CryoNet #33500 - #33511

CryoNet - Thu 17 Mar 2011

    #33500: Reply to Mike Darwin & Melody Maxim [Chris Manning]
    #33501: Re: A Wave of New Cryonets [Luke Parrish]
    #33502: Response to Chris Manning: Dragon Naturally Speaking [M2darwin]
    #33503: Reply to Chris Manning: CI & Change [M2darwin]
    #33504: Who Is To Blame? And the answer is... [M2darwin]
    #33505: Cold Filter: For the record... [Jonathan Hinek]
    #33506: to future cryonet readers [un person]
    #33507: The Russiansare Coming! [M2darwin]
    #33508: Cryonet Closing [Mike Perry]
    #33509: Re: The Russians are Coming! [Finance Department]
    #33510: more on the future [un person]
    #33511: Thanks [Kevin Q. Brown]

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Message #33500
From: "Chris Manning" <[email protected]>
Subject: Reply to Mike Darwin & Melody Maxim
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 22:56:41 +1100

Thank you Kevin Q. Brown for hosting this group. I will join the new group being set up by John de Rivaz.

Mike Darwin wrote:

'Attempting to make  meaningful technical change at CI is a frustrating, micro-incremental, and  mostly unrewarding process. Most suggestions are met with the ripostes that they  are "unaffordable, impractical, or unnecessary."'

I then quoted a suggestion I made to the CI group (concerning the way CI measures the LN2 levels in the cryostats) and the reply I received from Andy Zawacki. Mike then posted a long discussion about different methods of measuring fluid levels.

Mike seemed to be claiming that there is a culture of resistance to change/improvement at CI. My comments were intended merely as an example of how CI responded to a suggestion from me. This example did not make it seem to me that such a culture exists at CI. Mike does however make some good points about measurement of LN2 levels. I will take the liberty of forwarding them to Andy (he won't be able to read them here), although I daresay he is already aware of them. BTW in my experience, a culture of resistance to change or improvement is found in many organisations.

I wrote:

I do read every CI case report, with the same  layman's approach as described above for reading the posts made here. I  would not describe them as 'nightmarish', I certainly would care if I  thought they were, and I don't get the impression that they make a 'mess' of  members' care.
 
Mike replied:

'Notably, you don't ask for chapter and verse as to why I believe otherwise. Sigh. That's probably just as well.'

It occurred to me after I posted the above, that I ought to have asked you to explain what you meant. You could of course have provided an explanation without waiting to be asked for it by me.

I wrote:

I am intrigued by the fact  that Mr Darwin has the *time* to post these many long emails. I assume he  would say that the time spent composing them is justified by the importance  of setting the record straight (as he would see it). 

Mike replied:

'Wow, this  is a weird statement. Information processing and communications technology are  advancing at a rate that simply blows me away - and I'm not easily impressed. If  medicine were progressing at 1/10th, or maybe even 1/100th the rate that is  being sustained in these areas, we'd all be immortal already. You might as well  have asked me how I manage to find the *time* to post so much, given that using a hammer and chisel to carve my words into stone takes so long. And that's a  good place to end this post, because it returns us to where we started out: the  intelligent use of technology to improve the utilization of the most valuable  resource in the world: human intelligence and productive creativity.'

I don't know what is 'weird' about it. I believe your recent posts must have taken a long time to type. As far as I know, George Orwell's 'speak-write' hasn't been invented yet, so I believe you would have used some sort of keyboard to type your emails. Possibly you are a fast typist.

On a more personal note, Mike Darwin wrote:

'Furthermore, in looking over the study materials, I doubted I could handle the math exercises - the same reason why I gave up any consideration of pursuing  an undergraduate degree in biology, with the objective of getting a doctorate, and doing research.'

It appears that we are in a sense opposites. I have a degree in mathematics but failed Biology I.

Melody wrote:

'In response, Chris Manning wrote: "I do read every CI case report, with the same layman's approach as described above for reading the posts made here. I would not describe them as 'nightmarish', I certainly would care if I thought they were, and I don't get the impression that they make a 'mess' of members' care."

What Mr. Darwin refers to as "Ben Best's nightmarish CI case reports," are a lot more "honest" than those of Alcor, or SA, in my opinion. CI's reports are, for the most part, much more simplistic than Alcor's or SA's reports, and here's a layman saying he doesn't see the "messes" Mike Darwin claims are "glaringly obvious" in the more simple CI reports? Did Mr. Manning read SA's case report, 
for the Curtis Henderson case?' [remainder snipped]

I am not clear whether you are saying that I should, or should not, notice anything 'nightmarish' about the CI case reports. It is of course possible that I fail to see things which anyone with medical training would see. What I can say that I don't notice any obvious signs of carelessness or incompetence in these reports, such as we occasionally read about in the media. I mean things like objects being left inside patients who have undergone surgery.

I have never read any SA report. I have not bothered to do so simply because as an Australian I am not in a position to use its services.

Regarding the question of whether someone is, or is entitled to be called, a 'surgeon' I would humbly (being a layman) suggest that it might depend on the meaning of the word. My Macquarie Dictionary (of Australian English, which is probably close enough to US English for the present purpose) defines 'surgeon' as:

1. one who treats injuries, deformities, and diseases by manual operation or instrumental appliances.

2. a medical practitioner or physician qualified to practise surgery.

In other words, the word can be used to apply to someone who is *qualified* to practise surgery, or to someone who merely practises it. 


