X-Message-Number: 16332
Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 02:01:37 -0400
Subject: Platt Falls Flat / Gene Gets Mean / UK's Stray
From:
I recently read an article on Time Travel that made me think of Cryonet.
Haven t you too, Reader, ever felt that shiver of d j vu when
experiencing the following scene: brilliant misunderstood
genius-cryonicist X, revolted by the stupidity of all around him, decides
to turn his back on cryonics and Cryonet forever, but nonetheless feels
compelled to detail his revulsion by yowling an aria that scorches the
earth for fifty miles around. Flames and acrimony erupt. Grown men
weep, women tremble. Death's bony finger is pointed at every hapless
boob who signs up with a cryonics provider, particularly if it's with
Satan's offspring, the Cryonics Institute. Then -- two weeks go by, and
everybody s back chatting about self and identity, and two weeks after
that the self-exiled prophet returns to flay the sinners and threaten us
all with the Wrath To Come yet again. It seems to come in cycles, like
miniskirts or the Spring.
One such expatriate is back, and another one is about to ship off. Mr.
Charles Platt, refreshed and chipper from his sabbatical, wrote (and
wrote and wrote): "I see little chance of Alcor UK remaining intact, and
I would expect the dozen "defectors" to go to CI as originally planned.
This is unfortunate since in my personal opinion it represents a
potential loss of life of twelve people." Before that, it was, "I doubt
that many CI patients have much chance of resuscitation." Prior to that
one, he spoke of converts to CI and graced us with, "Personally I feel
that they might just as well join the Seventh Day Adventists." And
before that -- well, you get the idea.
One prefers to let these things go. After all, boys will be boys. And
one can be reasonably sure that a fellow who provides zero proof for his
opinions will convert zero readers to them. It's true that, as one of
the great figures of contemporary PR (Adolf something-or-other) said, if
you repeat a lie often enough and people will take it for truth. But
Charles' fingers, typing the same charge over and over and over (is it
in its sixth year now or its seventh?) don't seem to having that effect,
do they? In any case they got a reprieve. Mr. Eugene Leitl, preparing
to depart, took up the cat-o-nine-tails in his place -- alas, to lesser
effect. Charles gives no proof for his assertions, but at least he
doesn't contradict himself. But what can one say of Eugene?
"...criminally negligent service providers continue to exist (this means
you, Robert Ettinger/CI) and to operate, severely damaging and
potentially killing patients in their care," sputters Mr. Leitl, adding,
"Having this said, I strongly discourage litigation against CI, since if
successful, it will endanger the patients under their care, which might
or might not be still salvageable."
In other words, CI is violating laws which do not exist by killing people
who are not alive, and it ought to be sued, although it shouldn't,
because its patients have no chance, though maybe they do.
Isn't logic a beautiful thing? Grammar too: responding to a post from
, Eugene wrote: Your rhetorics is not too
bad They isn t, is they? Let us take a sampling of Mr. Leitl s own:
Mr. Robert Ettinger & Co Cryonics Institute! Applause, applause! A
round of applause for our favourite witch doctor! Ach, cut out the
crap... You involuntary humor and weak attempts at spin-doctoring I'm
getting out of here I wrote that stupid last message, and, stupidly, I'm
writing this second stupid message Rustic antics like these the
spiders have been in here for a great long while The game is not even
zero sum, it's negative sum. The only way to win such a game is not to
play The basic argumentation style of distorting the facts, and keep
distorting the facts a mountain of irrelevant crap a shit throwing
contest disgust I should do a death match of Eliza vs. Ettinger, but
I'm not sure who's going to win both of them do fail the Turing test
suing the pants off CI their snake oil operation you call your friendly
witch doctor, and ask him to chant, and wave the chicken over her supine
body I'm also thankful, that God did not supply me a brain from the same
batch as yours CI for a few coins they'll wave the dead chicken we
could try a permafrost burial. Or a peat bog burial I don't know
Ettinger & Co from Adam at least CI would show a trend towards cleaning
up their act in near future. No such luck A crime only against his
patients Whether the screwup was deliberate or done in good conscience
litigation in his future screwed up patients reduced to total
vegetable a 85% plastic person, false memories, shunned by my relatives
cryonics malpractise Ettinger would have long ago gone in jail, and his
shop closed down for good pretty damn quick we're on crack, or deluded,
or both no peer review standard CryoNet-issue pointless rhetoric and
pathetic mudslinging killing his patients by dire malpractice No, I
haven't gotten any strong feelings at all Gestatten, mein Name ist Dr.
