X-Message-Number: 1905
Date: 06 Mar 93 03:02:51 EST
From: Paul Wakfer <>
Subject: CRYONICS The Psychology of Cryonet

From: Mike Darwin
To: Michael riskin, All
Re: The Psychology of Cryonet
Date 5 March, 1993

     Saul Kent never calls Cryonet anything but "Psychonet" because he 
believes it is an interesting tool to trap and disclose psychopathologies 
in some (maybe all) of its participants.  I am beginning to think Saul is 
right.

     Michael Riskin has ranted and raved at Clarissa Wells, oozing venom 
and frustration at every turn.  He has also asked me to comment on this 
matter and in particular he has asked my opinion about Ralph Whelan's 
behavior as contrasted with Ms. Wells'.  On this latter topic I shall 
remain silent as I think it will serve no purpose.  On the former one, I 
have much to say.  I will start with the very straightforward points and 
save the less mundane ones for last.

     1) First, there is the broad issue of academic freedom, courage of 
one's convictions, and so on.  In many ways that aspect of Michael's 
posting reminds me of something I would have written not that many years 
ago myself.  Time has softened me, and in this case I think with good 
reason.

     Someone who is new to cryonics and who is investigating it has no 
vested interest in proclaiming to the world their interest and furthermore 
no responsibility to do so either.  I, and I am sure EVERYONE else out 
there have undertaken to look into things that I THOUGHT might be kooky 
and was not about to tell anyone else about my interest in them until I 
had checked them out first.  We live in a world where wearing your every 
thought or interest on your sleeve can carry a very high price.  That 
isn't fair, but it is a reality.  I prefer to save my battles for academic 
freedom, truth, justice, and the American Way for things I really care 
about.  And I do not propose to tell everyone all my interests, 
particularly not people WHO CAN EFFORTLESSLY HURT ME.  This ability is not 
unique to humans.  I keep birds.  And my chickens and other birds are just 
as petty, peckish and territorial as humans.  However, since they don't 
have Universities they are generally less sophisticated about it.

     To summarize, you are asking someone who knows next to nothing about 
cryonics to be subject to possible persecution for something THE 
INDIVIDUAL HERSELF MAY ULTIMATELY CONCLUDE IS KOOKY.  Incidentally, I 
thought cryonics was a crock when I first heard about it, thought the 
people involved must be crazy, and only later decided otherwise.  Recently 
I've been reconsidering...

     2) And the persecution is real.  You, me, and everyone else have 
seized on others' peculiar interests and teased them at one time or 
another.  With cryonics it is no laughing matter.  I have personally known 
professional scientists who have spent their entire life preparing to work 
in cryobiology be threatened with loss of their job, their grants, and 
their tenure.  I have myself had sound papers rejected from reputable 
journals because I am a cryonicist.  This hurts very badly, no matter what 
I may say to the contrary at the time.

     When a young medical student, graduate student, etc., talks to me 
about interest in cryonics I ALWAYS caution them and counsel them to be 
careful and to weigh the academic consequences of disclosing even their 
interest, let alone their commitment.  Furthermore, I have gone so far as 
to *strongly and sternly warn some young men who were about to make such 
disclosures not to do so.*  Several of them have later thanked me for 
saving their academic careers.  Is this fair?  No.  Is it disgusting and 
outrageous that such a situation should exist?  Yes.  Will these 
individuals ruining their careers change it?  Not very much, probably not 
at all.

     3)  Now on to more practical matters.  The brutal fact is that much 
of what we know about cryoinjury and much of what we are doing to protect 
against it has come from people who are TERRIFIED that they might be 
exposed as cryonicists.  An individual or two is already known in the 
cryonics community of having this fear, and with good reason.  I can tell 
you that there are others, known perhaps only to me and one or two other 
cryonicists who are equally concerned, and yet who have given generously 
of their intellectual capital.  Michael, I am willing to bet that you are 
in no way willing to forgo the major advances these minds have contributed 
from their "cowardly" presence in academia; an academia which has financed 
their work and made those advances possible.