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Message #33501
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 08:49:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: Luke Parrish <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: A Wave of New Cryonets

Before we spark off a wave of New Cryonets, maybe we should
agree on which ones are worthy of attention:

1. Easy to use. This one sucks in that I have to carefully
hard-wrap my email text before posting otherwise it comes out
hard to read. Also it's a pain to quote people because most
email software does it wrong.

2. Moderated. By this I mean there are mechanisms to prevent
trolling/flamewars, and encourage people to think twice before
posting nonsense. One simple way to do this is to have users
themselves award points or Karma for posts and comments they
like.

3. Clean. It's not that hard to set up a clean, ad-free forum
or blog with it's own URL. Cheap/free solutions like network54
and yahoo groups are out of date and are the equivalent of
wearing jeans and a t-shirt where you should be wearing a tux.

4. Editable. People need to be able to edit or delete their
posts after posting. This is the internet, where inhibitions
are lower and your future boss is going to be googling you.

5. Promoted. Cryonics needs to be promoted. We need to reaching
out to new users, especially those with medical and
experimental science degrees who can boost its credibility and
enhance its focus on improvement. There are millions of people
out there with unanswered questions about cryonics which they
simply never thought to ask.

I think whomever is considering being the new ringleader should
ask themselves if they are prepared to invest a few hundred
dollars in designing a robust, high-quality replacement system.
A few ads or donation buttons that actually benefit the site
owner and motivate them to improve the interface (or cover the
cost of hiring someone to do so) aren't a bad thing and don't
reflect badly on the community -- ads that benefit the free
hosting provider are, because they signal that we are just
playing around here.

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Message #33502
From: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 16:30:47 EDT
Subject: Response to Chris Manning: Dragon Naturally Speaking

Content-Language: en

 
Chris, 
Thanks  for your thoughtful reply and for asking questions. I'm going to go 
at answering  them in a different order than you asked them for logistical 
reasons that I hope  will soon become apparent. This is also necessary due 
to the message length  constraints on Cryonet. 
Chris wrote: 
I am intrigued by the fact that Mr. Darwin has the *time* to post  these 
many long emails. I assume he would say that the time spent composing them  is 
justified by the importance of setting the record straight (as he would see 
 it).  
Mike replied: 
'Wow, this is a weird statement. Information processing and  communications 
technology are advancing at a rate that simply blows me away -  and I'm not 
easily impressed. If medicine were progressing at 1/10th or maybe  even 
1/100th the rate that is being sustained in these areas, we'd  all be immortal 
already. You might as well  have asked me how I manage to find the *time* to 
post so much, given that  using a hammer and chisel to carve my words into 
stone takes so long. And that's  a good place to end this post, because it 
returns us to where we started out:  the intelligent use of technology to 
improve the utilization of the most  valuable resource in the world: human 
intelligence and productive  creativity.' 
Chris  Replied: 
I  don't know what is 'weird' about it. I believe your recent posts must 
have taken  a long time to type. As far as I know, George Orwell's 
'speak-write' hasn't been  invented yet, so I believe you would have used some sort of 
keyboard to type  your emails. Possibly you are a fast typist. 
MD:  Fortunately there are lots of people on Cryonet who have actually seen 
me type,  because few people believe it until they see it. I type with one 
finger (right  index) and while I average 60 wpm it is error ridden text and 
slow going. I  learned this bizarre way of typing as a child, and numerous 
attempts at  mastering touch typing have failed (something not uncommon, I'm 
told).  Well over 10 years ago, if I'm not  mistaken, a software program 
was developed called "Dragon Naturally Speaking"  and it is EXACTLY the "
Speak-Write program that George Orwell envisioned. It has  gone through many 
iterations since its first release, with steady improvement.  It is quite 
expensive - with add-ons such as medical word and other technical  word 
recognition capability; you are looking at upwards of $1K. It also has,  despite what 
they say on their TV adverts, a very shallow learning curve. The  program 
must first master your particular vocalizations and speech patterns  
(something it is getting faster and faster at doing) and you must then master  how 
to use it effectively. It is the latter that is time consuming and  
frustrating to so many users who can already type well and rapidly. I'm not in  that 
category.  
The  primary first users of Dragon were physicians who used it for medical  
transcription. Indeed; the medical transcriptionist is now all but an 
obsolete  career.  That's how I first heard  about it, and how I got to try it 
out. Dragon is now pursuing the mass market  and runs TV ads in the UK with 
some frequency. 
Dragon  is great for "writing" documents where you know what you are going 
to say and  can say it fluidly and easily. In other words, it is fantastic 
for  conversational writing. Where it is nearly useless (at least for me) is 
 technical or other writing where I have to struggle with what and how I 
want to  say something, and often have to proceed a sentence, or at most a few 
sentences  at  a time. For instance, having to  stop, check facts, check 
numbers, check references and think about HOW I want to  say something. How 
fast or slow you type in that situation is not the  rate-limiting step.  
Blessedly, most of correspondence is essentially conversational and  is of 
the kind that you see business people in the movies in the era of personal  
secretaries say, "Take a letter Miss Smith. In regards to blah, blah..." 
Dragon is  brilliant at that and I would guess it kicks up my efficiency by 
several orders  of magnitude. Also, technical articles in areas that I have good 
mastery of and  where the material is a tutorial or a review, can be easily 
dictated using  Dragon and that saves a fortune in time. In those 
situations, I can write almost  as fast as I can speak, and that's very, very fast  
;-).


