X-Message-Number: 23659
From: "Trygve B.Bauge" <>

Subject: Charles Platt, what is your problem? Request for a moderated and 
unmoderated version of Cryonet.
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 18:41:12 +0100

Charles Platt <> wrote:


>Usually I admire tolerance as a human trait, but not in this
>case. The greatest damage to the serious business of trying
>to cryopreserve the human brain begins with the acts of
>people who represent themselves as our friends. 

What you are saying would of course apply to your own actions as well.

You represent yourself as a friend of cryonics and then all you seem to do 
is to generate unneccessary quarrels!

I agree that the goal is to achieve not just perfect brain preservation,
but to restore brains and the body to youthful conditions.

And I do not argue that people should select straight freeze or dry ice when 
better options are available.
Whenever interviewed by the media I emphasize the need for improved methods.

And when asked about cryonics by grieving individuals who have lost a loved one,

I lett them know all the uncertainty and obstacles and pitfalls I can think of, 
and ask them if they really want to go ahead,
and some like myself, selects to still go ahead. 


You on the other hand seem to want to exclude informed people who share your 
goal, and who are fully informed and who only try to do their best with their 
own available means and such volunteers that show up on their own.

The problem with your attitude is that instead of including supporters,

it is excluding, that is the way that groups are split into a series of 
unsuccessful backstabbing individuals.

My experience is that it is much better to be including, than to be excluding.

Try to find a way for people to coexist and to each do their own thing,
and then they can enjoy cooperation on the things they do agree upon.

That is the nice thing about a free society.
Each can do one's own thing with one's own time and property.


I know that I would never have been as successful as I have been in organizing 
large icebathing clubs,

if I had excluded or quarreled with everyone that didn't at all times agree with
myself on all issues.


My experience is that for each venture the best way to succeed is to focus on 
the minimum one need to agree upon to implement that venture,  

for icebathing that means just icebathing, we don't need to agree upon training 
methods or politics or religion.

So let the same thing apply to cryonics:

For each cryonic related venture, it be a facility, or a festival or a parade or
whatever:

let those that want to undertake that particular venture do so,
without starting quarrels over irrelevant issues,


and above all: be tolerant and let others be free to do their own ventures with 
their own volunteers.

There might be more ways to Rome, than just one.

>We are judged
>by the company we keep.


Well The  Federal government kept loosing battles in the civil war until they 
realized that

it was best  to select a general that knew how to win wars, even though he was 
less than morally perfect, and a drunkard.


>Bauge himself insists that all publicity is good publicity.
>This of course is very convenient for him, since it excuses
>and justifies anything he does, no matter how irresponsible
>it is. 

What I implied was that in the real world one does get under attack,
both just and unjust attacks,

and in a free society those attacks though annoying, 
still offer an opportunity to respond and set the record straight.

Friends are won that way.

However sometimes the false attacks become overwhelming,
and more than one can manage to immediately rebut.


The two times I got falsly arrested in cases I later unconditionally won, I 
experienced how it is to be passed through a system where many of the people you
come in contact with add a little bit of abuse and some transgression, so that 
the resulting effect is an overwhelming avalanche of abuse. 


So for the record I did not threaten to hijack any plane, I won that case, and I
did not trespass when I a few years later delivered a letter with references to
reputable cancer treatments, I won that case too. 


A few times I have received more unjust attacks here on cryonet than I had 
capacity to properly rebut at the time,

and I had to focus on what was more important: Protecting my grandfather, our 
house in Colorado, my rights, my health and what other ventures I was focused on
at the time.

Luckily the media and the population in Colorado did not share the angry, 
backstabbing attitude that so often has prevailed here on the cryonet, or I 
would not have succeeded.


Maybe that has something to do with the main media outlets each beeing edited by
en editor, and it therefore being harder for people to carry out overwhelming 
abusive attacks in the regular media than on the internet.


Anyway I often felt that a few so called cryonisists were more enemies than 
friends.

Luckily neither they nor the INS nor the townboard had control over the regular 
media or the general population.


Incidentially I would not have been deported if the right to trial by jury had 
been respected.

I have never been convicted of anything criminal what so ever, but was deported 
because I on principle refused to apply for such visas and amnesties as I 
qualified for.
I refuse to ask for permission to do what others have no right to deny me.

