X-Message-Number: 4271
Date: Sat, 22 Apr 1995 21:24:53 +0700 (TST)
From: Robert Horley <>
Subject: Re: Desperately Seeking Respectibility
Hi again,
In response to my posting "Desperately Seeking Respectibility", Robert
Ettinger wrote on Thu, 20 Apr 1995:
> To be a bit more specific, what happened when earlier religions were
> replaced by Christianity? ......
> Again, one might have said (and many did say) that the rise of modern
> science a few centuries ago was a mortal threat to religion....
Let's all remember the very close relationship between christians and lions
during the first 200 years of Christianity, and let's also not forget the heat
Bruno had to face, and the almost similar fate for Galileo at the start of the
modern scientific era.
He also wrote in the same article:
> We have precisely the same things working for us. First, the benefits we
> offer are real and major, while the task of adapting one's religion or
> ideology--without seeming to abandon it--is relatively easy.
> It follows that part of our job (at least in some contexts or discussion
> circles) is to make that adaptation easier by NOT stressing the threatening
> aspects of cryonics. This also means that it CAN be a wise tactic to seem
> (in most respects) very mainstream. After all, no salesman tries to offend
> the customer or emphasizes the potential disadvantages of his product.
This is the voice of cool and considered reason that Robert Ettinger is well
known for, and he is absolutely right as usual. I would like to add however,
that as well as not alienating potential customers it is just as important to
be welcoming of new "true believers" notwithstanding how eccentric they may
seem.
About the same posting Saul Kent wrote on Thu, 20 Apr 1995:
> I do not understand what Mr. Horley means by "mainstream research". As
> I see it, cryonics is an unothodox idea that is *based* upon mainstream
> research ... I was persuaded that cryonics is a viable idea by the evidence
> ...presented from mainstream research that cryonics could work. Without
> that evidence I never would have become a cryonicist.
I agree entirely, what I meant in my posting would probably be better written
as "accepted scientific opinion" which at the present moment claims that
cryonics will never work. One example of this was the rejection of atomic
theory by the likes of Mach and the main scientific community at the end of
the last century... This group basically hounded Boltzmann the father of
thermodynamics to an early death. Some others that spring to mind are the
idea that heavier than air flight is impossible, flight to the moon is humbug,
etc, etc...
The message I was trying to get over is keep an open mind about ideas that
sound unusual or don't fit into the present scientific paradigm... reject them
for sure if they don't stand up to scientific scrutiny, but don't reject them
because they sound unusual or originate from someone who lacks respectable
scientific credentials. You should understand this Saul, look at the
concerted campaign by the establishment to destroy your reputation as an
individual and the Life Extension Foundation as an organization.
I think that Paul Wakfer in his posting on Thu, 20 Apr 1995 explains what I
was trying to get at much better than I can, and I reproduce it in part below:
> What is the purpose of this list?
> Is it for the discussion of ideas and the sharing of information
> concerning the revolutionary and inspiring idea of cryonics and related
> topics in an atmosphere of friendly, supportive, sincere, courteous,
> intelligent, helpful, cooperative study, and to allow genuine, open
> expressions of concerns, aspirations, tragedies and triumphs and their
> concomitant emotions, for all of which the end goal is the potentially
> boundless extension of our lives?
> -OR-
> Is it to be a "scholarly" debating society whose topic of discussion -
> to make it more interesting and challenging - is the weird notion of
> cryonics and related topics, where members can compete against one another
> in games of verbal skill and one-upmanship, in an atmosphere of implied
> scorn, using cute and caustic sarcasm, nit-picking, verbal riposte, and
> one's clearly superior knowledge and mental powers to score points, to
> attempt to humiliate one's opponents, and to inflate one's own image of
> one's ego, all the while keeping a tight rein on one's emotions and any
> authentic expression of one's concerns and aspirations lest one betray the
> fact that s/he is a human and not a Turing computer?
I sincerely apologise for the length of this posting, but I would like to
finish off by reposting an anonymous article on the topic of mailing list
behaviour I found on the fringeware list:
> From Thu Nov 19 12:38:00 1992
>THE NATURAL LIFE CYCLE OF MAILING LISTS
>Every list seems to go through the same cycle:
> 1. Initial enthusiasm (people introduce themselves, and gush alot about
> how wonderful it is to find kindred souls).
> 2. Evangelism (people moan about how few folks are posting to the list,
> and brainstorm recruitment strategies).
> 3. Growth (more and more people join, more and more lengthy threads
> develop, occasional off-topic threads pop up).
> 4. Community (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots of
> information and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as
> well as less experienced colleagues; friendships develop; people tease
> each other; newcomers are welcomed with generosity and patience;
> everyone -- newbie and expert alike -- feels comfortable asking
> questions, suggesting answers, and sharing opinions).
> 5. Discomfort with diversity (the number of messages increases
> dramatically; not every thread is fascinating to every reader; people
> start complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio; person 1 threatens
> to quit if *other* people don't limit discussion to person 1's pet
> topic; person 2 agrees with person 1; person 3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten
> up; more bandwidth is wasted complaining about off-topic threads than
> is used for the threads themselves; everyone gets annoyed).
> 6a. Smug complacency and stagnation (the purists flame everyone who asks
> an 'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; newbies
> are rebuffed; traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a few minor
> issues; all interesting discussions happen by private email and are
> limited to a few participants; the purists spend lots of time
> self-righteously congratulating each other on keeping off-topic
> threads off the list).
> OR
> 6b. Maturity (a few people quit in a huff; the rest of the participants
> stay near stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly every few weeks;
> many people wear out their second or third 'delete' key, but the list
> lives contentedly ever after).
Robert Horley
Phanat Nikhom, Chonburi
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