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Message #33503
From: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:24:38 EDT
Subject: Reply to Chris Manning: CI & Change

Content-Language: en

 
Mike Darwin wrote: 
'Attempting to make meaningful technical change at CI is a  frustrating, 
micro-incremental, and mostly unrewarding process. Most suggestions  are met 
with the ripostes that they are "unaffordable, impractical, or  
unnecessary."' 
I then quoted a suggestion I made to the CI group (concerning the  way CI 
measures the LN2 levels in the cryostats) and the reply I received from  Andy 
Zawacki. Mike then posted a long discussion about different methods of  
measuring fluid levels. 
Mike seemed to be claiming that there is a culture of resistance to  
change/improvement at CI. My comments were intended merely as an example of how  
CI responded to a suggestion from me. This example did not make it seem to me 
 that such a culture exists at CI. Mike does however make some good points 
about  measurement of LN2 levels. I will take the liberty of forwarding them 
to Andy  (he won't be able to read them here), although I daresay he is 
already aware of  them. BTW in my experience, a culture of resistance to change 
or improvement is  found in many organizations. 
Chris Responded: 
I do read every CI case report, with the same layman's approach as  
described above for reading the posts made here. I would not describe them as  
'nightmarish', I certainly would care if I thought they were, and I don't get  
the impression that they make a 'mess' of  members' care. 
Mike  replied: 
'Notably, you don't ask for chapter and verse as to why I believe  
otherwise.  Sigh. That's probably  just as well.' 
It occurred to me after I posted the above, that I ought to have  asked you 
to explain what you meant. You could of course have provided an  
explanation without waiting to be asked for it by  me. 
MD:  OK, well this is a really complicated and nuanced issue. First of all, 
nobody  likes criticism, not even me. Having said that, I've had to deal 
with a lot of  it over a period of at least 40 years, and so I've become 
accustomed to it. I've  also learned that it is a great tool for FORCING me to 
examine my own premises  and assumptions. That's good, but it's also bad, in 
that it has desensitized me  as to how others feel in response to criticism. 
The  second point to be made is that I don't think there is anyone in CI 
management  that is malevolent or even deliberately careless or incompetent. 
That's actually  a much easier situation to deal with (i.e., incompetence or 
malevolance).  Furthermore, what I see as the really serious problems at CI 
are  rooted in multiple factors (interacting with each other) some of which 
are not  amenable to the normal mechanisms of reasoned discussion. A lot of 
technological  decision making is very subjective. Apple decided to keep its 
code closed, and  gave very compelling arguments for doing so. Microsoft 
decided to do the  opposite. I REALLY liked Apple - in fact, Alcor had Apple 
Macintoshes as the  successor to the Kaypro - but we simply could not find 
the programs we needed -  so we had to switch to PCs. Similarly, Airbus 
decided to make gigantic more  fuel  efficient passenger planes and Boeing decided 
on smaller, faster more  fuel efficient passenger planes. In the latter 
case, it still isn't clear who  made the best decision - or if there is a 
viable market for both. These kinds of  issues are "philosophical-engineering" 
decisions and they get sorted out in the  real world by MARKET FEEDBACK. 
And  there we have the BIG PROBLEM of cryonics. There is no market 
feedback. CI's  culture and technical operations have been determined by a 
philosophy that is  very different than that from which East Coast cryonics and 
Chamberlains-style  cryonics proceeded from. Bob Ettinger is arguably the 
philosophical architect of  CI's approach, and that approach may be summarized by 
the view, often  expressed by Bob, that most of the "medical trappings and 
concerns over such  technical details are superfluous, and that a Volkswagen 
and a Mercedes are  equivalent in the most important way, namely they will 
both get you to where you  are going." The problem with this approach is that 
if you aren't very much  concerned with the details, and especially if you 
don't have corrective  feedback, then it becomes perilously easy to begin 
practicing cryonics as a  recipe - but one where you never get to taste the 
finished product.  Until Ben Best arrived on the scene,  there were no CI case 
reports, and what's more, there was no data collection or  documentation of 
any kind. There wasn't even any meaningful MEASUREMENT going  on. Why would 
there be? Anything we  could learn, or write down, would be the scribblings 
of an infant to the  super-technologists of the future.  
Unfortunately, that misses the real purpose of case reports,  careful study 
and evaluation of what is happening to patients is in fact mostly  to 
inform us, here and now, about how well, or poorly we are doing. But again,  Bob'
s response to this has been pretty much to reassure people that the  
important to thing is to get cryopreserved and stay cryopreserved; how this is  
done is not nearly so important.  Again, this rooted in a philosophical  
position. Bob does not, for instance, believe that personal memories are  critical 
to personal identity. He has written before that he believes that  personal 
identity consists of a "self circuit" which he defines as an  arrangement 
of neurons that instantiate the consciousness of the individual. He  then 
argues (with considerable credibility) that such a collection of neurons  and 
their basic circuitry of interconnection is likely to be inferable under a  
wide range of conditions of cryopreservation. The problem with this is that 
many  cryonicists do not agree with that position. I don't think many 
cryonicists  would be happy being resuscitated with the wiring responsible for 
generating  "consciousness" being intact,  but  otherwise being tabula rosa - 
total amnesiacs about their life before  cryopreservation.  
This position is actually pretty close to the position that almost  
everybody now cryopreserved can be revived (technologically) TODAY - because it  is 
possible to clone primates. If memory is unimportant, or relatively so, 
then  we can start recovering patients right now by cloning them in China, or 