Mengele. Wir do real medicine hier the dirt, the steamy, cracked glass,
in the stink of fresh organic fertilizer Fuck percentages If you're
screwed up, you're screwed up all the way Let's close down shop, thaw
the patients, burn down the shop, shoot us into the head, it's all done.
Final curtain you're kinda messed up in the head Oh, sure, I shot
Kennedy, and tortured his cat, too.
Ah, the gentle tones of reason. I do kind of thank Mr. Leitl for writing
these things. I think it demonstrates that the person capable of
producing such a stream is not really the best person to make an
objective assessment of his subject. Read a speech by Goebbels and you
realize that perhaps his coming guide book to Israel may be just a touch
slanted. What is rather sadder is that it is so self-destructively
unpersuasive. I take it Mr. Leitl feels CI protocols could be
demonstrably improved. I d certainly like to see that especially the
demonstrable part. Say, Mr. Leitl: why not email us? CI's got a
suggestion box. CI s got a program currently in place and operating to
review our entire procedure, top to bottom. Spell your suggestion out,
and if it's a reasonable one (that 'thaw the patients, burn down the
shop' above seems a tad radical), we ll put your suggestion in the queue
if it s not there already, as I suspect it is. Sadly, if you want CI
to apply your every inspiration instantly to patients purely on your
say-so, without any tests whatsoever, I m sorry. CI likes to have things
verified; invective only verifies a demonstrable lack of objectivity.
I think perhaps the worst thing in such posts is not that they are rude
or vicious who does that hurt, after all, except the person making a
spectacle of himself? but that they're ineffective -- destructive even
of their own intentions. Apparently Mr. Leitl wants CI to make
worthwhile changes that come at little or zero cost. That seems a
reasonable thing to suggest. How does he go about it? By calling Robert
Ettinger a witch doctor, comparing him to Mengele, suggesting he should
be put in jail, by describing CI protocols as a waving of dead chickens,
etc. He even uses the F word. Tsk tsk! We are all amused by this
colorful use of language, needless to say, but I have to ask the
question: does it work? Is it really likely that, reading this, the
scales will fall from Robert Ettinger s eyes and he will cry out, born
again, Away with this poultry! I think not. It's kind of like
screeching at your tot to eat his broccoli. If there is a better way to
make a kid dig in his heels and never do so, I haven't seen it. But if
such tactics don t work, why do it? Because dumping on people is fun?
Surely there are better ways to have fun. And to improve the cryonics
movement.
This sad stuff runs repeatedly, and CI lets it go because we assume that
Cryonet readers are adults, and we assume that when adults see critics
offer no proofs apart from personal opinion laced occasionally with
obscenity, those adults will take such self-displays for what they are.
Embarassing. It's as though someone were to post on Cryonet, day after
day after day, that 'in my opinion' Charles is 'perhaps' a child
molester, bank robber, Commie, warlock, pederast, etc., and that Eugene
really did shoot Kennedy and torture his cat 'though they might still be
salvageable'. What do you do to refute an accusation like that? Post
JFK's cat to Cryonet? Mud-throwing has its attractions, at least to
Kindergarteners, but is simply isn't reasoned debate.
