If you're the type who likes to inspect the mechanisms behind the sausage, you should take a look at an article on Alcor's board over at Depressed Metabolism:

In January 2008, Alcor’s self perpetuating Board came under renewed scrutiny after long-time Alcor member and cryonics activist David Pizer tried to raise interest for changing the current system to a member elected Board.

Scrutiny of the board is a fine tradition for stakeholders in for-profit and non-profit initiatives, as is stakeholder activism to produce desired change. The concern voiced in the article is that born of the perceived need for change at Alcor - to better produce growth, increased professionalism, and so forth - and the concern that a self-perpetuating board has little incentive to make the changes that the writer would like to see happen.

Member-voted boards have their own issues, of course, not least that a member (as opposed to stakeholder) has no meaningful ownership right connected to their vote - but the pendulum swings as it chooses.

This is all, I think, I fairly good illustration of the transitionary period from volunteerism to professionalism one sees in any growing industry. The cryonics industry has been going through this phase for a long time, and remaining very small in size, for reasons that are much debated. Is it the fault of the business model, incredulous public perception, heavy regulation, a comparatively undiversified technology base, or the laundry list of other potential factors? Can be solved by changing the way people pay, by changes in regulatory structures, or by increased investment in research and building spin-off technology businesses? And so forth. These are all questions that have been debated at length over the years.

What I think is most telling with regard to where the cryonics industry is at present is that you don't see a lot of discussion focused on change through competition. The traditional solution to undesirable characteristics within an industry is for entrepreneurs to set forth and compete, as "undesirable" usually means "customers will pay for something less undesirable." If you want change, then help to found a new company and do things the "right" way. Ongoing for-profit experiments in any number of different "right" ways are how progress is achieved and benefit brought to customers in the long term.

There needs to be more of that in the cryonics industry if the goal is directed change. The best way to make a board change their stripes is to look like you're going to eat their lunch out from under them; by doing that, you will also have gone a long way towards proving that your "right" way is in fact the right way for progress.

Posted by Reason at July 23, 2008 11:50 AM | TrackBack (0)