the  Russian Federation where it is legal. If the "self circuit" is unique 
to each  person, including to genetic duplicates, then this approach won't 
work - but  nevertheless, we are still very close to being able to revive 
people, because as  soon as we can image at the cellular level, we can map all 
the connections in  the reticular activation system (RAS) and use technology, 
such as tissue  printing, to reconstruct the self circuit of a given 
individual and  substitute it for the RAS circuitry of a clone.   
I'm  not buying that. Having said that, I have no objection to other people 
deciding  that such is the truth of what constitutes their personhood. How 
could I object?  I can't argue in any absolute or rigorous way that this 
point of view is wrong,  because it is a matter of values and taste, which at 
least at this time, is not  subject to testing or experimental validation. 
I can however, state with a good deal of authority and certainty,  that 
many of the working assumptions we started out with in cryonics were wrong  - 
incorrect - and therefore that the conservation of personal identity by  
criteria such as memory (declarative and procedural) will not survive some  
methods of cryopreservation based on our current understanding of physics and  
information theory. One of the analogies that Bob Ettinger used in The 
Prospect,  was that because some cells survive freezing, even with very primitive  
techniques, this ought to imply that many others are only slightly injured. 
He  used the analogy of soldiers on a battlefield after a battle. This 
analogy is  incorrect. If a battalion is shelled on a battlefield with high 
explosives, some  soldiers will survive, but many that don't will be blown to 
bits - literally.  That's a binary situation, and  it turns out that such is 
also the case with freezing injury in the presence of  little or no 
cryoprotection. Most cells are simply osmotically and mechanically  squashed by ice 
formation. They don't break up into stable, discrete pieces, but  rather are 
re-morphed into new structures that carry no meaningful information  about 
their former state. A few cells will escape this fate by the expedient of  
inhomogeneities in the ice-electrolyte mass that results from freezing, but 
this  no bearing on the fate of the rest of the battalion of cells.  
A  timely analogy is the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It is perfectly 
possible  to see a completely intact house resting atop a mass of bits and 
pieces of cars,  toys, furniture, bodies, photographs, and just about 
everything else imaginable.  A reporter can even peer in through  the window and see 
a child's crib in the bedroom, some pictures still on the  wall, books and 
papers, stereo equipment and CDs... This in fact was the backdrop  for the NBC 
Nightly News here in the US last night.  That house, virtually unscathed, 
was  sitting there akimbo on that mass of mud and mayhem.  As the reporter 
thoughtfully remarked,  "It was impossible to tell where it came from." Well, 
maybe it is possible to  tell where THAT house came from, but not for 
almost all the others, or the cars  or the people, or all the wiring, and 
plumbing, and so on. That's a pretty good  analogy to the kind of injury seen in 
freezing damage. I've done my best to  summarize that on Chronosphere in an 
article entitled, "Does Personal Identity  Survive Cryopreservation?" 
A  shortcoming of that work, which is, surprisingly, closely related to the 
 behavior of the people now attacking cryonics with a vengeance, is that 
you can  argue over the evidence till the cows come home, or to till the stars 
burn out,  by simply saying "what if...and launching into a scenario which 
is the equivalent  of one of FD's or Unperson's conspiracy theories. In the 
real world, real people  who are sane, or even marginally so, handle such 
issues by simply asking,  "Where's the beef? Show me the proof! I don't give 
a damn about your  speculations or your hypothetical's, show me 1 person, or 
better still 1,000  people whom you've waked-up from cryonic freezing and 
who are perfectly fine!"  That is the same criterion used to solve almost all 
debates in the marketplace -  prove it. Prove it by delivering a 
demonstrably working product. In fact, it  goes much, much further than that in the 
real world, because the product doesn't  just have to "work" it has to work 
very, very well. There are lots of computers,  mobile phones, flat screen TVs 
and computer programs out there. Many are junk,  and we've all been stung 
by making a bad decision. So there is word of mouth,  consumer review 
resources, and all kinds of other feedback mechanisms that take  us beyond binary 
issue of "works/doesn't work" to the nuances of how WELL it  works.  All of 
that's missing from  cryonics. 
It is  also missing in other areas of human action (so far) most notably in 
politics  and philosophy. And again, in those areas you see the same kind 
of endless  debates and often vitriolic arguments, most of which are a 
consequence of all  involved having no way to sort out what is the right approach, 
and what is the  wrong one.  Progress in those fields  has been horrible by 
comparison to fields of endeavor where there is feedback.  Medicine used to 
be right up there with politics, but it has become increasingly  evidence 
based, and this has greatly reduced the useless debating, refined  practice, 
focused research and generally led to a great improvement in  healthcare. It 
has a long way to go, but it is a start. Before the scientific  method got 
applied to medicine, the discipline flailed around for centuries  making 
little or no progress, and canceling out much of what progress was made.  That'
s cryonics today. 
Ted  Kraver & Ed Hope at Cryo-Care, and later Bob Ettinger, had a lot of 
ideas  about how to fabricate cryogenic vessels in which to store patients. Ted
's ideas  were practically wrong, and Bob's ideas (using foam insulation, 
for example)  were theoretically (fundamentally) wrong. While critical to 
the practice of  cryonics, neither of these approaches resulted in any 
longstanding debate.  People bought the CryoCare units, cussed and swore and vowed 
never to buy  another, and went in search of a more reliable manufacturer. 
Bob tried to  construct prototypes of his foam units, failed (cracks and 
failure of the  insulation effect to scale linearly with increasing foam 
