X-Message-Number: 6271
Date: Sun, 26 May 96 20:01:11
From: Steve Bridge <>
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS
To all readers of CryoNet and sci.cryonics.
>From Steve Bridge, President
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
May 25, 1996
The war of words between some Alcor members and some CryoCare members
or supporters is heating up again, brought on by an anonymous post to
sci.cryonics from someone using the account:
""
The implication was that someone fairly unpleasant or incredibly
stupid was either violating Alcor patient confidentiality, or was making
guesses based on various sources. For confidentiality reasons, I cannot
comment on the truth or falsity of the post itself, but I can say that at
the very least it appears that someone out there is willing to use
presumed patient information to insult Brian Wowk, President of CryoCare,
using his mother and his assistance on a ACS post-mortem suspension. This
is pretty low.
I hesitate to call it a new all-time cryonics low for the past four
years, because there are so many low blows to compare it to. I'm sure it
is a new low from Brian's point of view, and I'll agree it ranks right up
there for nastiness.
That posting was not done with the permission, encouragement, or
knowledge of Alcor, and I certainly hope it does not represent the view or
intent of any specific Alcor member or representative. As Alcor
president, I completely repudiate that post and I am sorry for any hurt or
aggravation Brian has received from this.
In his reply to , Brian Wowk said:
>If your statement is true (which I neither confirm nor deny), I must
>assume that the Alcor board has breached its confidentiality agreement
>with a frozen member.
I will also preface the rest of my statement with an "if the
statement is true, which I neither confirm nor deny..."
We take confidentiality very seriously here at Alcor, but on any
suspension there are many people involved beside Board Members who may
know confidential details. And we have no way of knowing who will be off
the suspension teams in the future, or even who will switch to become
officers and Directors of competing cryonics groups.
So who did it? In this case, the post was made anonymously,
apparently through a blind server. Two of our computer-whiz members have
tried to track back the post but have only found blind alleys.
Dave Cosenza has been accused of this posting, a natural assumption
because of his frequent and aggressive attacks on leaders of CryoCare and
BioPreservation.
[Disclaimer: David Cosenza is not an Alcor officer, staff member, or
Director and does not speak for Alcor. Please do not assume he is such
and do not *treat* him as if he is such in your answers to him.]
However, Dave is usually quite public in putting his own name on his
criticism, and he seems to view himself as a Don Quixote. He's not
particularly the type of person to hide his spear as he heads toward the
windmill. He denies making this anonymous post.
Some have said, "Of course, he denies it. A guilty person always
denies his crime!" Before a lynching mentality gets started, let me also
remind everyone that an accused person also denies committing a crime when
he is *innocent.* That is why law depends on evidence, not guesses, and
why we don't do witch-dunkings anymore (if they survived, they were
witches and could be executed. If they drowned, they were innocent and it
was God's problem.).
On the other hand, I was deeply disappointed with the weakness of
David Cosenza's denial. He stated only:
>As for the insinuation that I (or any of my friends or family) had
>anything to do with the post that started this flamage, all I can say is
>that you'd be better served by answering the substance of issues rather
than always looking for an ad hominem response.
That's "all you can say," David? I would have expected something
more along the lines of "Brian is right; that was a nasty or very stupid
thing to post, but I did not post it." Dave's post was a long way from "I
didn't do it," and even implies that there was some *value* to the
anonymous post. Incredible.
Instead Dave C. accused Brian of not answering the issues. What
issues? Whether private circumstances of suspensions should be discussed?
Whether Brian "dug up" a little girl? He certainly answered THAT "issue"
with facts and details. There were no other "issues" raised.
If David Cosenza did NOT make this anonymous post, I would like to
see him clearly and publicly say so. If he did make it, or if someone
ELSE made it, I would request that person to step from behind his or her
cowardly screen of anonymity and take the responsibility for it.
(I would also like the anonymous "Ragnar", an anti-Alcor poster from
three years ago step forward. Certain CryoCare supporters seemed to think
he was awfully clever and not harmful at all. Alcor team members at the
time, including me, were pretty incensed about it.)
