X-Message-Number: 24690 From: "Billy H.Seidel" <> Subject: Ben Best Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 07:40:53 -0800 Good reply Ben. I feel the same way. If we could just put all the infighting energies into better cooperation between all the cryonics groups we would all be better off. Billy H. Seidel Message #24685 From: Subject: To Joe Waynick and others interested Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 02:56:41 US/Eastern Joe, I want you to know how very upset I have felt about the exchange between you and Robert Ettinger on CryoNet during the last few days. I had high hopes of developing a good working relationship with you and my hopes have taken a real beating. Robert Ettinger is correct when he says that he does not speak for CI. I will add that he does not speak for me -- and also add that I am not speaking for CI, but am speaking for myself. I believe that Bob has been incendiary in some of his remarks and has fanned the flames of mutual recrimination. Sadly, I have seen you get caught-up in this mutual recrimination. It is sad because I very much want for good relations between us. Although I am President of the Cryonics Institute, I despise organizational partisanship in cryonics. I am sick and tired of the way cryonicists have exhausted their energies fighting each other -- when those energies are so preciously needed to further cryonics and our mutual survival. There was a spirit of good will & cooperation during the CryoSummit which failed to take root, to my regret. Despite years of conflict and incidents involving the locking of horns, I am pleased to say that there are few cryonicists in any organization that I feel much hostility towards. I like to think that I have warm & friendly relations with most -- if not all -- of the people I know at Alcor. I can't think of any of the Alcor staff for whom I feel any dislike. Robert Ettinger made a statement which I wholeheartedly support. Namely, the invitation for you to state specific modifications you would like to see made to text in the CI website. I have written very little of the text on the CI website. I have seen things I dislike. I dislike the concept of a comparisons page. Even if there was provocation behind its production, I think it fosters mutual recrimination. In my first year as President I have not made it a priority to attempt to re-write CI web pages (with a couple of exceptions). I think that my time is better spent trying to improve CI operations and patient care -- and I am disinclined to take actions which might instigate counter-productive infighting. But if there are specific passages which you find particularly offensive I will see what I can do to rectify the situation -- assuming this will not swamp my time or produce too much internal conflict at CI. My time & energy is limited and I seem to be engaged in on-going triage. I have personally written almost everything on my own website (http://www.benbest.com/) and am interested in your comment that some of the pages "heavily promote the CI perspective of cryonics" -- with the implication that this means an anti-Alcor persepective. I can't believe that I express such a thing on my website. I mean no irony or sarcasm when I request that you give me a specific reference to the text you refer to. If nothing else, at least tell me the links. I admit that I have spent very little time on the Alcor website. Again, it has been a goal of mine to improve relations between the cryonics organizations and it genuinely upsets me to see this bitterness and conflict. I am above all a cryonicist rather than a partisan. I cannot purge every grain of competitiveness from my nature, but seeing this fighting increases my resolve to increase my efforts. -- Ben Best Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=24690