And it is a sobering thought that very few of todays Americans would have been 
around if the native Americans had had a better border patrol, or homeland 
security force.

As to my own situation, I guess I came to the United States a few centuries too 
late.
No Colorado jury would have deported me.

A journalist  in Colorado pointed this out at the time in an award winning 
article.

However the right to trial by jury has wrongfully been done away with in 
immigration cases. 


The last few years the attacks I come under here on the Cryonet has been more 
manageable: a few irrate e-mails a year, even I can manage to rebut :-)
 
However something more valuable might come from all this:


I am not saying that the federal government has planted people in our midst to 
create disunity, though they are known to have done that in many other fringe 
organizations.


I am saying that we do not as an organization have to shoot ourselves in the 
foot, by tolerating unneccesary attacks.

It is a question of civilized debate actually.


Maybe what that is needed is to split the Cryonet in a moderated and an 
unmoderated thread, so that the moderated thread is free from personal abuses 
and attacks.


>According to his theory the Ted Williams publicity
>must have been good for cryonics, even though it
>misrepresented procedures and reinforced prejudice among
>legislators who have prevented SA from operating out of their
>current facility, have imposed severe restrictions on CI, and
>would have required Alcor to follow mortuary practice if the
>organization hadn't spent money and time defending itself
>with a lobbyist. Clearly we are extremely vulnerable, and the
>wrong kind of publicity can permanently impair the ability to
>provide high-level care--not that Trygve Bauge seeme very
>concerned about this.  

Trygve's response:

But Charles, you are are turning the situation topsy turvy.
and attacking a strawman of your own imagination.


It seems to me that what you are complaining about Charles, is that much of the 
media 
has treated cryonics the same way you treat others here at the Cryonet.


It is the fast uninformed attacks and the secretive and self sensoring and 
unfriendly attitude that you stand for
that have brought the cryonics organizations into the problems they have.


And it is the 100% openness with the media that I have practiced that is the 
solution out of the problems.


I have from the very beginning from long before we froze my grandfather been 
consistently 100% open with the media

about all I do. I have had media outlets come to my home and events many times a
year for more than 20 years now. Thus the media has from the very beginning 
known about all the adverse aspects of my grandfather's pilot case,
and they have time and again assisted in overcoming problems.

Noone is more aware of the adverse situation of my grandfather's case than the 
Colorado media, but it is not used against me, because they have known about the
problems and my motives including my motive of using this as a pilot case to 
improve cryonics, from the very beginning.

Most of the time the coverage has been less on problems and more on 
opportunities, simple because there hasn't been any problems.

But because of all the positive coverage of opportunities the media has also 
been there to assist when problems arouse.


As a result I have not come under attacks by the regular larger main media 
outlets in Colorado, because all the editors know enough about the case to shut 
down any wrongful attacks. If they hear anything strange they just contact me to
verify what the situation is before they go any further.

The local media coverage in Colorado is for the most part correct, balanced, and
positive. 

Of course it helps that I have built a good standing in the community by 
inviting the media along on an evergrowing annual icebathing festival, and other
valuable ventures,  


I have not brought on the Ted Williams case, but I know that the Rocky Mountain 
news in their annual year end survey of 2003, responded by quoting someone off 
the street in Nederland Colorado that thought Ted Williams ought to be stored 
there. I didn't see any local attacks on the suspension of Williams either. 
After having annually heard about my grandfather's case for 14 years now both on
TV, radio and in the newspapers, the local population is well enough informed 
to not panick.


Charles, there is no sense in attacking me for something that has worked out 
well in Colorado,

and for wrongfully accusing me of causing the problems you have brought on 
yourself elsewhere.


What you and others ought to do is to try to figure out how you can build the 
same community support for cryonics elsewhere in the world
that we now have in Colorado.


>His own father is "preserved" at a
temperature which allowed damage that I would argue was
irreparable years ago.


Look my grandfather had what you will call "irreparable" damage even before we 
froze him.

He died at home in the Winter, and by Norwegian law he was kept in an unheated 
basement morgue for 3 days before he was released.

Then because my sister objected to his suspension it took a few more days to get
the go ahead to have him frozen.