Case in point. Charles. Charles, like Eugene, goes around saying that
CI patients (don t ACS or Alcor have any patients?) have no chance of
revival whatsoever -- grudgingly conceding now and then that hey,maybe
they do. Charles of course does not have proof, or indeed any idea of
what the chances of revival of anyone currently in cryostasis are. We've
gone from paper airplanes to Mars Probes in 100 years, and physicists say
the universe will be around another eighty billion. I think we can
reasonably expect one or two medical advances in that time, despite
Charles' mystic glimpses to the contrary on his Ouija Board. Call me
optimistic, I think curing frostbite may be one of them. Charles
disagrees. Fine. But he is not a doctor, neurologist, biologist, nor
cryobiologist. Folks who are -- well, hey: such folks are paid-up
members of the Cryonics Institute, aren't they? Golly! What does sci-fi
novelist Charles Platt know that the academic, medical, and scientific
lot who have studied the data and picked CI do not? Well, he knows how
to construct a portentously dramatic sentence equating CI with the Grim
Reaper, in hopes that people will be sufficiently struck by it to miss
the lack of evidence with which he fails to support his thesis.
Such comments really have no value (apart from the silly ones of gaining
attention and sparking inane and counterproductive conflict on Cryonet).
People who want to know what scientists think the prospects of recovering
current patients are should read their opinions (and those of doctors,
academics, researchers, etc.) at http://nanomedicine.com,
http://www.merkle.com, http://www.foresight.org/EOC/EOC_Chapter_9.html,
or several dozen other links -- pro and con -- at (best of all) The
Mother Of All Cryonics Information Sites, http://www.cryonics.org.
On this subject, Ralph Merkle (PhD)'s 1994 comment at
http://www.merkle.com/merkleDir/techFeas.html remains apropos:
"Criticisms of cryonics are not supported by the extant literature.
Interestingly (and somewhat to the author's surprise) there are no
published technical articles on cryonics that claim it won't work." This
is not startling: in "Brain Repair" by Stein, Brailowsky, and Will, we're
told that there has been more progress in neuroscience in the last ten
years than in the ten thousand before that. Perhaps the next thousand
years of progress in 2002 will turn up a pleasant surprise. Whether it
does or not, the fact remains that no one is thoroughly up on even the
current developments, and no comments on the limits of those developments
in the decades (centuries?) to come can be anything but flimsy. The case
for cryonics (and its current patients) may thus be put in a nutshell:
some scientists definitely say current patients can make it; no
scientists can definitely say they can't; and non-scientists say whatever
they want. The fact remains that there is a case to be made for the one
side, and no case to be made for the other. So why not bet on possible
life indeed I would say probable life -- instead of certain death?
Now I do not want to write a technical ream about procedures; partly
because I have before, in lengthy and picayune detail, during the last
rumble; partly because such discussions immediately decay into arcane
technical jargon that 0.001% of readers understand, and that that 0.001%
disagree about; and partly because CI procedures are in the process of
change. In Charles' last strafing run on this list, he blithely informed
us that all CI patients were dead meat since CI ramped in one-pass rather
than stepped. Surprise! CI ramps stepped rather than one-pass. Have
they then, as Jerry Falwell says, a share in the Resurrection? No way!
CI folk still remain fodder for the Reaper, with no more hope than if
they were to adopt Charles & Eugene's own cutting-edge preferred provider
of choice: Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Conqueror Worm'. Indeed Mr. Leitl is
apparently preparing to disgorge himself of a full essay demonstrating
that CI will only change as the result of a miracle. Well, kissing your
rosary worked, Eugene: the last batch of tests provided just such a
phenomenon, and the current batch may well do the same.
But does it stem the *relentless* tide of abuse? Heck no. Proof,
evidence, logical consistency -- that's not the point. The point is to
scare people, to cut a dramatic figure, to stand above the really
impressed trembling gasping masses, one's eyes bulging as one hollers
"J'Accuse!" It has nothing to do with the actual business of testing and
improving procedures. You don't do that by gibbering away on Cryonet:
you do that by raising money and running tests and checking the results,
as 21CM is doing, as (CI man) Ben Best and (CI research-director-to-be)
Yuri Pichugin are doing at INC, and as CI itself is doing at its Michigan
headquarters and elsewhere.
