This is a post I sent originally to Cryonet. It involves Trygve Bauge who
has been overflowing the list there with his frequent emails about his
fledging cryonics storage company in Norway. I kind of feel for the guy and
so wrote this.
John :)
My 4th of July plans fell through and so I spent part of the day in a
college computer lab getting updated with cryonet. Damn, I wanted to eat
BBQ today! I laughed so hard at some of the posts I read regarding poor
Trygve that I caused people to wonder what the heck was so funny!
Lee Corbin wrote:
On the other hand, perhaps the cure IS worse than the
disease. Hmm. Now, I am frankly a little worried who
or what the Almighty is going to send next.
(end)
Hmmm... yes, it could be very scary.
1. Overly friendly Raellians who want to clone Trygve and Louis Epstein!
2. Friends of the man who wrote _Battlefield Earth_
3. Me(when I finally get my own computer!) Writing even a few posts does
tucker me out though...
Kevin Q. Brown shared:
T.B. msg #178: Something must be done about this!
. . . skip messages . . .
T.B. msg #203: Hey, has the CryoNet administrator been asleep
the past week? What's _his_ problem?
and I add...
T.B. msg #215: Oh no! Now, John Grigg is actually encouraging this guy!
He's trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline
on it!
Doug Skrecky's "diet for stress" is a masterpiece! It can't be worse then
the "eat only oranges" diet an elementary schoolteacher of mine went on
years ago. I do think Trygve needs a diet which will not provide him with
even more empty calories to burn typing at his computer in a vain attempt to
respond to every query which comes his way! :)
Rick Potvin wrote:
Imagine the possibilities... If you visit the forum, you'll see what I
mean. You can create virtually unlimited numbers of new threads! And
it's a much more powerful way to communicate your valuable ideas because
you can EVEN get a search engine installed.
(end)
Trygve, you have a real friend in this man. He has created for you a place
on the net to post to your heart's desire! I am touched that Rick would
take the time to set all this up for you. The problem of course is that
with cryonet you have a much wider captive audience... ;)
I think on Cryonet you still have many friends. You just need to take into
account what they are trying to share with you. My dad's side of the family
came largely from Norway so maybe that will help me a bit! lol
To be honest, I find Swedes to be generally very friendly but Norwegians to
be cold fish tempermentally(not to say you are!). Of course, this is my own
unscientific opinion. We do get alot of tourists in Alaska! I tend to be
reserved and even very shy in the real world so it made me wonder if being
part Norwegian were part of it.
I had a friend who spent two years in Norway. He said the women were very
beautiful and not too attached to their clothes while on the beaches. I
think this made concentrating on his missionary duties somewhat difficult
while near the coastline... lol
You need to pay more attention to your girlfriend! Is she someone you would
want to spend the next several centuries with? Focus less time on the
cryonet and more time on your fledging organization and HER!
Create an elitest email message list where only key people are allowed to
know of your cryonics plans. Make people feel special for having been
allowed on it. Believe me, Alcor and CI have alot of online business done
which we never hear of on Cryonet.
Trygve wrote:
As far as your nightly sleep is concerned, now that I know it is a problem:
Couldn't you just set the digest to automatically go out twice a day e.g.
every 12 hours rather than just every night? If that is impossible, then
what about changing the clock forward 12 hours or so in the morning so that
the digest goes out automatically around noon, then set it right again in
the afternoon, so that the digest goes out automatically again at night?
(end)
HAHAHAHA!! This is too damn funny! Yes, some of us must schedule our lives
around your frequent posts!
Trygve wrote:
Maybe there is a letter circle managing software that automatically creates
such a content list and digest. If not, maybe some of the computer
programmers reading cryonet would be interested in creating such a
software,it could come in handy for other letter circles that experience
high traffic as well. A programmer could probably make some bucks on
developing such a software.
(end)
Aha, so instead of mending your ways you want to change the format we
presently have! Well, there is already plenty of software out there to do
what you suggest. To be honest, I like the current format and don't want to
change it for you. I peruse cryonet by routinely scanning the archives.
Trygve wrote:
Conclusion is:
Individual websites are fine,
and each person their own forum is o.k.
Put still there should be a place for large forums
that are dedicated to specific topics, and seen by many people,and where
anyone can post anything that is on topic.
The challenge is just to make it easier for such forums to handle large
traffic, and make it easier for people to navigate within such forums.
e.g. make it easier for the subscribers to such forums
to navigate within a lot of traffic.
(end)
I understand how you want to get the word out on what your are doing, in
part due to the need for guidance and encouragement from more experienced
people. Perhaps sending out private emails to target specific individuals
would be better to gain the counsel you need as you build your organization.
Rudi Hoffman wrote:
While abhorring censorship, I add my voice to that of Mike Darwin and others
kindly but firmly requesting that these astonishingly verbose gentlemen
consider shorter and more pointed postings.
On the other hand, it has been interesting following Trygve's exploits with
a cryonics startup...and his sincerity and willingness to work seem clear
enough, although his stability is certainly open to question.