Then it was a lot of back and forth with C.I. about how to freeze him, and 
whether or not we should try to wash out the blood or embalm before the 
freezing.

All in all it took about 8 days before he was frozen, and then at a straight 
freeze to minus 18 degrees at which he was stored 3 months before he was packed 
in dry ice and shipped to California. The people at Trans Time were afraid of 
picking him up at the airport, (It was at the time of the Dora Kent controvercy,
but I  had called some congress person from Colorado who new some congress 
person in California and we had no problems what so ever with the state health 
authorities in California. But since the people who were to pick him up got cold
feet, he was stored at the airport, and almost all the dry ice had evaporated 
when he was picked up a date later.

So even at that point some of his finger nails had become black. He otherwise 
looked good, but that is cosmetic.

So why did I still freeze him?

Well someone has to be frozen for procedures to be established and improved, and
obstacles identified and overcome.

It is an experiement not just in science, but in organization, and political 
acceptance and logistics on more topics than most people would ever start to 
think of.

So is there no hope then for my grandfather?
Rather to the contrary.

He is still frozen, he is better off than the 4000 year old person that was 
found in a glacier in Austria a few years ago,

his situation is actually better than several of the people suspended at C.I and
Alcor, people that were in much worse condition when they were frozen then my 
grandfather was in when he was frozen. Alcor has frozen a person without a 
brain, and C.I has frozen a white person that had turned completely black.

Nothing wrong with that, as long as one is open about what one does and admits 
all the adversity of the situation up front.


Of course no one expects that we can just thaw out my grandfather and have him 
up and going.
But his case is not based on any such misrepresentation either.
I have consistantly told the media that we look forward to cloning him,
and this I have done since long before the appearance of Dolly.


I want to make one thing clear: Some media in Norway did at some point make the 
same error as Charles, they created a strawman:

Making a big fuss about present cryonic suspensions being futile because people 
get so harmed by present freezing delays & freezing techniques that they won't 
be alive when thawed out.


But the main media in Colorado has not done the same error because they know 
that my objective has never been a belief that he would  be up and walking when 
thawed out.

I have painstakingly pointed out how the question is one of survival by degree, 
and that what we are searching for are means of securing individual continuity, 
to the largest extent. and that the starting point is full annihilation, and 
that anything else is an improvement.

Offspring provides some level of survival, cloning provides even more, cloning 
combined with conventional teaching techniques provides even a larger 
continuity,

etc. etc. and I don't think Charles has delivered any proof that we never will 
be able to clone dead human beings, we don't need a preserved brain for that.
And most mental content can be restored to a clone from external sources.


Of course, such a trained clone would not be my grandfather, but it would be 
pretty close to being a younger version of him,

and by pursuing such techniques for still higher degrees of continuation, we 
would hopefully come up with a lot of knowledge that would enable the rest of us
to not be dying in the first place.  We might even in the process improve the 
techniques and availability and political acceptance for reversible suspension 
of animation.   


Only the future will tell if we also are able to repair and restore individual 
cells and tissues, and how much of such that really has to be restored for it to
be the same person.

e.g. are you the same person after a stroke? Not fully, but a person repaired by
nano technology might be more itself than a person that survives a stroke, and 
that is good enough for me.


If the idea is to have still more cells survive with the same awareness of being
alive, then the challenge regarding those already dead, is how one can repair 
still more of the original cells and tissues. But to the extent consciousness is
an effect of how cells are linked to one another, then this opens up for life 
as being a process in change, that acceptably can continue in a changing cell 
culture.

We are not the same person at 70 as we were at 10, but we still find it to be an
acceptable continuation of ourself, so maybe we will find a future clone with 
some original cells that have been restored and transplanted in, as being an 
acceptable continuation of ourself too, or better than full annihilation, at 
least seen from the point of view of the clone?  


To the degree basic awareness is the same in any individual cell, to that extent
your basic awareness would continue in a clone.  To the degree your mental 
content is an effect of how nervecells interact, to that extent the same impact 
can be restored onto the cloned cells.


What I am saying is that it might not be necessary with more than one of your 
cells to survive and be cloned into a full human being, for your awareness to 
survive.

