CryoNet #33209 - #33213

CryoNet - Wed 12 Jan 2011

    #33209: Re: Urgent: Attention Cryonicists [Jonathan Hinek]
    #33210: Re: Darwin's Manifesto [un person]
    #33211: Re: Darwin's "Urgent" message on CryoNet [benbest]
    #33212: Darwin document format, and motivation [Charles in Arizona]
    #33213: The link did not work [marta sandberg]

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Message #33209
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 10:02:21 -0500
Subject: Re: Urgent: Attention Cryonicists
From: Jonathan Hinek <[email protected]>

In response to Message #33208, Tue, 11 Jan 2011 04:04:01 EST:

>From a file posted by Mike Darwin:

"A Nest of Vipers

"The malice, venom and obvious contempt with which cryonics is
attacked on Melody's Maxim's blog 'Cryonics Meets Medicine'
(http://cryomedical.blogspot.com/), Richie Arnold's 'Cryonics
Factsheet' (http://www.cryonicsfactsheet.co.uk/ ), on the pages of the
Cult Education Forum
(http://forum.rickross.com/read.php?12,64749,page=76) or on Cold
Filter, is not only unacceptable, it is intolerable. It might be
understandable, if not excusable, if there were even the flimsiest
factual basis for most of these attacks."
--

While I agree with many things Darwin has had to say, I have to go on
record stating that I don't think Cold Filter deserves to be singled
out with these other sites. Cold Filter is a forum of diverse opinion,
yes, one that has often gotten out of hand, but it is not an
anti-cryonics establishment. In fact, places like the anti-cryonics
Cult Education Forum are frequently criticized by the people who
frequent Cold Filter.

Another name mentioned by Darwin, Melody Maxim, is someone who no
longer posts on Cold Filter, because she doesn't want to be moderated
by me. I only mention that to further differentiate us from her site,
and other sites Darwin mentions. I'm not familiar with the cryonics
factsheet, or Richie Arnold, and the link isn't working for me
currently.

In the past, we have had posters who I felt crossed the line with
frequent personal attacks on Cold Filter, but those have been
curtailed, especially in recent months. There has been an effort to
see that they do not return. My effort to moderate ad hominems has
earned me criticism from some of Cold Filter's users, it has even
earned me harassment and threats from one user in particular. However,
most of the users at Cold Filter appear to appreciate the change. Most
of the people who frequent Cold Filter were not interested in
exchanging insults to begin with. Most readers there are truly
interested in cryonics.

Hopefully any other cryonicists who have gained even a modicum of
value from the Cold Filter forum can agree with me when I say it is
not deserving of any anti-cryonics stigma. It may, however, be
imperfect, because of an imperfect moderator (myself) wrestling with
the occasional onslaught of cryo critics or unruly posters. But I have
to add that there has been a great deal of improvement as of late. We
have a handful of very loyal pro-cryonics contributors who have done a
great job of being sure that the facts are out there. And I think it
is important that they continue to have these conversations in open
dialogues, for all to see.

Jonathan Hinek
CF Moderator

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Message #33210
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 07:12:47 -0800 (PST)
From: un person <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Darwin's Manifesto

Mike Darwin wrote:
"The malice, venom and obvious contempt with which cryonics is attacked on [various websites] is not only unacceptable, it is intolerable. "



Well, they certainly have attacked cryonics on those sites.  But IMO those sites do not amount to a hill of beans. It will have no effect on cryonics. Just let it roll off your back.


Mike Darwin wrote:

"Of course, the problem arises of how to separate the truth from the lies. This is not easy to do for people who have little or no knowledge of cryonics, medicine, or its related or supporting disciplines. The only solution for issues of that kind, for technical issues, is education; and that burden vis-A -vis cryonics, lies squarely and justly on our shoulders as cryonicists. And I will add that it is not merely a burden, but a responsibility - and one that we have not discharged well over the past decade or so. That deficiency can and will be remedied. 
    A more difficult task is the frank and open discussion of the social, ethical and moral implications of cryonics and its supporting technologies. "



Who cares? This sort of discussion, even on national TV, is not going to change many minds. This is a rational discussion. 99.9 percent of Americans are not going to decide anything about cryonics on a rational, conscious level. That is not how homo sapiens is constructed.