(end)
I agree with Rudi's sympathetic sentiments here. You do not want to
alienate the very people whose help you need. I actually feel sorry for you
because I sense your desire to be accepted, helped and encouraged. And we
all need that.
It's just with your past history(town outlaws cryonics due to you) and less
then ideal character recommendations(from Mike Darwin and Charles Platt)
which make things hard for yourself.
Trygve wrote:
It is not organizing cryonics improvements or dealing with the government
that takes so much time,
but having to rebut all the attacks from other cryonicists.
I have over the years never seen such attacks on cryonics or my cryonics
involvement by the regular media as I have experienced from a few other
cryonicists. Are the latter paid to sabotage the movement or what? ):
What about tolerance, and letting others do it their way?
As long as there is full openness, then anyone that sees something they
don't like, can of course point this out, but what about doing so in a
cultivated manner???
(end)
Trygve, you have obviously not gone way back in the cryonet archives to read
the flame wars of olden days! Contention, division and cryonics sadly seem
to often go together. Maybe there is something darwinian going on here
which is good for us in the long run... Medieval and renaissance europeans
constantly squabbled and look what they eventually accomplished!
I agree that tolerance is very important and that criticism should be done
in a cultivated manner where possible. I really empathize for you and
think people have been in some ways harsh to your feelings and good
intentions. I feel like you are a well-meaning dog which has tried to be
good but still gets yelled at anyway. That is the best way I can put it.
Despite everything, I still think if you tone things down a little and
continue working diligently your goals may be realized. You need to be
physically and emotionally healthy to not burn out and have things fall
apart. The people of Norway and Scandinavia need what you may soon have to
offer them! So, don't let them down by burning bridges here.
Trygve wrote:
I still think that by providing inexpensive temporary cold storage in
separate facilities while the built in problems get resolved, we would end
up with more long run storage cases, and better quality on these as well. We
would also set a precedence, so that it might be easier for relatives to
freeze their relatives locally until longrun storage somewhere else can be
worked out.
And by having separate temporary short run storage facilities handle such
cases, no long run storage provider would be threatened by lawsuits etc.
(end)
I like your idea, but I wonder how many people have relatives who at the
last minute could gather together the hefty funding necessary for a
suspension and longterm storage contract? I realize if only a few lives are
eventually "saved" by your company then it will have all been worth it.
Just remember, procrastination and cryonics do not mix well as Fred
Chamberlain and Robert Ettinger could tell us with countless stories...
Trygve, do you plan eventually to go beyond storage and actually carry out
suspensions? I would be curious to know. A learned friend of mine, Robert
Bradbury, says he is so confident mature nanotech will work that he would be
willing to have his just cut off head dropped into a vat of liquid nitrogen
and then taken straight to storage! I hope I'm not giving you ideas here...
;)
Ettinger shared:
CI does routinely in fact, in appropriate cases, suggest preparation (when
feasible) and temporary storage in dry ice at a funeral home. That is
relatively cheap, and allows the family time to think it over and get
advice.
(end)
Aha! A very practical man, I should have known Robert Ettinger would be
doing this. But, I can still conceive of a intermediate care storage
facility for potential cryonics clients.
Trygve in summation to us wrote:
My massive postings can also be seen as my attempt to wake up the cryonics
movement to the the fact that our service to the many post mortem requests
for cryonic suspensions have been dismal, and that cryonics would stand much
stronger if we can find better ways to assist and utilize all the postmortem
requests that so far for the most part have been turned down. Too many
requests have been turned down without any publicity what so ever to support
those who's interest in cryonics thereby have been crushed.
(end)
Trygve, do you read Alcor's _Cryonics_ magazine? I somehow doubt you do!
lol Fred and Linda Chamberlain have many times pleaded with readers to get
their affairs in order in regards to having a cryonics policy. And like
most old testament prophets, their pleadings go sadly unheeded.
And yet, maybe you are on to something. As the saying goes, "where there is
a niche, go fill it." You seem to be trying to do just that and it may have
some interesting results.
If you go to creating a full-service cryonics organization, perhaps you
could do it on a Cryonics Institute like model. But even on a simpler and
cheaper scale by using crude but possibly still effective methods for
suspension as I earlier mentioned. You could charge let's say the
equivalent of ten-thousand American dollars(or less?)...
I know some will say only an Alcor level suspension is adequate. But
realistically, many people cannot afford it and so a much cheaper
alternative could save lives. This of course is only true if such a
procedure preserves the body well enough that future technologies could
successfully reanimate it. This is a huge debate in and of itself on many
levels...
Anyway, I wish you luck in your endeavors and hope goodwill can be restored
between you and the denizens of Cryonet. And I hope you can live down the
negatives of your past to prove my friend Charles Platt wrong. Trygve, the
people of Norway need you so do not let them down in terms of the good
public relations, sound financing, general solid planning and personal
health you will need to succeed in your storage venture.
Time for me to go see the fireworks! God bless America!
very best wishes to you,
John
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