X-Message-Number: 4658
From: 
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 1995 17:05:38 -0400
Subject: history

I won't bother responding to most of Mike Darwin's spin doctoring in # 4642.
Most readers are probably capable of interpreting it adequately. But I'll
remark on  a couple of specifics: 

1. On Biotime's "pushing the envelope" I have only a brief indirect report,
and don't know to what extent it may be confidential. I suppose I shouldn't
have mentioned it at all, but it did sound somewhat encouraging.

2. Mike suggests that Cryonics Institute's finances are shakier than those of
others. (In earlier years he accused us of "fraud" because of our low prices;
now he just says we are not "prudent".) Anyone who wants to compare histories
and recent financial statements can make his own decision, and I think most
will agree that CI's finances AND financial prospects are second to none.
Mike says CI has achieved what it has because of overfunding by some; he
knows very well that EVERY organization (of any substantial size and history)
has benefited from "windfalls," and Mike has his own financial angel. But
these "windfalls" have been EARNED (Mike's too, of course), and if anything,
on average, we have grown DESPITE a surplus of bad luck.

The FACT remains that Cryonics Institute is presently the ONLY service
organization with no debt, no landlords, no stockholders, no paid officers or
directors, and positive cash flow. It is also the only one (except recently
formed ones) that has never raised its prices. Mike's focus on FACTS, as
opposed to opinion, theory,  and speculation, seems highly selective.

3. Mike acknowledges that he may find it necessary to "trim unnecessary
things." That's fine. And I have repeatedly said that CI will in due course
adopt any improvement that we find verified, either for everyone or as a
higher-priced option. 

But Mike also says "we"--probably meaning Alcor when he was in
charge--started on the "high side" using approaches shown "in contemporary
clinical settings to radically affect outcome in a positive way."

Well, now. First off--and I admit this is dragging in stale fish--what is
important in a contemporary clinical setting may be totally irrelevant in a
cryonics setting. For example, Jerry Leaf and I had a long discussion by
correspondence as to whether it was necessary to use expensive commercial
water-for-injection, rather than much cheaper home made USP water for
injection; Jerry finally stopped responding. I still believe there would be
not even a CLINICAL difference, let alone a material difference for cryonics
use.

There is also, for example, the question of details of sterilization
procedures for instruments. If I understand it correctly, Mike insisted on
the most expensive procedure, even though many hospitals and physicians'
offices used (and still use) much cheaper ones. I would be REALLY astonished
if the difference between these procedures were important for a cryonics
patient. In fact, it would be astonishing if a little added infection (there
is always some infection present in every patient, even if subclinical) were
a significant danger to the patient at all, in comparison to the other
problems of revival and rejuvenation. True--we may need to go to clinical
criteria on that happy day when we achieve reversible-on-demand suspended
animation, but that day is not here and unfortunately may not be close. (We
are all selective in our optimism and pessimism.)

4. Mike says "the sweep of history tells us NOTHING about whether what we
want personally is achievable." This statement is so very strange that it is
clear he has no inkling of how I use the phrase. Maybe I don't write clearly
enough, but most people seem to think I do. Anyway, one very simple
application is just the observation that technology is advancing,
and--barring calamities--is likely to continue to advance. That is easy to
understand and difficult to refute. Mike himself is counting on that and
contributing to it, and yet he doesn't recognize it as part of the "sweep of
history."

Another application of "sweep," as I mentioned recently, concerns probability
theory in a narrow sense. Our beliefs about the odds in tossing or shoving
symmetrical bodies derives, not from specific formal empirical observations,
but on our total experience with such things; this total experience is
extremely powerful evidence.

5. Mike was perhaps tired (not unusual) and irritated (not unusual) when he
accused me again of "blowing sunshine" where the sun don't shine, presumably
either to deceive the gullible or because I am gullible myself. He also uses
language sugesting that I claim success is guaranteed, which everyone knows
is very far from fact. In another part of the same posting he said, more
tactfully and more correctly, that honest people can differ in their opinions
and emphases. 

6. On page 1 of part 2 of the cryonet message Mike dismisses one of my quoted
passages as "bizarre." He generally demands chapter and verse from others,
but here he seems to think his authority is all that is required, with no
further comment.

To put recent "history" into a little perspective again, cooperation between
organizations is improving, research by most organizations is increasing, and
public perception of cryonics is softening. 

Incidentally, CI members Paul Michaels and his family, and funeral director
Barry Albin, did interviews with the Sunday Times in England recently, and
the Times went for authoritative opinion to the man who first successfully
froze and reimplanted mouse embryos, Whittingham. Whittingham admitted we
can't rule out revival of our patients, since we don't know what might be
accomplished in 100 years. He did point out the obvious,  that present
methods do not allow present revival, but he implicitly acknowledged--as many
"experts" do not--that this was not the core of the question.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute 


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