thickness) and tried  something else. For a number of years Bob had no success in 
building a working  perlite unit. Then, Andy Zawacki was hired, and Andy 
brought skills to the task  that Bob didn't have. CI got working cryostats. But 
very importantly, the first  CI Cryostat is now gone, and some of the other 
early units will (IMHO) be  retired. Why? Because they got feedback and 
improved the design. Even the first  cylindrical CI units had a "learning curve"
 and the later ones perform better  than the earlier ones. The only reason 
CI knows this is that they MEASURE the  performance, and when they see 
variations, they try to figure out why, and move  away from unfavorable factors 
and towards favorable ones. 
This  all make perfect sense. And Alcor has had the same experience with 
their high  vacuum superinsulated dewars. They don't make them in-house, but 
like any other  piece of equipment, quality varies depending upon the 
manufacturer.  
By  contrast, in the biological end of the operation, opinion and 
prejudice, and  mistaken assumptions rule supreme. Hope will always triumph over 
reality where  there is no corrective feedback. There are thousands upon 
thousands of volumes  written about the nature of heaven and hell and how to get to 
either place; but  no meaningful roadmap which travelers use to make the 
journey and then return to  write reports. And so it is with cryonics. 
I got  to these lengths here to show that there is no malice on my part; 
and no malice  on the part of people like Ben and Andy. I am well aware that 
they honestly  believe they are doing the best job they can and that their 
decisions are based  on logic, reasoning and evidence which they believe to be 
valid. Ten or 20 years  ago in politics, people on opposite sides of the 
aisle in the US had the same  understanding of each other. They may have 
despised the other guy's ideology,  but they realized that he was just doing the 
best he could trying to make sense  of the world from a different background 
and perspective. It's a lot like the  attitude many people in the West have 
towards other peoples' religion. As long  they believe in god, the details 
aren't worth killing each other over. That's  great for religion (less so 
for politics) because religion is fantasy as far as  the real world is 
concerned. People don't show up on the church steps pissed as  hell because they 
ended up there (in hell that is), or whinging about the Sunday  Brunch in 
heaven. It's all stuff and nonsense, and its only purpose is to make  people 
feel better about death until the time comes when they too, are  dead. 
So,  THAT is (in part) why it is so difficult to deal with CI, and why 
change is so  micro-incremental in those areas that involve biology. If you are 
neither using  evidence based methods to determine your course of action, 
nor personnel who can  prioritize and decide accurately about such evidence as 
does exist, then you  will mostly do nothing, or very little, and spend a 
great deal of the rest of  your time on hand wringing.  
In  order to specifically analyze CI case reports, I will have to have 
recourse to a  medium other than Cryonet. Probably the best way to do this is to 
create an MS  Word document which can be downloaded. This will allow for 
the inclusion of  photos, excerpts (with graphs and charts) from CI case 
reports, and also allow  it to all be present in one document. I'll try to do 
that, but it may be some  days. I'll send it to you personally, or post the URL 
to it wherever you  like. 
I'll  also include some criticisms of the SA and Alcor case reports.  
As to  the issue of misleading the public about the medical competence of 
cryonics  personnel by using terms like "perfusionist," "surgeon" and the 
like. In the 47  years that cryonics has been in existence, Maxim is the 
first of what have been  countless critics to raise this issue. After much 
thought on the matter, I'm  inclined to agree with her criticism that cryonicists 
should not use those  words, although for completely opposing reasons. I 
think it is extremely  dangerous and misleading for anyone, in or out of 
cryonics, to believe that a  medically qualified surgeon or perfusionist can 
competently or safely treat a  cryonics patients without MUCH additional 
training. This is,in fact, the  equivalent of assuming that a psychiatrist can do 
neurosurgery competently or  that a dermatologist (or even a plastic surgeon) 
can do cardiac surgery  competently. All of these specialties are just 
that, specialties, and they  require much additional training, not just in 
technique, but in theory and  fundamental physiology. The textbooks written for 
surgical physiology are very  different than those written for critical care 
medicine, or for general  instruction (such as Guyton's, for instance).  
When I  established the domain of the cryonics emergency transport 
technician I did NOT  use the word paramedic. Instead I chose "Alcor Certified 
Transport Technician"  (ACT) as the name. I did this because paramedics don't 
(or didn't) rapidly  induce hypothermia, monitor multiple body temperatures,  
moderate ischemia-reperfusion injury,  perform hours-long mechanical CPS, 
nor do they do these things on patients who  are "no codes," and therefore, 
on average, vastly more injured than the typical  cardiac arrest patient 
encountered in the field. 
The  idea that medically trained people can just be dumped into cryonics 
without a  great deal of additional knowledge and skills is pernicious. A good 
way to make  this absolutely clear to is STOP calling our personnel by 
equivalent names.  
Since  the mid-1990s I've been working on a proposed standardized 
nomenclature for  cryonics. It doesn't matter so much whether the terms I propose are 
adopted.  What does matter is that standardized terms of some kind ARE 
adopted, and soon.  One simple reason for this is that having half a dozen 
different words to  describe the act of human cryopreservation, such as: 
cryostasis, biostasis,  morphostasis, cryonic interment cryonic suspension, 
cryopreservation,  cryosuspension, is sloppy, confusing to the public, and makes it 
impossible to  track the penetration of the idea using technologies like 
Google Ngram. Words  matter, and the public is already sufficiently confused 
and misled by others,  that we don't need to be contributing to the problem 
ourselves. - Mike  Darwin