And that with the right conventional teaching techniques, the nerve cells in the
clone might all experience the same awareness as you do.

Ok. so it is not the same as preserving the brain, and its awareness,

but isn't it possible to have two ideas in the head at the same time, and pursue
both, so that one has something to fall back upon if the best approach fails?


I think one of the reasons I have got some acceptance in that part of the media 
that knows me well, is that I have a sliding approach to survival, trying to 
implement survival as a continuation of oneself to a still higher degree, and 
that I am not just focused on a black and white approch: preserve the brain 
intact or get lost!

Many people can identify with a search for still better techniques for 
individual continuation, though they still don't see any way to preserve the 
brain intact.


Though I share the objective of full brain preservation and restoration, I think
it is important to also pursue lesser options in order to reach the ultimate 
objective.
  
  
Charles Platt vwrote:  
>I think what he really means is that all publicity is good
>publicity *for him,* because he just loves publicity. His own
>CryoNet post revels in it. 


You claim to know my case good enough to attack it, but still you repeatedly 
(once above and once below), claim that I have frozen my father 

when in fact it was my grandfather. That you repeatedly err on such simple facts
as this,

shows me that you have no concern about the fact of the case but is rather out 
to attack for some ulterior motive of your own, 

or just as a kneejerk reaction with full disregard for the facts of the case, 
much like you complain that the media has done in the Ted Williams case.

Or maybe you are just scared as hell for publicity. And misguided thinks that 
there is safety in self-sensorship.

But then rest assured that the buraucrats that want to crack down upon cryonics 
are even more scared about publicity, and rightfully so.

To have their victims show self-censorship on the other hand, gives the 
transgressors a free hand.


Do not misunderstand me, when I advocate full openness I advocate doing so in a 
cultivated and civilized fashion without the use of four letter words or 

unjustified attacks. And be sure to advocate solutions that let people be free 
to do their own thing with their own property and with such people that 
volunteer to come along.

Openness and tolerance goes hand in hand, if you are not tolerant, your openness
will only lead to you attacking others for doing their own thing. Thus 
something can be said in favour of intolerant people showing some 
self-censorship. :-)  But usually they will be put in their place by others 
defending civilized behavior.

By the way tolerance doesn't mean to tolerate everything, it only means to 
advocate solutions where people are free to do their own thing with their own 
property and with consenting adults.

For the record then: 

Negative publicity and unfair attacks can be rebutted and turned into something 
positive if one has the habit of doing and strength to do this,

but it requires a society where populistic lynch mobs are outlowed or at least 
checked and balanced.


The fact that many forums on the internet are uncivilized brawls, doesn't mean 
that we have to let Cryonet be such an uncivilized forum.
   

Publicity has never been a goal for me. I am not an actor seeking the applause 
of others, and has never been that.

My motivation is my own joyful life-extension and I am autonom or self governed 
and only concerned with my own approval of what I am doing.

I am actually as happy on my own in the wilderness, or drawing some state of the
art blast shelter, with the phone unplugged,
being alone for months at the time, as being out among other human beings.

I have however discovered that publicity is a side effect of much of what I have
been doing,

and that one can use publicity to overcome negative obstacles including negative
publicity.

If you have more than one foot to stand on, If the media knows you from valuable
work in several fields, then you won't fail or succeed based on some unjust 
attack over one particular venture.


If cryonisists and cryonic organizations excelled in several other areas than 
just freezing heads and bodies, they would easier stand the attacks they get for
these activities.


Maybe if you froze cell samples, and blood,  and assisted in blood and organ 
collections for transfusions and transplants, you would be a trusted part of the
local community, and people would stand up and defend you when someone attacks 
you. 


Or if you just joined the local chamber of commerce and took your turn having 
one of the annual business after hours at the cryonic facility,
that too would help.


Or if you encouraged people to proudly stand up during a kind of a cryonic pride
week :-) that too would help.

but of course then one might end up being part of Mardi Gras like carnivals, and
heaven forbid! :-)



Charles Platt wrote:

>His history of his "noble fight"
>to freeze his father is of course self-serving and completely
>omits the real personal reasons why so many organizations and
>activists refused to help him.