You see, CI has gotten it into its noggin that the way to find out which
procedures work best is to do them and send them out, blind, to
mainstream researchers who don't have a vested interest in saying 'this
is better than that'. With that sort of objective third-party
evaluation, one begins to get somewhere. This process has already
produced what Mr. Leitl dismisses beforehand as a miracle -- changes in
CI protocols. It *simply can't happen*, he assures us, breathlessly! It
has; it'll probably happen some more, as the latest batch of test results
come in. CI has also gotten Dr. Yuri Pichugin, of INC and the HCSP, to
head up its Research Department. I would be surprised if this did not
result in procedural changes too. Vitrification? Yep, we're lookin'
into that too, folks. Suffice it to say that when you have independent
tests on your procedures run by PhD's at major universities, and when a
certified degree-bearing professional cryobiologist trained at the
largest cryobiological institute in the world is head of your research
department -- and when you are the *only* cryonics organization that has
these qualifications -- well, then, I'd say it is a big leap to fairly
equate the results with the Seventh Day Adventists. But then the key
word is 'fairly'.
No. One can't guarantee revival. The economy, like Charles' arguments,
may collapse. The sun, like Eugene, may go nova. Nothing is certain in
this world except bad manners on Cryonet. Nonetheless I would like to
say for the record that, being perhaps a bit more intimate with CI
protocols and procedures than some of its critics, who apparently get
their picture from personal fantasy plus fingering through ancient rants
on Cryonet, I think that CI patients will in fact make it, and (in *my*
personal opinion) people have a somewhat better chance of doing so with
CI than with any other organization, for a variety of reasons, not all of
them esoterically cryomedical. I do not say that other organizations'
people are unrecoverable, for I have no proof that that is the case, and
many reasons to believe that it is not: I think Alcor patients will make
it too, and ACS patients, and Kyros patients-to-be. And I positively
rejoice that, thanks to CI, Europeans and people outside the US who want
cryonics will have a chance to do so also. I think the Alcor UK members
over whose biers Charles is already weeping will in fact make it now
that there s someone available. I can't prove it yet, alas, any more
than Charles can prove the contrary: all I can do is point people to the
links above where the case can be made, and ask them to read, not my
offhand remarks nor Charles', but the opinions of those in a better
position to know.
And I *passionately* urge anyone, after reading, to *join* someone - if
not CI, fine, then ACS, Alcor, Kyros, whichever. Cryonics will not be
built by people doing nothing, or by bile, or insults, or cursing on
Cryonet, but by the tough business of raising money, contributing time,
and actively working for your organization, by people who stand up and
commit. People who do nothing but talk, do nothing, period. Yeah, they
may get the benefits one day, but it's the Merkles and Drexlers, the Saul
Kents and Ben Bests -- and the envelope-stuffers and webmasters and
people who make and raise donations -- who will get us there.
Regarding Alcor and Alcor UK:
Yes, a number of Alcor UK people have left Alcor and joined CI.
Why? Here I too can only give my personal opinion. I'm not a spokesman
for CI, I don't ordain policy, I'm not offering the Party Line, which in
any case does not exist. But in my -- private -- opinion I think that on
Alcor's part it is not bungling but rather an unexpectedly mature
recognition of the boundaries inherent in their current approach.
You see, it is not opinion, but fact, that as procedures grow in
technical and practical complexity, they generally become harder and
harder to execute properly. This is simple common sense. As they become
more expensive, they also become less affordable. (Nor does an increase
in complexity automatically translate into better care: if you have a
headache, an aspirin may cure it; neurosurgery may cure it too, but it
may also kill you or turn you into a vegetable. But that's another
posting.) Alcor is very into vitrification these days, and vitrification
requires extemely rapid cooling. I suspect that Alcor feels that it is
simply too tough to apply its new procedures properly on a long-distance
basis. And of course they're right. Hell, I can t even go downtown
without spending two hours in snarled-up traffic. How s a traveling team
going to reach someone hit by a truck in Senegal or Hokkaido?
One could say, cynically: why not apply them badly then? Better
something than nothing. The ill-treated patient pays as much as the
well-treated one, right?
Yes, but it doesn't look good. I think that Linda Chamberlain once made
a statement on Cryonet to the effect that she wanted Alcor to be the Mayo
Clinic, not a Fire Department. A laudable goal, actually. And a good
metaphor too: since the Fire Department actually saves lives. (More
lives, in practice, than the Mayo clinic, come to think of it. Hmm.)
