X-Message-Number: 2294
Subject: CRYONICS Openness
From:  (Charles Platt)
Date: Fri, 04 Jun 93 00:11:34 EDT

Since Ben Best has picked up the topic of openness (which I introduced at 
the recent cryonics conference), let me take it a little further.

I am generally in favor of full disclosure about everything. It's my 
nature to talk too much, and in my personal life, I have few if any 
secrets. That's just the way I am. (Naturally, when someone asks me to 
keep something secret for their sake, I respect their wishes.)

In cryonics, my tendency is to follow the same habit as in the rest of my 
life. And yet, I'm not sure this is a good policy. As Regina Pancake 
pointed out to me, quite forcibly, after the brief discussion of openness 
at the conference, the last thing we want to do is give ammunition to 
people who will use it to ridicule cryonics, or make cryonics seem even 
chancier than it really is.

At the same time, Mike Darwin argued equally forcibly that his policy of 
openness in Cryonics magazine attracted a lot of new members (myself 
included). Where does this leave me? I honestly don't know. In the book 
that I have been writing about cryonics, for instance, you will find no 
mention of the financial controversy regarding Alcor which was aired here 
on the net last year. Similarly, in a leaflet which I just wrote for 
Alcor, the Patient Care Fund is described as being set up so that the 
interest it generates will cover the direct and indirect costs of 
maintaining patients in suspension; but you will not find any mention of 
the fact that an Alcor employee's salary is paid out of that fund.

These things bother me. They tell me that when I write about cryonics, I 
write as an advocate, rather than as an objective observer. I don't like 
that feeling. But on the other hand, I cannot be objective anymore; and 
the subject is so multifaceted, involving so many fundamental concepts 
that are really hard to communicate believably, some simplification is 
unavoidable.

Still, there are limits. I would never want CRYONICS magazine to turn 
into an in-house organ, full of morale-booster items, with never any 
mention of negative factors. Does Ben feel that it is headed in that 
direction? 

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