Mike Darwin wrote:
"Much worse still is the poor behavior of people like Mark Plus and Luke Parrish (both of whom I greatly respect), who start blogs, end them, start new blogs and end them again, ad infinitum. This is not a sane strategy for cryonics advocacy, and in fact, it damages cryonics by fragmenting information and discouraging others from doing a high quality and consistent job of educating the global public."




No, it don't. Cryonics, the very idea of it, just bounces off of the heads of 99.9 percent of humanity, whether or not Mark Plus is on his 144th blog or not. And get this--the words that come out of the mouths of people when you talk to them about cryonics are usually meaningless. What they say has nothing to do with how they feel about cryonics. And it is not done consciously.



Mike Darwin wrote:
"Manufacturing Mavericks But to be fair, other credible and energetic young spokesmen for cryonics don't exist because they have yet to be made - and they are made, not born. As Alcor became increasingly empowered, and as cryonics grew, bright young men began to show up on our doorstep - often unannounced. ... Thus, if cryonics is to be free of some of the misery it is currently experiencing, and if it is to have a future, then a conscious decision must be made to exercise judgment about which people, young and old who exist out there in this world of 6+ billion people, are worth effort - and then to give them everything we've got. "




Nice sentiment. But you are molding them in YOUR image, with YOUR ideas, with YOUR strategies. The same strategies that have yielded a grand total of 1000 members in 40 years.
You want to recreate YOUR failure in THEM!



Mike Darwin wrote:
The Problem of the World Wide Web
"Why are these salacious allegations about cryonicists of such profound interest to a group of non-cryonicists who clearly spend considerable amounts of their time and energy attacking cryonics, often stupidly and baselessly?" 




I imagine it has something to do with L'Affaire Ted Williams. And then throw in terror management theory. We threaten the "death room" that these people have constructed. We threaten their psychological defenses against death. My theory on it, anyways....


Mike Darwin wrote:
"We should not hire people who are almost complete strangers to us, let alone promote people who are not cryonicists to positions with authority, or access to sensitive information. This seems such a commonsense point that one has to be either an idiot or a fool not to recognize it.....A recitation of the full list of sociopaths and gross incompetents who have been rapidly empowered in cryonics, at great cost in lives and money, would be equal to or greater in length than this already lengthily essay."




Agreed. And why are cryonicists so bad at hiring people? Because we are not people persons. We do not read other people well. Cryos spent most of their childhood with their noses in a book. That was how we developed this unusual sense of objectivity, all the better to apply logic to the idea of cryonics, my dear. But in doing so, we gave up a lot, e.g., the ability to read people. Know your weaknesses.



Mike Darwin wrote:

"I have spent a considerable amount of time, especially in recent years, going to and fro over the earth; I have seen the great garbage patch in the Pacific - a sterile void of petrochemical end products the size of the state of Texas, and spent days in the Central American jungles whilst ash falls down like rain, day and night, without stopping. I have walked up and down in the earth through the abandoned thermonuclear infrastructure of the previous century and the emerging subterranean earthworks being built to rid the planet of vertebrate life in the event of "total war' in this century."




But have you watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate?


Mike Darwin wrote:
"Alternative Mechanisms
 An institutional model that would have arguably been a better fit for cryonics is that of the egalitarian, but nevertheless quite powerful "secret' fraternal organizations, of which the Free Masons is the prototype. "




Or a church?



Mike Darwin wrote:
"The attacks that have recently begun on cryonics (and the underlying reasons for them) must be dealt with, and dealt with starting now. 
....Indeed, nourishing them with our own blood and treasure. If you post to ...[these websites] or any of the other hateful and destructive anti-cryonics sites, you should understand that you are directly feeding their bloodlust....
The message here is as simple as it is succinct. STOP POSTING TO THESE SITES and STOP ALL INTERACTION WITH THOSE WHO POST TO THEM, OR IN ANY WAY AID OR ABET THEM. "




Again, tempest in a teapot. Hill of beans, etc. It really doesn't matter much what they say. Here is a far bigger problem: Our ideas have been almost wholly rejected by 99.9 percent of society. And then throw in the fact that we cryos even refuse to acknowledge this and seek other strategies. We are in big trouble, but the these websites you cite have nothing to do with it.