Really?
I will admit that it is self serving to defend oneself,
but I don't see this as a vice,


So who are these many organizations and activists that allegedly have refused to
help me?
and what are the real personal reasons for this?

I would like to know.


It can't be ACS, because they still regard me as a member in spite of the fact 
that I haven't paid membership dues for 14 years now,
Jim Yount kept my facility designs as pictures on his office wall for years.


It can't be Trans Time because they once selected me to their board of directors
for a one year term, and when I moved my grandfather to Colorado 
it was because I wanted it, while they would have prefered to keep him.


It can't be Ettinger or C.I. either because they published my facility designs, 
and Ettinger even contributed economically to my defence when the town board 
threatened to thaw out my grandfather back in 1994.


It can't be the Venturists because they want to rent a boot at next year's 
Frozen Dad Guy days,


I know several people at Alcor too, and I don't seem to be in a quarrel with 
them either,

having visited once, and almost having brought about the first cryonic 
suspension from England, something that didn't pan out when the fiancee of the 
diseased didn't want her boyfriend suspended when Alcor of course couldn't 
promise to bring him back in her life time, 

It is not me who complains about not being supported by other cryonisists,
I think I have received a lot of support from such over the years too.
  

It seems to me that most of the attacks come from people who are talkers rather 
than doers in the cryonics movement.


Anyway the cryonics movement is small, and I have over the years had support 
from more mainstream media outlets and political activists and politicians and 
people and businesses than there are in the whole cryonics movement.


And as we have seen in Colorado, it sems somewhat strange to attack me for not 
having received support,
since the support has been overwhelming. Thankyou everyone in Colorado.


I have never asked for any other cryonics group to store my grandfather for 
free,

but have actually over the years turned down several offers of having him stored
elsewhere,

either because it was too expensive or I would have had to donate my 
grandfather's corpse to the organization 
or I deemed the new organization unsafe. 

As far as personal reasons for not assisting me,
maybe Charles Platt could give his?

Maybe he at some point has been involved in an organization that later failed 
and that I luckily didn't want to move my grandfather too?
I am just wondering.

Charles Platt wrote:
>Since I don't want to get into that endless topic, I'll
>mention just one indicator. CryoNet's limits on the size and
>number of daily posts were imposed as a desperation measure
>in response to the persistent and relentless abuse of this
>list by one person: Trygve Bauge.

well that is a truth with certain modifications:


You are refering to the year I tried to assist a lady in Australia who wanted to
dig up her recently burried father.

Well I do each year receive a request or two for assistance with post mortem 
suspensions.

And I usually assist, and on the condition of full openness with the media.

I came under an enormous attack here at cryonet,

and didn't have the time to rebut all the strange and unjust attacks at the 
time,
In stead I focused on the venture at hand,
It didn't pan out since she didn't get her mother's or her sister's approval,
Case closed.


However I find it strange that there is no limitations on how many people who 
can attack you here at cryonet,
but that a limit was imposed on my responses to an almost unlimited attack.


As far as calling my response to unjust attacks for persistent and relentless 
abuse of the list,
what do you then call the many unjust attacks, in the first place? 

Bottom line is that I haven't on average posted more than anyone else,

though there has been certain peaks where I have decided to keep the list 
continuously informed about
the turn of events. 

My motivation has been that openness would benefit both the case at hand and 
cryonics in the long run.



I can live with the 4 posts a day limit, but can you folks live with a limit on 
unfair below the belt attacks on me, to a total of 4 a day, for all of you seen 
together?
and even when it storms as heaviest around me? :-)


Anyway,  no mainstream media has ever attacked me for assisting in post mortem 
requests.

I don't promise to deliver more than I can, and I make it clear that the end 
result might never be full reanimation, and most likely will be full anihilation
anyway.


But by operating with a series of scenarios from  total anihilation to cloning, 
repair, reanimation and rejuveantion, 

I am not just offering one product: the pursuit of full reanimation, that most 
people still look upon as unrealistic at best.

I am rather coming across as trying to assist people in getting the best out of 
an adverse situation,
and that is something people and the media can relate to.


Besides I am not alone having as a goal to eventually systematically dig up 
people that have been buried (and preserve any DNA fragments for future 
cloning).