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Message #33504
From: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 19:47:46 EDT
Subject: Who Is To Blame? And the answer is...

Content-Language: en

 
I think the title of FD's post says it all. *Who* is to *blame,*  because 
it does have to be someone, doesn't it? And whoever he, she, or better  yet, 
THEY are, there must be BLAME.  What a ridiculous position - and what a sad 
one. But even more to the  point, what an utterly antiquated one -  if FD is 
to be believed, that is. Because  if he is right, then there is nothing 
special or unique about Cryonet but its  name - and even that is up for grabs. 
We now inhabit the era of ultra-cheap,  ultra-accessible mass communication 
and information dissemination.  Cryonet was, in theory, an unmoderated  list 
serve.  It was also technically  very antiquated, so much so that having 
gone from being very easy to use, it  became difficult, due to text formatting 
problems, short message length, and the  inability to easily post URLs or 
embed images.  
The costs of operating a list serve that offers more features and  far more 
user friendliness is almost nil. So why is FD so upset at Cryonet's  
passing?  A veritable universe of  virtual Cryonets are out there in cyberspace 
just waiting to be materialized.  Indeed, even FD can call one up with a few 
keystrokes.  And yet, he is unhappy, and obviously  distressed, if we are to 
judge from his writing here. But why?????  
There's a simple answer to that, and it also happens to be the  truth (a 
bonus these days, anywhere). That answer is that what was so precious  about 
Cryonet to people like FD, Melody Maxim, Unperson, and the growing legion  of 
other talky-talky-conspiracy-theory-toting-lazy-irresponsible and menacing  
people like them, is that they need real cryonicists to feed on. They are,  
literally, "argument eating parasites."  A list serve that is ostensibly 
free and open, completely unmoderated  and that is NOT patronized by  
cryonicists would have confronted FD and his colleagues with one hell of a  
problem, namely just WHO are they are going to argue with? Creeps like these  folks 
do not PRODUCE things except DAMAGE. You will find nothing constructive in  
all their rants and criticisms posted on Cold Filter, Cult Education, and 
even  by these selfsame individuals here on Cryonet . No proposed detailed  
regulations, no investigative visits to cryonics organizations, no analysis  
of finances with suggestions for change, no proposed fixes, technological or 
 administrative; but rather, just criticism that is increasingly vicious 
and  unfocused. 
That kind of activity requires VICTIMS. For every second they spend  
hurling accusations - no matter how removed from reality, or how frankly insane,  
those actually doing something in cryonics will spend minutes, or even 
hours,  responding. For those of you who are cryonicists and who are reading 
this, you  will need no convincing. If you've been touched by this bile, or even 
just by  the nutty fantasies that FD cooks up, you'll understand 
completely. I've spend  many hours generating pages and pages of patient and honest 
explanation to FD in  private correspondence - all to no avail. And yet, 
despite the fact that I have  not had a friendly, let alone a working 
relationship with Saul Kent in nearly a  decade, FD still refuses to believe my 
refutation of almost all of his Saul Kent  "bashing and blaming." To even hint at 
the idea that Saul was involved in  Kevin's personal decision to shutter 
Cryonet, is but one (and unarguably one of  the MOST) ludicrous in a long 
string of conspiracy theories he has put forth.  
Based on what? Has he ever met Saul Kent? Has he ever spent any  time at 
Alcor or talking earnestly and in person with the people involved in  
cryonics? Has he been in correspodence with Kevin Brown to understand his  personal 
situation and the many technical hurdles he has had to deal with  regarding 
re-launching Cryonet? If he has, then he is REALLY crazy - Mommar  Quadaffi 
crazy. And if he hasn't, well then he is just an irresponsible hack.  But in 
either case, he and others like him have no business feasting on our  
blood. They are at least parasites, and at worst serious enemies.   
FD says: "To Mike Darwin, thank you for the interesting post, but  don't 
tell me what to do." 
My answer to that is that I just did tell you what you to do, and  with 
considerable success, I might add. And I will go further, if you cross the  
line into the use of force or fraud, I will seek to MAKE you stop. Note the use 
 of the verb MAKE, and that I intend it as case sensitive. As the late 
actress  Joan Crawford famously said to the Board of Directors of Pepsico after 
her  husband and Pepsico CEO Alfred Steele died suddenly, "Don't fuck with 
me  boy(s)." 
And she meant it, and so do  I. 
*And  whose fault is that? Whose fault is it that Mike Darwin came out 
stasis?* Why,  that would be *yours FD, *and Melody Maxim's, and the others like 
you. And for  that, I am truly thankful.
So please, take that shred of gratitude and go to  hell with it, because it 
is the last you'll get from me, or from any other  cryonicist who has a 
picogram of commonsense. - Mike  Darwin


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Message #33505
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:56:05 -0400
Subject: Cold Filter: For the record...
From: Jonathan Hinek <[email protected]>

Mike Darwin has suggested that the moderator of Cold Filter is a
non-cryonicist. Just to clarify, I am the moderator of said forum, and
I would describe myself as an advocate of cryonics. I just happen to
be disabled, unable to qualify for life insurance, and don't yet have
my finances in order to sign up officially. I intend to rectify that
situation as soon as possible.

In other views, Finance Department (FD) has accused me of conspiring
to censor cryonics critics, because I deleted one of his posts. This
was only done after we had had a few conversations about his specious
conspiracy theories that he likes to post about big-name cryonicists.
Even then, I told him in e-mail I was willing to discuss it further
and possibly repost it, if he convinced me that it was a mistake to
delete it. He also knows that on my forum moderator decisions are
sometimes open to debate if there is a substantial amount of
disagreement among the members. It's not as if I delete posts from on
high without any discussion.

That said, let me take this opportunity to thank Kevin Brown for his
decades of service running a cryonics community discussion. I've only
done it for a few years and, in that short time, I can already
empathize with his decision to take a break. It can be incredibly
stressful to deal with all of the varied personalities that congregate
around this topic. I wish him well.

