I agree they could do far better. I think they are doing the best they think they can do. I think the entire field got poisoned by defining itself in some kind of struggle in the 60s/70s against anti-cryo people, which is stupid.
IVF, organ banking, etc. are progressing nicely. The Russians are doing a great job on human cryo. My hope is that the Alcor preservations are still good enough today that recovery is possible, although it's likely a better preservation technique, causing less damage, might lead to a recoverable person at an earlier date (i.e. Alcor 2016 person is recoverable in 2100; RU-Cryo person cryopreserved with better technology and technique in 2020 is recoverable in 2070.)
I still think Alcor is better odds than box in the ground or being incinerated. For ~$1k/yr (membership + insurance), it's worth it to me, even if only to fund/etc. research.
The article is really bad, full of ad-hominem against Alcor and cryonics and no actual argumentation. But you posted it to argue against Alcor's competence, and it does list a case where that was true.
Anyways, I don't recommend clicking, but here's the part where Alcor's competence is put into questoin.
>Within minutes of taking custody of the body, the bumbling Alcor team began experiencing a series of equipment failures. A temperature monitor didn’t work because, as it turned out, the batteries were dead. Shortly thereafter, their expensive mechanical chest-compression device stopped functioning. Then, having moved Suozzi’s body into a tub of ice, the Alcor team realized they’d forgotten to bring along a key piece of cooling equipment. Alcor’s after-action report, compiled from the haphazard “free-form” observations of an unnamed but “experienced” observer, determined that such mistakes could in the future be remedied by “the use of a checklist.”
> “Unfortunately,” the Cryonics report notes, “there was some confusion and disagreement regarding the ideal temperature at which to perform surgery.”
