X-Message-Number: 24685 From: Subject: To Joe Waynick and others interested Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 02:56:41 US/Eastern Joe, I want you to know how very upset I have felt about the exchange between you and Robert Ettinger on CryoNet during the last few days. I had high hopes of developing a good working relationship with you and my hopes have taken a real beating. Robert Ettinger is correct when he says that he does not speak for CI. I will add that he does not speak for me -- and also add that I am not speaking for CI, but am speaking for myself. I believe that Bob has been incendiary in some of his remarks and has fanned the flames of mutual recrimination. Sadly, I have seen you get caught-up in this mutual recrimination. It is sad because I very much want for good relations between us. Although I am President of the Cryonics Institute, I despise organizational partisanship in cryonics. I am sick and tired of the way cryonicists have exhausted their energies fighting each other -- when those energies are so preciously needed to further cryonics and our mutual survival. There was a spirit of good will & cooperation during the CryoSummit which failed to take root, to my regret. Despite years of conflict and incidents involving the locking of horns, I am pleased to say that there are few cryonicists in any organization that I feel much hostility towards. I like to think that I have warm & friendly relations with most -- if not all -- of the people I know at Alcor. I can't think of any of the Alcor staff for whom I feel any dislike. Robert Ettinger made a statement which I wholeheartedly support. Namely, the invitation for you to state specific modifications you would like to see made to text in the CI website. I have written very little of the text on the CI website. I have seen things I dislike. I dislike the concept of a comparisons page. Even if there was provocation behind its production, I think it fosters mutual recrimination. In my first year as President I have not made it a priority to attempt to re-write CI web pages (with a couple of exceptions). I think that my time is better spent trying to improve CI operations and patient care -- and I am disinclined to take actions which might instigate counter-productive infighting. But if there are specific passages which you find particularly offensive I will see what I can do to rectify the situation -- assuming this will not swamp my time or produce too much internal conflict at CI. My time & energy is limited and I seem to be engaged in on-going triage. I have personally written almost everything on my own website (http://www.benbest.com/) and am interested in your comment that some of the pages "heavily promote the CI perspective of cryonics" -- with the implication that this means an anti-Alcor persepective. I can't believe that I express such a thing on my website. I mean no irony or sarcasm when I request that you give me a specific reference to the text you refer to. If nothing else, at least tell me the links. I admit that I have spent very little time on the Alcor website. Again, it has been a goal of mine to improve relations between the cryonics organizations and it genuinely upsets me to see this bitterness and conflict. I am above all a cryonicist rather than a partisan. I cannot purge every grain of competitiveness from my nature, but seeing this fighting increases my resolve to increase my efforts. -- Ben Best Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=24685