X-Message-Number: 5666
Date: 26 Jan 96 15:58:44 EST
From: Mike Darwin <>
Subject: Ettinger turn down the gain

Bob Ettinger writes:

>It certainly isn't very important, but it was pretty careless of Mike 
Darwin
>(#5661) to call me a "dogmatist." I have no dogmas, and he hasn't absorbed
>what I have said on the subjects he refers to--two of them basically, 
related
>but different.

Jeeez Bob, turn down the gain.  Your sensitivity is way too high.  Lucky 
thing you've lead such a sheltered life re criticism of this kind ;)

IMHO you are one of the most, in practice, dogmatic people I know.  Oh no, 
not just in your carefully qualified written statements, but in the actions 
and positions you have taken over the years and the consistent effects they 
have had.  The best analogy is like Clinton or Dole saying "Well, now this 
is all very complicated, and we have a lot of uncertains here, BUT..."

If your positions on the self-circuit = identity *in practice,* or the 
reversibility of cryoinjury as currently inflicted by CI's techniques, or 
even BPI's or Alcor'sdon't constitute what generally passes for 
dogma...well the all I can do is :)

As for me, well, feel free to call me dogmatic any time you like; certainly 
I am when it comes to the matter of whether I consider you dogmatic. In the 
scheme of criticisms in life, being dogmatic just doesn't rank with being 
called a congenital liar, accused of embezzling White House travel funds 
(unjustly!), or any of a thousand worse things that people exchange as 
pleasantries, and have at least since Shakespeare put pen to paper; and 
long before.

As to being careless, well, in this case, not at all (although I am, often 
enough)!  

But, so what?  I think you are dogmatic?  Big deal.

Think about some of the things you've said about me :)

BTW, no further debate from me on this point.

Mike Darwin


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