****************************************************************
Now let me talk about some more general issues.
I've been involved in cryonics for more than 19 years. When Mike
Darwin convinced me that this idea was viable way back in 1977, I assumed
that I would meet brilliant people, dedicated to turning the idea into
reality. And I really did meet some. But at least as often I met people
-- brilliant and otherwise -- who were emotionally children, who seemed to
have learned no social behavior which went beyond that of 6th grade boys.
Oh, they wanted to let me know how sophisticated they were, how many
strategies they had to "defeat the enemy" and to "get their rivals." They
told me that this was "adult behavior" and how the business world
operated. If this IS adult behavior, it's a wonder that the human race
has survived as long as it has. This refusal to cooperate and this need
to propagandize mere rivals into "great Satans" may help some *groups*
survive at the expense of others, but they don't do so well for individual
survival.
Guess what? I'm in this for individual survival. Aren't you? Where
do we as individuals gain by trying to destroy other cryonics groups or by
demonizing other individuals? Maybe you get some temporary satisfaction;
and if so, I hope that makes you feel better if you proceed to assist in
the destruction of cryonics at the same time. When you're on your death
bed with no suspension team in existence, it might not feel so good; but
obviously short-term gains are much more important for some of you than
long-term survival is.
And we wonder why so few people become cryonicists? Hell, even some
of the people I know on BOTH sides of these arguments tell me that they
don't think of themselves as cryonicists anymore, that they don't care if
cryonics works, and they don't even care whether they live or die.
What a waste of time most of these arguments are. We should be
concentrating on the progress we are all starting to make. Just after the
Great Schism of 1993, I heard all kinds of dire predictions that Alcor or
CryoCare (depending on who was making the confident statements) would be
totally defunct in two years. Both have survived. Alcor is growing (up
to 383 members as of Friday) and we are getting positive publicity for
cryonics nearly every week. That should take a big jump in October with
the Discovery Channel documentary (probable date is now Sunday evening,
October 20). People are really getting interested in cryonics.
Alcor's technical people are busy working on several new improvements
in transport procedures. BioPreservation has developed several
improvements for use with CryoCare and ACS patients. Many more technical
and medical people are involved in research on the questions we need
answered. At gatherings like the Anti-Aging Conference in Las Vegas, we
are finding more influential people who take us seriously. The future of
cryonics looks better right now than any time in the past five years.
And yet I have spent more time in the past two weeks discussing
aggravations and hatreds than I have technology and finances. This drags
other valuable people on both sides away from their important work.
People threaten lawsuits and the cryonics version of "thermonuclear war."
This is survival mentality? Destroying each other will somehow help
us survive?
Cryonics is a great idea which must succeed if many of us are to
get to the future. Nearly 70 people are already in liquid nitrogen,
people who can't switch to new organizations if we destroy each other.
Hate and nastiness and mutual self-destruction won't keep these patients
frozen, and won't make progress for the rest of us.
In human history there have always been people who tried to make
progress and provocateurs who wanted to create chaos. When chaos-makers
like "" try to get us to destroy each other,
we play into his hands by responding as he wanted. If he is one of those
people who now doesn't care if cryonics works, if he lives or dies, then
*he wins.*
I will be attacked by a few outspoken people in both Alcor and
CryoCare on both sides for this statement. Some people want me to attack
certain Alcor members; others want me to attack CryoCare. Both will sneer
at my desire for fairness, peace, and general progress. I expect that.
For the REST of you, though -- for the hundreds of people who read
these forums and do NOT care about politics and self-destruction and which
cryonicist's ego is bruised this week -- please make your views known. Tell
your cryonics organization what you want them to concentrate on.
Robert Ettinger will always be remembered as the person who gave
birth to cryonics. I hope none of us will be remembered as the person who
strangled it.
Steve Bridge
Stephen Bridge, President ()
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
Non-profit cryonic suspension services since 1972.
7895 E. Acoma Dr., Suite 110, Scottsdale AZ 85260-6916
Phone (602) 922-9013 (800) 367-2228 FAX (602) 922-9027
for general requests
http://www.alcor.org
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