I here some of you say Oh no, there he goes again, now we will certainly be 
banned. Let us shut him down or rescue ourselves by attacking him .....

Strange then that such attacks doesn't seem to come from the general public or 
the media that knows me and treats me seriously.

All Christians have resurrection as a goal in one way or another, some even 
literally in the flesh,
and I have never come across any religious group attacking me for this goal.

As a matter of fact I got a lot of possible feedback at a christian conference I
attended. 

People said I was trying to do myself, what others only through faith hoped that
would be done for them.


I tend to think that all the religious aspirations people have like 
reincarnation and resurrection, will not come true by themselves, but only if 
enough of us set out to actually develop end implement the practical 
technologies required.


Digging up burried people is quite common actually. Graves and bodies are being 
moved for all kind of reasons both cultural, political, personal and legal.

And the authorities usually accept this as long as the next of kin agrees. It is
quite common to move people that died far away from home, back to some family 
or national site,

or to gather family or group members in one site once such has been established.

And over the last year or so the newspapers have had positive articles about 
people being dug up in search of the Spanish flu virus (I think they even found 
it) , or to find out if some royals really were related. 

or to find out if a corps alleged to be of Columbus, really was who it was 
alleged to be. Then of course there are forensic reasons to reexamine the cause 
of death.

When royals can have their anchestors dug up and examined then regular people 
can too. All it takes is moving to a new burial ground, and to take a simple 
tissue or bone sample in the process.

>As for the people of Nederland, I have no quarrel with them.
>They have embraced Bauge as a kind of lovable crank. Of
>course, since he was deported, they haven't had to deal with
>him personally.

--Charles Platt


With my years icebathing I have heard more synonyms for cracy and crank than I 
ever thought existed.

It doesn't offend me. I just respond by saying that I am not crazy, just a 
little more daring than most people.

You know the free and the brave bit in the anthem. That I like to live life to 
the fullest.

And that one never gets to old to have fun. The goal is after all not just 
life-extension
but joyful life-extension: 

to experience happiness furthermost into the future, the highest peaks of 
happiness along the way,

and otherwise as much fun as one can get away with, all in that order of 
priority.


Life would certainly be poor if one only was to do what the most sour and cranky
among other people find respectable and acceptable.

Luckily happiness is not dependent upon approval by others nor on approval from 
one's adversaries.


By the way it was first after I got deported that the people in Nederland really
had to deal with me.

It was then that the townboard tried to thaw out my grandfather, and I had to 
use USD 3000 in long distance phone bills,

pluss unlimited access to internet, plus one of the best lawyers in Colorado to 
drum up the support that overcame the  
townboard and led to it not being reelected.

Of course the same mayor was reelected a few years later but then favoring the 
Frozen Dead Guy Days.


I am presently a member of the local chamber of commerce, and they assist me in 
maintaining my grandfather and the house and property,

and I probably deal more with people in Nederland Colorado each year, than I 
deal with other cryonisists. 

Then of course I have received more support from the people in Colorado than I 
have received from other cryonisists too.
and non of them has shown so much anger and bile as Charles Platt has.


In conclusion Charles you seem to present a lot of attacks that do not hold 
water, and your emphasiss does not seem to be on truth or verification, but 
simply

to deliver attacks for the purpose of attacking. You seem driven by a will to 
present any attacking statement, with full disregard for whether or not it is 
true or not.
Most of the time I do not have the time to rebut such bullshit. 


So why are you wasting so much of your time on attacking others Charles, what 
about going out and creating some value you yourself for a change?


I hereby request that attacks on other people be separated from the regular 
cryonet and placed in a separate thread,

I would even be willing to pay an annual contribution for a moderator to 
separate out the attacks,

so that these can stop cluttering the list. Then one could also easier ignore 
attacks from people that do not contribute anything positive.


Sincerely,

Trygve Bauge


Life-Extension Systems, Universal Liberty, The Global Village Project, 
The Norw. Icebathing Club, Action 88/Residental Assoc. at Hovsetervn. 88
Trygve Bauge,  pb. 59 Hovseter, N-0705 Oslo, Norway. Ph(47)22-14-80-78
Visit Trygve's Meta Portal (tm) www.trygve.bauge.com  

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