harder). If they aren’t, then being legal (credentialed, etc.) won’t help.
You need to be honest about your own limitations, too. Your experience with SA was 6 months long, happened two years ago, and did not include any cryonics cases. Up front disclosure of things like this would make it easier (for myself at least) to accept your arguments as being said with sincerity and self-awareness.
Your quickness to say things like “Dr. Wowk is misrepresenting the situation” strikes me as needlessly antagonistic even assuming its factuality. Compare to Dr. Wowk’s statement “It’s misleading for people to keep saying …” when he could have instead said “It’s misleading the way Melody keeps saying …”. The goal should be to reach agreement, not antagonize the other party. Assume good faith. Excuse-making, rationalization, laziness, self-deception, etc. are normal human behavior and shouldn’t always be derided instantly upon their apparent discovery.
(Edited in response to downvotes.)
Consider this. You are attacking me based on a misunderstanding of something I said on another forum, on an unrelated topic. I think this is questionable debate ethics at best.
In a nutshell, my position in the argument you reference is that a description is a real entity, and in Robert’s hypothetical example he described something exactly equivalent to an atom at a moment in time. At the level of abstraction he was talking about, the atom was a real atom to the exact same degree and for the exact same reasons that a physical atom (in a given instant of time) is a real atom. Your comment about atoms exploding and undergoing fission because of the paper being torn makes no sense in the context of the argument I was making. The paper is not a part of the framework in which it makes sense to think of the atom existing, nor is the atom undergoing time in the same framework as the paper.
You seem to be claiming that your disinterest in the service is solely motivated by it is not being good enough to justify the investment. But you also say you were offered the possibility of getting the service for free, with a promotion thrown in.
I’m having a hard time being convinced that your rejection of cryonics is motivated solely by a financial cost-benefit analysis.
Luke misses the obvious point, as usual. I am not inclined to endorse, (or allow someone to endorse, on my behalf), the activities of those I consider to be quite incompetent, unprofessional and unethical. These organizations have consistently failed to provide the services they sell, with any degree of skill and finesse. They’ve made a mockery of all that is dear to me, in regard to hypothermic medicine. In my opinion, to provide any sort of funding to them, (whether directly, or indirectly), would constitute participating in fraudulent activities, perpetuating extremely substandard services, and delaying any possible real progress, in the field of cryonics.
I want to Welcome you to LessWrong, and say that I hope you will stick around beyond this argument.
What would be useful to know is whether that was your opinion at the time you made the decision not to accept the services. Also it would be useful to know if you plan to accept the services of an organization that does meet your standards, once it has come into existence (by whatever route—be it regulation, reform, or replacement). If you are simply not planning to sign up at all, that’s fine of course—but it should not be surprising if this does not exactly inspire trust among cryonicists.