X-Message-Number: 26840
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 08:35:57 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: anonymous & pseudonymous Cryonet msgs

For Stodolsky and his opposition too:

Particularly in science, my personal experience suggests that opposition
exists to some kinds of anonymity. You do well to actually raise the
problem, however. At least in the case of postings on Cryonet, it's
not obvious what anyone gains if someone makes a posting with a
pseudonym. Whether or not anonymity should be allowed needs to be
thought out much more carefully, and certainly depends on the circumstances
of a message or an act.

In science again, there are a few journals in which the articles do get
refereed, but the referees also submit their valuation of the article
for publication with it. (I would presume that if no referee saw any
value at all in an article, neither their opinions nor the article would
be printed --- though the reasons why they saw no value become very
important. In the days of Ptolemaic astronomy, Copernicus might well 
have totally failed to publish his ideas, and Galileo would suffer the
same fate).

It might be best to hope for a society in which major journals did 
restrict what they published, but there were also plenty of other journals
willing to print virtually anything, anonymous, pseudonymed, or not. 
Usually someone with ideas which basically conflict with those currently
believed would at least have a voice; and if his/her arguments turned out
strong enough, that voice would seep out and eventually show up in 
the major strongly refereed journals. Even in neuroscience (which I
read a lot of for PERIASTRON and the importance of memory and conscious-
ness to cryonics) the notion that adult brains grow new neurons began
with a few papers in the early 60's, denigrated by almost everyone.
It's now (2005) widely accepted. 

And incidentally, this problem shows one way simple immortality may 
change us a lot: people can often die before their ideas get accepted,
or get tired and old and stop advocating them. A society of immortal
people might at least come to recognize the person who first saw
something important, even if it takes them 100 years to do so.

As for Cryonet, I personally would say that it should continue to 
accept anonymous or pseudonymous submissions, so long as their authors
don't offend too many readers. Even offending some readers should
be OK; not everyone knows how to express themselves gently.

           Best wishes and long long life for all,

                  Thomas Donaldson

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