X-Message-Number: 1448
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 92 12:07:34 EST
From:  (Perry E. Metzger)
Subject: CRYONICS: How to not self destruct

Dave Pizer mentions in the last issue of Cryonet that we are facing
certain internal political problems, and that those problems
constitute one of Alcor's most pressing crises.

I would tend to agree.

Now, I've only been watching this whole dispute from afar, and I have
no intention of publicly taking any sides now. I frankly have no
interest in becoming personally involved. However, I do have a few
suggestions on the structure of the current dispute that might be of
help. First, a long bit about email, and then a somewhat cryptic
comment on why we don't want to conduct politics the way we have been
doing it.


EMAIL:

First, on the subject of e-mail. Most Alcor board people are fairly new
to the wonderful world of e-Mail, having participated in their first
flame wars only months or at most a couple of years ago. I've been
using e-mail as a primary means of communication for over the past
decade. I've gained quite a lot of experience with the media, and I'd
like to offer a few words of advice. Pardon me for positioning myself
as a self declared expert -- I'm happy to justify any of my statements
later, but for the moment I'm just going to state "Metzger's Rules of
Netiquette".

First, arguments in e-mail tend to be blown out of all proportion,
thus the special word "flame" coined by hackers to describe what sort
of discussions happen in this context. In person, human beings have
instinctive reactions that prevent most of us from saying things that
will egregiously and permanently destroy our communication channels.
In e-mail, with the capacity to produce very long messages, with
communication being conducted in the complete absense of real time
feedback, without facial expressions or any other emotional cues, it
becomes extremely easy to demonize your opponent and race into battle
with guns blazing. People who in person would never resort to insult
or ad hominem attack will say things in e-mail that would make Lenny
Bruce blush. ALL parties to the current dispute seem to lack the most
important skill in e-mail communications, superhuman restraint. In all
communications, people should avoid ad hominem attack, insult,
misdirection, inflamitory language, and the like, but in e-mail this
requirement rises from a "should" to an "absolutely must".

Here are a few important rules.

1) When writing email to others in public fora, one *must NEVER*
address the person of your opponent. Never say "Joe Blow is a fool",
"Joe Blow is a menace to society", etc. Address your opponents IDEAS
ONLY. In other words, "Joe Blow says that Alcor should switch to using
liquid gazonkium to store patients. This idea was explored in a paper
I wrote in 1968, in which the experimental evidence indicated that
using liquid gazonkium would lead to too much risk of explosion."
Similarly, one must never engage in ad-hominem attack.  Saying "Al
Smith is always wrong", or "Al Smith is engaging in his typical
pattern of verbosity without content" does not add to a discussion. We
are discussing ideas -- the person suggesting those ideas is
unimportant to whether the ideas themselves have merit.

2) Never ever use insults, even mild ones. Eliminate the words
"stupid", "foolish", "misguided", "idiotic" or any similar phrase from
your vocabulary when using the net. Its fine to say "the idea of using
liquid gazonkium to store patients would have adverse consequences
because of the explosion risk", but not "Its stupid to use liquid
gazonkium to store patients". Focus on FACTS. Indeed, if you have
trouble with this you might want to try to eliminate all the instances
of the verb "to be" from your messages. Writing this way tends to
focus you on what you are trying to say instead of assigning qualities
to statements. Without "is", you cant say "is stupid", you can only
describe the problems with the idea.

3) Be non-inflamitory. Instead of saying "Using liquid gazonkium to
store patients would destroy Alcor", say something like "In my
opinion, the explosion risk associated with using liquid gazonkium to
store patients poses too great a threat for Alcor to use the
technique."

4) If you are angry, don't post. If necessary, write your highly
inflamitory letter and store it for 24 hours without sending it. Then
re-read it and ask yourself if what you said is really appropriate.

5) Don't feel obligated to answer everything. Suffer fools when
suffering them poses no risk.

6) When all else fails, use the phone. You'd be suprised how many
disputes fizzle into nothingness when you actually talk with the other
human being involved instead of launching e-mail missles at each
other.

POLITICS ON THE NET:

The other thing I'd like to note is that political disputes are
generally carried out behind closed doors for a good reason. Washing
laundry in public carries a big price with it -- once you have
denounced and villified John Smith for being a threat to all mankind
in front of an audiance, its very hard for anyone to ever back down
from their positions. You are stuck in place forever. On the other
hand, if people's personal animosity is kept to themselves, even
"enemies" can manage to work together when it is expedient to both.
There is a REASON that people who are successful in highly charged
political environments are slimy two faced individuals who speak out
of both sides of their mouths -- thats what it takes to succeed in
such an environment. The current Alcor dispute is producing
evolutionary pressure towards the creation of just such individuals in
the Alcor heirarchy. The longer our key leaders fail to display good
human relations skills and behave with maturity, the more likely it is
that we will truly fall into a pit of sludge as we produce selective
pressure that favors individuals who can survive in such an
environment. Its better to suffer other people's foolishness and the
like when nothing is gained by attacking them than to produce a
situation where all that you have accused your enemies of comes true
as a result of your own actions.

Perry

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