Jonathan Hinek
The Cold Filter
http://www.network54.com/Forum/291677/

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Message #33506
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:56:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: un person <[email protected]>
Subject: to future cryonet readers

if you are someone who is interested in cryonics and you are reading this archive to find out more about cryonics, then I have something to say to you.

I am a cryonicist, signed up many years now.


I would warn you not to get sucked into the cryonics culture. This culture is holding back cryonics. It is insular and self-reinforcing. Cryonicists seem to have little idea about how other people perceive cryonics and how other people see cryonicists.

As an example, I would ask you whether in your readings you have found cryonicists discussing how the masses out there might be fearful of appearing to be a weirdo for signing up for cryonics? I have never noted this ever being discussed. But it is a huge obstacle to getting new members. Yet cryonicists seem blind to this aspect of life. And the cryonics culture reinforces this sort of semi-autistic lack of perception about how the other 99.99 percent of americans operate.

So don't get pulled into this insular little culture. Stand apart and think for yourself. Don't come to cryonics to be with people like yourself. THink about how you can reach out to people who are UNLIKE the vast majority of cryonicists--ORDINARY people. These so called ordinary people constitute that other 99.99 percent of humanity.

This blindness of cryonicists to the real world of other people is a huge reason why cryonics has only about 1000 members after more than 40 years. 

So I ask you to go out into the churches of america and find new cryonicists. The bible has several passages that speak to and support cryonics, or something very much like it. Please search cryonet archives for these passages. There is where the growth is--finding justification for cryonics in the Bible. 

You may be an atheist. I understand. But reach beyond your atheism and find a common ground with believers. By doing so, and going into the churches to preach a cryo-gospel, you could be starting a new cryonics movement that will not only save millions of lives that would have never been saved, but would also bring the numerical strength to cryonics and thus help the odds of survival for the rest of cryoncists and even yourself.

Read my previous cryonet messages for more detail on these ideas.

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Message #33507
From: [email protected]
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:53:35 EDT
Subject: The Russiansare Coming!

Content-Language: en

 
In 2008 I had the privilege of visiting the Russian Federation and meeting  
with Russian cryonicists in Moscow and Veronezh. Moscow was an alien and 
bizarre  experience for me - one which I have likened to being recovered from  
cryopreservation - familiar, and yet utterly transformed - expected, and 
yet  deeply dissonant. One of my central messages to the Russian cryonicists 
was to  go and see other cryonics organizations everywhere in the world, and 
in  particular, to see those in the US. There was nothing America-centric 
in this  recommendation. It was made as emphatically as it was because this 
where  cryonics was born, where it has struggled the longest, and without 
doubt, where  most of the lessons have been learned to date. 
And this isn't model airplane building, or stamp collecting, we're talking 
 about here. Mistakes in cryonics can cost lives and break hearts. What's 
more,  because the world is now "flat" a serious failure of cryonics 6,000 
miles away  might as well be next door. Today, everybody has a stake in the 
action. Indeed,  one of the reasons I like living in the middle of nowhere 
(sometimes) is that  the best neighbors are no neighbors. 
Travel from Russia to the US, or vice versa, is not easy, and in fact under 
 some circumstances it may have become more difficult than it was during 
the  Introurist days, under the former Soviet Union. It has taken some time, 
but the  Russian cryonicists have prevailed, and they will be coming to US 
and will be in  the West Coast area from 22-25 March - just a few days from 
now! 
The visitors are: 
Danila Medvedev, President of the Russian Transhumanist Association and a  
principal in the Russian cryonics company, KrioRus. 
Valerija Pride, President of KrioRus 
Dimitry Chikunov, the head of the Rostock Group, which is a biotech company 
 with ~ $175 million US in assets focused on gerontology and chronic pain  
research: http://grostok.ru/en/ 
Sergey  Filonov http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sergey-filonov/12/21/569  who 
is the International Marketing and Sales Manager at Skyeton Aircraft  
Industrial Company in Ukraine http://www.skyeton.com/  Skyeton is the  principal 
manufacturer of small aircraft for the Russian consumer market;  basically the 
Russian equivalent of Cessna. 
I will be hosting them during the West Coast part of their journey, and I 
am  doing what I can to facilitate visits to cryobiological and cryonics 
points of  interest in these environs.  I know they would very much like to meet 
with  US cryonicists other than myself, and so I thought it a good idea to 
let others  know of their imminent arrival, and see if there was interest in 
a get-together  somewhere in the greater Los Angeles area.  Hopefully, they 
will be going  to Scottsdale to visit the Alcor facility, and I said I 
would make public  inquiries to find out if the local cryonicists there were 
interested in meeting  with them. My home in Ash Fork, AZ, 3 hours north of 
Phoenix is also available,  including fire pit for barbecuing and its 
considerable collection of  cryomebilia. I should also add they will be staying  with 
me in Yucca  Valley, CA, which is not the most convenient spot in Southern 
California, as it  is located 30 minutes east of  Palm Springs (~ 2 hour 
drive from LA). 
If there is interest in a get-together either here in Yucca Valley, or at  
some location closer to the heart of the action in Los Angeles, please let 
me  know, and I'll try to make it happen.  As the schedule fleshes out in the 
 next few days, I should be able to be more definite about specific times 
and  dates. As it is, they just received their visas a few days ago, and the 
trip was  confirmed only on Monday last! 
Finally, I would like to note, and to offer thanks for the truly great  
hospitality the Russian cryonicists have shown me, and a number of other 
British  and American cryonicists, journalists, and photographers. I only hope I 
can in  some small way repay their hospitality during their visit here. -- 
Mike  Darwin


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Message #33508
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 23:40:35 -0700
From: Mike Perry <[email protected]>
Subject: Cryonet Closing
References: <[email protected]>

I'll add my small, inadequate note of appreciation to Kevin Brown for 
maintaining this forum for so many years.