Anyway, the fact remains, treating faraway patients is tough, and a
string of ill-treated patients -- well, it just doesn't look 'Mayo', and
it scares away future prospects. If the last four or five patients are
dead for days before vitrification and its jiffy-freeze criteria are
performed, potential members may look at the odds and wonder if the --
eighth of a million? quarter of a million? -- they're spending is worth
it. Conversely, if the last four or five patients are in Phoenix when
they die and are therefore reached quickly, the score-card looks good.
There is nothing inherently wrong about such a decision: a good
score-card *is* good, and not to offer something one doesn't expect to be
able to provide is an honorable position; though I think the cryonics
community -- and Alcor itself -- would be better served by a plain
statement saying so. It is not even an inhumane one, provided there are
other providers - such as CI - willing and able to take up the slack.
It seems to me that the people at Alcor UK felt a growing awareness of
Alcor's consensus on this point, and (not less) a growing awareness of
CI's comparative benefits combined with its recent development. Charles'
posts tend to focus on insurance and personality problems exclusively,
but I think the critical passage came in Alcor's original announcement of
their new Europe policy in Cryonet #14860, to the effect that regardless
of the insurance arrangements, "applicants must sign a "special
disclainer" (sic) that "establishes an understanding of, but not limited
to, the following: (1) Alcor will be substantially limited it its ability
to deliver equal service levels outside the US "
How substantially limited is "substantially limited"? I don't know. But
substantially limited service is not something I'd like to bet $120,000+
(and my life) on.
Having said that -- peace, everyone, peace! I come to praise Alcor, not
to bury it. A certain clarification may be arising out of all this, and
harmony with it. It's customary for incendiaries on this list to portray
Alcor and CI as two mighty stags, horns locked in eternal conflict.
True, Alcor has a rather silly policy in which CI is never mentioned, but
in practice, things are different. A recent CI patient, for instance,
went successfully into cryostasis because Alcor was good enough to direct
him to CI; equally, Alcor's last suspension went well in part thanks to
Robert Ettinger's recommendation of a cooperative hospice, for which
Linda Chamberlain publicly and graciously thanked him on this forum. In
a crunch, Alcor and CI can -- and have -- put aside competitiveness to
support one another.
I think the problem between CI and Alcor is a lack of clarity on the
nature of market segmentation. Alcor, I would guess, wants members who
are financially well off (for funding), and in a circumscribed geographic
area (for easier and better delivery of service). CI wants to make
cryopreservation available to as many people as possible. This is not a
competitive scenario: it is one in which different services address
different markets. If Alcor is not interested in last-minute cases or
Europeans or whole-body patients or those unwilling or unable to pay
$120,000+ for a suspension, fine: CI is. If Alcor wishes to target its
promotion to a particular financial bracket or geographical group, fine
too: it'll gain better results and more for its money and efforts that
way. All it has to lose to make that gain is the absurd notion that
cryonics is a zero-sum game: that if CI gets a member, Alcor loses one,
and vice versa. Nonsense. That's just not so. Look at the numbers: CI
has had the fastest growth of any cryonics organization ever these past
few years. Did Alcor suffer a proportional loss? On the contrary:
Alcor's experienced a steady rise in members as well. Both organizations
grew: the growth of one did not push down the other. I would argue that
this is not a coincidence. The growth of each helped the other grow too.
Take an example. As we all know (what? You don't? Go to
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/WorldNewsTonight/wnt010208_cryonics_fe
ature.html at once, you uninformed sluggard), ABC World News recently did
a very positive evaluation of CI on its Evening News Report. This did CI
good. But it did Alcor no injury. The article, still online, links to
our site, which links to Alcor's. Thus, part of the attention CI got
went to Alcor too. Readers exposed to us were exposed to them. A
natural circulation of information arises from growth, and exposure to
both organizations naturally inclines those who lean toward Alcor to go
to Alcor and those who lean toward CI to go to CI. People unhappy with
one group go to the other. And should. This is what has happened with
Alcor UK -- a rational response to changing circumstances. And it s what
will continue to happen as more and more information and information
sources become available, and as the organizations themselves cease
trying to be all things to all people and take on a more focused
character. I would not be startled to see Alcor follow the logic of its
development and become a neuros-only organization restricting its
services to the West Coast. Properly handled, it might well do very well
by such concentration of effort. That isn't what CI wants to do, but
precisely because it's not, competition ceases to be an issue, and
cooperation -- nay, symbiosis -- becomes a possibility.
