X-Message-Number: 6455
From:  (Andre Robatino)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: Pledging To The Promethius Project
Date: 6 Jul 1996 20:46:31 GMT
Message-ID: <4rmjb7$>
References: <4rj6k2$>

Kent, Saul () wrote:
:     ---- CryoNet Message Auto-Forwarded by <> ----

: Date: 04 Jul 96 11:44:27 EDT
: From: "Kent, Saul" <>
: Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Pledging To The Promethius Project

: 	The announcement that more than $100,000 a year over a 10-year
: period has been solicited from a small group of cryonicists for The
: Promethius Project is, I believe, a great event in the history of
: cryonics. I have been a longtime advocate of cryonics research and 
: have invested substantial amounts of money in it for many years.
: 	

  If we don't reach 1M/year, it might be worthwhile to consider something
similar concerning the Web Enhancement Project of the Foresight Institute
(see the associated links at http://www.foresight.org).  It's stated that
the first version could be produced on a budget of $100,000, which we have
already exceeded.  If widely implemented, backlinks would greatly improve
the standards of discourse on the Web on subjects like cryonics and nanotech,
making it far easier to convince a large number of people that such fields
are worth investing in.  I believe that this would be an even more worthy
cause than the Promethius Project, in terms of benefit per dollar.
  The online debate between Scientific American and the Foresight Institute
concerning the highly biased nanotech article in the April issue (see
http://www.foresight.com for an overview, and http://www.sciam.com/WEB/
exhibit/052796exhibit.html for SciAm's new stance on the subject following the
debate, together with a link to the original article) shows that online debate
can overcome incredible amounts of inertia and bias.  Though SciAm apparently
considers this incident deeply embarrassing, and has made the new article
hard to find on its Web site, meaning that most of those not aware of the
debate will stay that way, unless and until SciAm publishes something in its
paper version.  It will be interesting to see what they're willing to do in
this regard.  If the original article had been published on the Web, and
backlinks were available, everyone would know.  It would be nice if backlinks
are available in a few years, when some other highly-regarded online source
treats cryonics in the same way.  This may well be the turning point in
public opinion, even before major new breakthroughs in the field itself.
  BTW, cryonics was a tangential subject of ridicule in the original SciAm
article, though not dealt with in the rebuttal due to its being off-topic.

--
  My opinions are not necessarily those of my employer.


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