Mike Perry

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Message #33509
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 01:51:52 -0500
Subject: Re: The Russians are Coming!
From: Finance Department <[email protected]>

--000325558c36aba7c2049ea818fd

Dear Mike,

I was truly amused at your other post flaming me but what do I care.  Your
affliction does continue.

Now that you, according to your claim, have managed to kill CryoNet, exactly
where is someone, according to you, supposed to reply to your latest
Russians post, at?  Is there a forum that you endorse?  If so, where?  Or
were you even thinking about that, since the bell is about to toll for
Kevin's forum?

And, according to you, because of your undue influence?

I note a post above from "un person" which could easily be construed as a
reason to kill all free speech forums, but even his silly and potentially
destructive ideas are entitled to free speech.

I also noted a post from the owner/moderator of Cold Filter, whom I once
trusted and who turned on me, and who confirms himself as one who will shoot
first (delete post) and who cares if he asks questions later.  I did,
presented reasons he was totally wrong, and was ignored, who cares. He
obviously was presented with the same threats as the owner of CryoNet was.

As to you, Mr Darwin who seems by your irrational rants to wish to be the
Cult Leader of Cryonics (and I say this with reluctance, as I know the
anti-cryonicists will have a hey-day with it), you have NOT successfully
"told me what to do" and if you think your killing of CryoNet and making it
impossible therefore for me to post there is that, you are so totally, as
you describe yourself, MAD!  Just look at what you have done to achieve that
- you have also make it impossible for yourself and everyone else to post to
CryoNet!

CryoNet, RIP, I guess.

Sadly,

FD

--000325558c36aba7c2049ea818fd

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Message #33510
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 01:06:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: un person <[email protected]>
Subject: more on the future

the last cryonet message:

if you are someone who is interested in cryonics and you are reading this 
archive to find out more about cryonics, then I have something to say to you.

I am a cryonicist, signed up many years now.



I would warn you not to get sucked into the cryonics culture. This culture is 
holding back cryonics. It is insular and self-reinforcing. Cryonicists seem to 
have little idea about how other people perceive cryonics and how other people 
see cryonicists.


As an example, I would ask you whether in your readings you have found 
cryonicists discussing how the masses out there might be fearful of appearing to
be a weirdo for signing up for cryonics? I have never noted this ever being 
discussed. But it is a huge obstacle to getting new members. Yet cryonicists 
seem blind to this aspect of life. And the cryonics culture reinforces this sort
of semi-autistic lack of perception about how the other 99.99 percent of 
americans operate.


So don't get pulled into this insular little culture. Stand apart and think for 
yourself. Don't come to cryonics to be with people like yourself. THink about 
how you can reach out to people who are UNLIKE the vast majority of 
cryonicists--ORDINARY people. These so called ordinary people constitute that 
other 99.99 percent of humanity.


This blindness of cryonicists to the real world of other people is a huge reason
why cryonics has only about 1000 members after more than 40 years. 


So I ask you to go out into the churches of america and find new cryonicists. 
The bible has several passages that speak to and support cryonics, or something 
very much like it. Please search cryonet archives for these passages. There is 
where the growth is--finding justification for cryonics in the Bible. 


You may be an atheist. I understand. But reach beyond your atheism and find a 
common ground with believers. By doing so, and going into the churches to preach
a cryo-gospel, you could be starting a new cryonics movement that will not only
save millions of lives that would have never been saved, but would also bring 
the numerical strength to cryonics and thus help the odds of survival for the 
rest of cryoncists and even yourself.

Read my previous cryonet messages for more detail on these ideas.

-unperson

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Message #33511
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 05:43:21 -0000
Subject: Thanks
From: "Kevin Q. Brown" <[email protected]>

One privilege of running one's own forum is being able to get
the last word.

Thanks to the many thoughtful contributors over the years,
far too many to list here. (But you always can check the archives.)
And thanks to all of you who have sent kind words my way.
It is much appreciated.

While conspiracy theories are fun, and some have been proposed,
here is a quick summary of what actually happened lately.

I found that even my best CryoNet Reboot designs amounted only
to elegant, automated Maginot Lines. Furthermore, nearly a year
had flown by, which is several generations in Internet time.
Clearly, something was not working.

Finally, a personal discovery. I found that I was unwilling
to assume the duties of a manual (not automated) editorial role.
But I was willing to freeze CryoNet and make room for others
to replace it with their own forums.

Since my CryoNet Reboot message # 32489 was sent March 17, 2010,
the "stasis" date that seemed most appropriate was March 17, 2011.
Admittedly, this short notice will not earn points on my resume
for succession planning skills. But mailing lists with web sites
now are so cheap and easy to create that there was no need to
transfer CryoNet to someone else. And a few days is quite
sufficient for people to announce alternative venues.

In particular, thanks to John de Rivaz for so quickly stepping up
and saying "I'll do it" and for putting in place mechanisms
to rein in disruptive or destructive members. Best wishes.

For anyone who is concerned, the Internet domain cryonet.org
is not being transferred to anyone else and I will not turn
over the CryoNet distribution list to anyone else either.
Any new subscriptions at other forums are up to each individual.
They must be opt-in, not opt-out.

What happens next is up to all of you. Please keep it constructive.
Remember, if cryonics works the way we hope, we must learn to live
with each other for a very long time.

Kevin Q. Brown
[email protected]
(Please include "cryonics" or "CryoNet" in the subject line.)

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