{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2021",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 2021,
    "subject": "Sufficiently Advanced Technology?",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-12-09T23:05:41+00:00",
    "last": "1999-12-09T23:05:41+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0605@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Mitchell A. Bailey",
        "address": "mab at lindau.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-12-09T23:05:41+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Sufficiently Advanced Technology?",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "You know, during all this recent discussion  of Wofean science and the\ndegree of “hardness” we should expect to find in it (speaking as one of\nthe hardline nitpickers), I’m surpised no one has trotted out that quote\nfrom Arthur C. Clarke, or better yet, paraphrased it:\n\n“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from theurgy”\n\nWe are left wondering particularly if the Hieros attained the stature of\ndivinity and the Hierogrammates are celestial beings, or if the Hieros\nsimply advanced so far in their mastery of physics and engineering as to\nleave the Urthlings blinking in bemused awe. An awe of unfathomable\ntechnology which is rather like Babbie the Hus contemplating the mighty\nslug-gun-wielding sailor Horn (just got _Blue’s_, BTW - and I think that\npassage was indeed intended to signal an idea of  this sort!).\n\nOr, perhaps, both, the two being indistinguishable. The science of the\nvanished stellar empires even would qualify, with Cyriaca plainly\nstating that the “machines” were regarded as deities by their own\npeople, never mind the Urthlings of eons later. As Master Ash said, the\nless advanced knowledge of which he partakes could be expressed either\nin scientific terms for such as Sev, or in mystical or religious terms\nfor the Pelerines. Another Wolfean puzzle for us mortals to chew on."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}