X-Message-Number: 15347
From: 
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 13:36:18 EST
Subject: Auf wiedersehen, noch einmal

Platt's # 15336 announces (again, again, again) that he is leaving Cryonet. 
Pearls before swine and all that. We'll see how long the latest promise holds 
up.

He also quotes my remark that Fahy's interest in cryonics dates from his 
teen-age years, and that "We raised him from a pup, in a manner of speaking."

Presumptous? Fahy came to cryonics either directly through THE PROSPECT OF 
IMMORTALITYor else through Saul Kent, who came through PROSPECT, as he has 
frequently acknowledged; and no doubt with contributions by Curtis Henderson. 
Fahy went into cryobiology because of his interest in cryonics. The record is 
clear. I can post plenty of old publications to this effect.

Platt's entire message is merely his assessment of my character and motives, 
so there is nothing factual for me to refute. I'll refrain from assessing his 
character. To the new or casual reader I can only say, yes, there are some 
strange and sometimes combative people in cryonics, but that is true almost 
everywhere, and they tend to be noisier than the others. Read the CI web site 
and our links to the sites of the other organizations, come to CI meetings 
(or those of ACS or Alcor). I believe you will find mainly good sense and 
good people.

I do want to say another word about a couple of Platt's previous messages.

In his # 15311 he "explains" why he never responded to Wakfer's comments 
about Alcor's "vitrification" claims, which were similar to mine. One of his 
"reasons" was that "he [Wakfer] lives in Canada, and I haven't communicated 
with him directly in months."

Oh, well, that explains it. It isn't necessary to address Wakfer's comments 
because Wakfer lives in Canada, and because there hasn't been any recent 
personal correspondence. 

And he says, "So, I don't see the relevance of the Wakfer post." Let me 
explain the relevance again. My original and main posts of the recent 
sequence were intended to show that Alcor's recent claims about its current 
"vitrification" procedure are overblown. Platt's responses were mainly to 
attempt to discredit my motives, not to examine evidence. So I posted 
quotations from a Wakfer post, to show that others, possibly lacking my 
supposed disqualifications, have similar reservations. 

Platt doesn't have to respond to Wakfer by name. All he has to do--if he 
wants any credibility--is to respond to the actual statements. He continues 
to refuse to do that. Draw your own conclusions.

One more thing. In Platt's # 15330, a feeble attempt at satire, he mentions 
"Dr. Idiovitch." There are probably some readers who didn't catch the 
allusion. I'll get back to that at some future time.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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