The fact is, the lines between us are not rigid. Membership in cryonics
organizations is fluid -- it's not set in concrete. Some Alcor members
leave Alcor and join CI; some CI members (to my slack-jawed astonishment,
I confess) leave and join Alcor; some join both. Provided there is
growth -- and that is inevitable, given our continuing development --
this is a situation that is good, not evil. Nothing would be better for
CI than to have ten thousand people join Alcor tomorrow -- CI would get a
fair chunk of them the day after tomorrow. And vice versa. The more one
of us grows, the more the other grows. The more one of us gets a
*positive* message out to the public, the more the public listens,
learns, and makes their selection.
And - I realize this takes a stretch of the imagination for some:
futurists are nothing if not stuck in the past - but try to think of the
potential advantages of what is coming: an extensive research effort
from CI. Mr. Thomas Donaldson wrote: "Up until now Alcor has remained
the largest society. However changes seem to be afoot. They may move
even more rapidly if (as I understand) Pchugin ends up working for
Michigan. The technical position of Alcor may well then end up BEHIND,
at least in terms of finding ways to use vitrification as an emergency
process. After all, who has been working on brain vitrification for
months now?"
Well, let us give praise where praise is due: certain very good
cryobiologists at 21CM whom don t like being mentioned but whom we all
know have been working on brain vitrification for more than months and
deserve our thanks and applause, and (yes) Paul Wakfer's contribution has
to be noted too. But surely the possibility of extensive research going
on at CI, at 21CM, perhaps at Alcor and at Kryos one day, is a much
better general prospect for all of us. A certain amount of cooperation
and information-sharing might even save everyone time and money by a
sharing of information and an avoiding of useless duplication of effort.
What -- cryonicists working together, instead of knifing one another in
public? Well -- why not? Now I admit that my personal selection is CI
and I really do think it is going to become the dominant and model
cryonics organization. But that doesn't exclude co-existence, or mutual
growth, or even mutual support and cooperation. I really think that is
the way things are heading. It is, after all, possible; and it simply
makes more sense.
In some ways CI and Alcor remind me of an assessment I once read of two
competitive Civil War generals. One general was forever using camouflage
to make his army seem larger and stronger and better armed; the other, no
less strong, was forever minimizing and hiding his troops' strengths. So
with the main cryonics providers. Alcor is forever trying to appear
hyper-medical and cutting-edge, and so it is forever disappointing,
because it doesn't quite live up to its PR. CI, by contrast, lowers its
prices to the point where it seems cheap and calls its trained funeral
directors 'funeral directors' instead of 'Class-Alpha CICT Cryotransport
Technicians'-- and pleases, since people are forever finding it to be
better than the caricatures people like Charles and Eugene supply.
(Thanks, guys!) But the real point of the analogy is this: both
Generals had substance, and both fought for the side that won. They both
lost skirmishes but won battles, and theirs was a cause that ultimately
triumphed. I think that is the case here too. I personally see a much
more amiable and cooperative future between CI and Alcor -- there are
simply more advantages to it for everyone involved.
Of course, that's the future -- the near future, I hope. Currently,
we're still in the comic-opera present, where Punch and Judy hog the
front stage. Concerning that, a word. I really admire Charles Platt and
Eugene Leitl. No, really, I do. Charles is a wonderfully gifted writer
and a serious activist in a good cause; Eugene Leitl regularly graces the
Extropian and other lists with sharp, useful, incisive comments. He
can't think and emote at the same time, but then few of us can; perhaps
that's why Confucius (or was it the Jefferson Airplane?) counseled us to
cultivate harmony. Anyway, it would be a great mistake to judge the
worth of their remarks merely by what they have to say about CI.
But what I most admire is their positively regal capacity to waste their
own time.
