X-Message-Number: 2528 From: Subject: CRYONICS Freedom Of Discussion Date: Mon, 10 Jan 94 01:12:14 PST To Cryonet >From Steve Bridge, Alcor January 7, 1994 In response to Message: #2515 - Infighting & other issues Date: Thu, 6 Jan 1994 12:41:35 MST From: "Richard Schroeppel" <> [I originally sent this message two days ago, but it never got to its destination. Steve] < I don't follow the .POLITICS subgroup, but I felt the news < of the impending Alcor split was not properly played up in < the main group. < < I don't have the information, but it would be nice for < some neutral insider :-) to do an analysis of the "real" < reasons for the current disorganization. One thing that cryonics has lacked for many years is neutral journalism. Now before Mike Darwin or Ralph Whelan or someone else jumps on me, I don't mean that the writers have not TRIED to be careful and neutral. It's just not really possible. If you care enough to get involved in cryonics at all, and especially to get inside the stories, neutrality cannot be held forever. The personalities, the philosophical arguments, the commitment to staying alive, the very nature of the cryonics idea itself -- all of these DEMAND a response. Those writers who do not respond also do not stay around cryonics. <Freedom of Discussion (Flamebait): > The Cryonics insiders exhibit a regrettable tendency to try > to stifle discussion of alternative preservation methods. > Mike Darwin's recent response to Skrecky's article is more > restrained, but the intent is clear: After a reasoned > discussion of what he thinks is wrong with Skrecky's > proposal, Darwin proposes he should shut up, and that anyone > publishing his stuff is irresponsible. You must have missed some of Mike's points, Rich. Mike said that publishing a piece that like **without commentary or without having technical people look at it first** was irresponsible. He is absolutely correct. His criticism in that regard was toward Ben Best (and neither Mike nor I have any personal animosity at all toward Ben) for publishing it as if it were a factual article rather than brainstorming that needed to be examined critically. Skrecky's article was nonsense, and fairly obvious nonsense to anyone who looked at it carefully. (For instance, anhydrous sucrose isn't a solution, it is pure crystal sugar. It cannot be pumped.) By itself that is no problem. I have had my own share of ideas that turned out to be nonsense, and so has Mike Darwin. But we usually run those ideas past knowledgeable people first, which eliminates the worst silliness. Doug Skrecky, or at least Ben Best, should have done the same. Over the years, Mike and I (as original editors of Cryonics Magazine) have seen suggestions that patients be preserved in amber or perfused with honey (because of its "life-extending" qualities), and I'm sure I've missed a lot sillier ideas while Mike and Hugh Hixon were editors. We didn't publish these articles because they weren't well thought out and had no validity we could find. The other thing that was irritating about Mr. Skrecky's article -- and this has a lot in common with nonsense from many writers -- is that the tone of the writer appears to assume that he has discovered something obvious and that the rest of us have been foolishly wasting our time over the last decades. If Mr. Skrecky had merely changed the tone to -- "I've been doing some reading on sucrose and here's what I found out. What does anyone else think about this?" -- several people could simply have pointed out his errors and sent him back to do more reading. That happens all the time here on Cryonet. But a "you foolish children" attitude tends to foster the same reaction right back. And far from discouraging discussion of alternative preservation methods, Mike gave several ideas for research in those methods. Mike is not particularly confident in the ability of cryopreservation to save our identities and would very much LIKE to see new ideas. But this is different from turning humans into large M&M's, which comes under the heading of idle speculation. < Mike, is there some < forum where we can discuss our ideas without offending you, < or wasting your valuable time responding to our claptrap? < Perhaps Kevin could set up another mailing list, for < ideas-not-approved-by-Mike-Darwin-and-Tom-Donaldson? All of these people went through a period where they didn't know enough and had their ideas shot down. (Ask Brian Wowk to tell you some of his experiences with having HIS ideas criticized when he started.) But they have persisted and learned and now their ideas carry more weight. They are more careful about their ideas now; although they still make mistakes (Both Mike and Brian were rounded scolded for comparatively major mistakes in the cold-room discussion last year). But they don't react angrily to criticism of their ideas. They re-examine their words, and either defend them with better thought or go, "Oops!", apologize, and go on. This is the world of science. Any new ideas forum that would not expose those ideas to the cranky but knowledgeable wouldn't accomplish much. Steve Bridge Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2528