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Message #33211
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 15:33:45 -0500
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Darwin's "Urgent" message on CryoNet

I want voice my support for Cold Filter moderator
Jonathan Hinek: http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/
I think that Mike Darwin was unfair and wrong
to identify Cold Filter as the source of the recent spate
of anti-cryonics venom. The cryonics thread of the
"Cult Education Forum" was started by Larry Johnson,
and is mostly maintained by the anti-cryonicists
"The AntiCult" and "Richiekgb" (Richie Arnold).

Richie Arnold, who is a cook in a North London pub
called "The Assembly House"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8194854.stm

http://bit.ly/hI8FOz

deserves the greatest "credit" for the
current spate of anti-cryonics invective. He is an
individual who has contempt for intellectual, scientific,
or "academic" exchange, preferring to operate on the
"emotional level" (as he describes it) which in
practice means finding and fabricating material for
character assassination and personal attack. Richie
hated cryonics from the get-go, which for Richie,
meant the desire to express his hatred on a personal
level:  http://bit.ly/ha7Qn5 . Richie was in no way
influenced to begin his hate campaign by Cold Filter.
It would have happened if Cold Filter had never existed.
Mike Darwin's claim that the attackers are justifying
their attacks by a desire to improve cryonics may
apply to Larry Johnson and Melody Maxim, but it most
certainly does not apply to Richie Arnold. Richie
makes no bones about his desire to harm cryonics
as much as he can, and in whatever way that he can.

Once again, I appreciate the efforts of Jonathan Hinek
in creating and maintaining Cold Filter. I hold
him blameless and give him credit for creating that forum
for open dialog. I am glad to see that Cold Filter is
currently no longer a place filled with "flaming" and
personal invective -- and I don't blame him for the fact
that this happened so much in the past. Open communication
means freedom to do harm as well as freedom to do good.

-- Ben Best

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Message #33212
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:31:20 -0700
Subject: Darwin document format, and motivation
From: Charles in Arizona <[email protected]>

Memo to Mike Darwin: Not everyone can read a document in .docx format
(which you used for your "manifesto"). For wider distribution it might
be a good idea to use your "Save As" option to save in plain old .doc
format or even .rtf, or export as a .pdf, which is what you did the
last time.. Personally I am reluctant to buy a newer version of Word,
or alternatively to download and install free software such as
OpenOffice, just to open a .docx file.

You should also be aware that somewhere between your generation of a
URL and CryoNet's rendering of it, it becomes munged to the point
where a careful cut-and-paste is required. Possibly this is because
your long URL exceeds the CryoNet line length limit. You might use a
service such as bit.ly to reduce the URL in length. See

www.bit.ly

for instructions.

As for the excerpts that I have seen other people quote, from the
document itself: Two years ago, when Cold Filter was far more
problematic, I recall you opining that resistance was futile. You made
a couple of long posts to Ms. Maxim, I think, and then disappeared.
Now, apparently, you have changed your mind. Some explanation for this
would be useful.

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=33212

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Message #33213
From: marta sandberg <[email protected]>
Subject: The link did not work
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:15:02 +0800

--_30292c15-b844-4446-94d8-d617f9455b7c_


 
Hi Mike,
 
The link did not work
 
- - - - 
 
Over the past two years cryonics has come under attack in a way that is 
unprecedented in its 47 year history. The time has now come for this to be 
stopped. I urge you to download the document you will find here 
 
 
_https://www.yousendit.com/dl?phi_action=app/
orchestrateDownload&rurl=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.yousendit.com%252Ftransfer.php%253Faction%253Dbatch_downlo
ad%2526batch_id%253DRlRvZUNnQ3RmVFkwTVE9PQ_ 
(https://www.yousendit.com/dl?phi_action=app/orchestrateDownload&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yousendit.com%2Ftran
sfer.php%3Faction%3Dbatch_download%26batch_id%3DRlRvZUNnQ3RmVFkwTVE9PQ) 
 
and to read it and to disseminate it as widely as possible on the 
appropriate Internet and intra-organizational venues. More specific information on 
how you can help with this effort will be forthcoming shortly.
 
Mike Darwin
 		 	   		  
--_30292c15-b844-4446-94d8-d617f9455b7c_

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