     4)  Few moral systems claim you are obligated to tell a thief where 
the rest of your money is hidden after he has already taken your wallet.  
Similarly, few moral systems call out for people to be honest with 
terrorists about how they can hurt you more.  Well, what goes on in 
academia is terrorism and it is being fought in more ways than by standing 
up in China so a tank can run you down.  One clever guerrilla fighter has 
gotten the Academic Terrorists to underwrite a multi-million dollar organ 
cryopreservation program from which we have profited enormously.  What 
would the cryonics community have given him over the last 20 years?  I can 
answer that question and the answer isn't pretty.  More to the point, what 
will the cryonics community give him and cryonics research in general over 
the NEXT 20 years?

     5) So, Clarissa Wells doesn't want to tell her colleagues that she's 
interested in cryonics yet.  Big deal.  As moral lapses go that is an 
infinitesimal one.  What I find interesting is that you psychoanalyze all 
the key players in the cryonics community whom you know well ticking off a 
laundry list of psychopathologies, personal failings, and antisocial 
behavior, dismiss it all with the wave of a hand: "but after all these are 
such GREAT guys..." and then go on to bitterly accuse Clarissa Wells *who 
you do not know* of everything short of car bombing.  Further, you suggest 
that anyone who agrees with her is also psychologically unfit.  I find 
this very frightening and repugnant.  You don't know Ms. Wells, you've 
(presumably) never met her.  And you certainly don't know her well enough 
from her postings to claim she is "incapable of intimacy" or "was 
traumatized as a child..."  Good heavens Michael, that's down right 
embarrassing stuff to read!  And the embarrassment is not for Ms. Wells!  
And I am not alone in thinking this, half a dozen other people have 
commented similarly.

     6)  Steve Harris makes the point that pseudononymous writing has many 
useful functions.  This indeed has been the case here.  Whether or not 
Clarissa Wells is a real person with that name on her Birth Certificate 
she has acted as a powerful disclosing agent teaching me more about the 
psychology of people I thought I knew than I ever imagined possible.  Saul 
Kent likens the whole episode to having the opportunity of playing Poker 
with people you thought you knew well.  How right he is.  Clarissa Wells 
has taught me a great deal about psychology, but in this case mostly not 
about hers.  If Clarissa Wells did not exist, I would loved to have 
invented her.  

     7)  I have received two or three messages from Ms. Wells, only one of 
which I have responded to privately (the most recent one which came day 
before yesterday).  In her last posting to me she expressed great warmth 
and concern for my safety (LN2 experiment) and then went on to ask several 
probing, highly intelligent questions which should make you as a 
psychologist (Michael Riskin) green with envy.  If she has been asking 
others those kinds of questions, and getting answers to them, it is no 
wonder her insights are as good as they are.  This makes me believe that 
Clarissa Wells may just be a newcomer of top-caliber, whether that is her 
"real" name or not.

     8) Finally, a bit of history about my own name.  I was born Michael 
Federowicz.  I chose to use Michael Darwin for many reasons, not the least 
of which is that I would have lost my in-hospital job as an ICU dialysis 
tech if my involvement in cryonics had become an issue.  Indeed, this was 
an issue with the hospital where I worked and that is how we both agreed 
would be a good way to solve it.  I also kept a low profile vis a vis the 
visual media and agreed never to discuss cryonics with my patients almost 
all of whom were dying.

     I think this was a good bargain and I am not ashamed of it.   I 
learned an enormous amount which I consistently translated into good care 
for cryonics patients.  I think I am just about the best around and it is 
in no small measure because of my use of a pseudonym and my "cowardice."

     And despite this great moral lapse I assure you I was not molested as 
a child or beaten or abused by my parents (though I certainly had my share 
of hits from cohorts in High School).  As far as I know intimacy is not a 
problem for me, but my lover of 6 years would probably be a more credible 
spokesman on that issue than me.  I guess that means that I am in that 
dreary minority of people who have no one to blame their shortcoming and 
troubles on but themselves.  Sometimes I feel like I am the ONLY person in 
the United States who WASN'T beaten or molested as a child.  This is not 
to minimize the pain, suffering, or long-term trauma of those who were so 
horribly mistreated as youngsters.  I have had enough serious trauma and 
abuse as an adult to be fully conversant with how things can hurt and go 
on hurting in ways hard to believe...

     Finally, Finally, Michael I find you a very charming man who often 
has wonderful insights.  It troubles me to see you operate in such an 
unprofessional way.

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