Me, I work for a living. I can't turn up on Cryonet day after day (after
day after day) accusing even Charles and Eugene personally of willful
murder, much less blacken entire organizations. Heck, I'd have to not
only cut back on the job but miss "Buffy The Vampire Slayer". Yet
Charles and Eugene seem to have all the time in the world when in comes
to bashing CI. Charles can reiterate the same silly unproven and
unprovable accusation till even he writes of, "not wanting to hammer this
topic till it becomes as boring as -- ". As his earlier 50 reiterations
of it?
And Eugene! This guy is not merely turning his back on all cryonics
organization in the hopes that "30-40 decades" of "ongoing developments"
will save him instead. (?) But, "I think I still owe any potential
customers and current customers of CI a fully listed disclosure of what
is technically wrong with CI," he says, and he intends to plumb the
depths of "freely available information, Cryonet archives included" till
the job is done. Apparently he doesn't know what's wrong with it
offhand. He just knows it's totally and absolutely and indubitably
fatal, Mengele-class genocide, and if he digs through eight or nine years
of yellowing Cryonet posts (each one scientific truth incarnate), he may
find out this gut intuition was right. Will any of it apply to CI today?
Tomorrow? Who knows? Who cares? Does he owe anything to customers of
Alcor or ACS, and will he unmask them too? Nope. Strange, isn't it?
Germany's a democracy now: with "30-40 decades" to sit around in before
mainstream medicine's "economies of scale, infrastructure and synergisms"
deliver up a cryonics suitable to his palate, one should beat be able to
the brains out of all sides, democratically.
Really, everyone. Don't people have *anything* better to do with their
time than dig through nearly a *decade* of archival material to beat up
*one* cryonics organization when they don't think *any* cryonics
organization is worth joining? Particularly in the light of the fact
that their attack may very well be outdated the day it's posted, as
further CI test results come out? Of all the ludicrous ways to waste
one's time, what could be more ludicrous than to waste it posting
information that's already there? That CI links to! And to what end?
There are barely a few hundred subscribers to this list, and the majority
of those are already in one organization or another anyway. Mr. Leitl
perceptively writes of his upcoming titanic efforts: "Running into this
information may prevent the one or the other signup." That's exactly
right. Ferreting out such a post from six thousand others may just
convince one luckless devil thinking of joining CI that cryonics isn't
worth signing up for - that death is better, even though CI patients, in
Mr. Leitl's own words "might or might not be still salvageable". What
a pathetic waste of intellect, and what a mean and sad goal.
To Mssrs. Platt and Leitl, I have some simple advice. Eugene: forget
Dylan Thomas: if you're gonna go, go gentle into that good night. It's
better for your blood pressure, and it had better be good if you're going
to wait till Blue Cross offers a guaranteed cryo-policy. Charles, if you
want to change Alcor's UK policies, join Alcor and take it up at a
meeting. Because if you think Alcor is going to make 180-degree turn
because of what you say on Cryonet, you are kidding yourself. If you are
unhappy with CI protocols, then join CI and work to make them better.
They're getting better whether you work for them or not, but your dues
are more likely to help us than your religious metaphors. If you feel a
plague on both our houses is appropriate, do not plague them personally:
join Kyros, and build it up, rather than wasting your time in the futile
attempt to tear us down. And if you don't like Kyros either? Join the
Seventh Day Adventists. You'll get the same burial you're headed for
now, but at least there'll be some good Gospel at the wake.
-- David ("Dem Bones / Dem Bones / Gonna Rise!") Pascal
P.S. In passing -- I would also like to say that of all the recent posts
on Cryonet, the most useful, enlightening, and appropriate have been
those of Michael Darwin. He is currently doing it exactly the way it
ought to be done: politely, concisely, substantively. If you have a
case to make *for* your organization or your procedure, simply make it.
Do not waste time, effort, and personal credibility trashing others. It
just does not work. The case for CI can be found at
http://www.cryonics.org, the case for Alcor at http://www.alcor.org, the
case for ACS at http://www.acs.org, the case for Kyros by writing Mike
Darwin at , and the case for Seventh Day Adventists at
http://www.adventist.org.
Happy reading, and Amen.
Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=16332