{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2150",
    "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": 2150,
    "subject": "\"1-2-3 For Me\" as crypto-Urth story",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2000-03-12T13:33:47+00:00",
    "last": "2000-03-12T13:33:47+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0837@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at sirius.com"
      },
      "date": "2000-03-12T13:33:47+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) \"1-2-3 For Me\" as crypto-Urth story",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Talarican wrote:\nDid anyone else get the impression Jak's story in \"One-Two-Three For Me\"\ncould have taken place on the world which would become Urth, during the\nforgotten millenia of the decline of the great stellar empire, chiliads\nbefore Severian's time?\n\nTo begin with, it's apparent that Jak's world is dominated by thinking\nengines, and that these have an attitude, as that crack by his 'bot about\nthe numbered cell phone buttons illustrates.\n\nClearly, their milieu is in a serious state of decline. Earth is now an\narchaeological site for bored students. To quote Cyriaca (Sword, VI) \"But\nthough the empire dissolved, the worlds were a long time dying...nor could\nthey build more cities, because the cities that remained were nearly empty\".\nWhile she doesn't state that old Earth's own urban civilization suffered\nsuch extreme decadence the population committed suicide, it can't be ruled\nout either.\n\nIn both stories, there seems to be a strong element of selfishness and\nself-absorption on the part of the humans. Why didn't Jak call or check on\nJoAnn after the weird little visitor vanished? (for that matter, why didn't\nher 'bot take some sort of protective action?(waves claws and turns\nside-to-side shouting \"Danger! Danger! Run, JoAnn! Highly toxic alkaloid\ndetected!\" <g>)).\n\nWhat is Jak's real problem at the time he tells that story and gets angry\nwith the youngers over their stick trick? He's not afraid the \"pusher\" will\nreturn. It's pretty clear the world on which Jak told his story wasn't\nEarth, and the \"pusher\" clearly wouldn't force the drug on him in any case.\nHe's not merely grieving for JoAnn, although she didn't consciously mean to\ncommit suicide, and Jak didn't consciously know the danger at the time. He's\nsuffering a guilty conscience now because of his failure to exercise caution\nin an unfamiliar situation, resulting in JoAnn's death, due to his own\nself-absorption.\n\nEven if \"One-Two-Three\" isn't a New Sun story, I think we can still agree\nthat its extinct peoples of Earth have much in common with the inhabitants\nof the nearly forgotten decadent stellar empire ages before Urth. And that\nenigmatic story title suggests selfishness."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "My impression: I had thoughts along the same lines.  It is much more\nsatisfying to think of this story as something like what you are saying,\nrather than taking it as a \"Planet of the Apes\"-style, straight \"realistic\"\narchaeological finding story.  In \"Planet of the Apes\" they find a \"doll\"\nthat really is a doll, and it says \"Mommy\" or whatever, and that pretty\nmuch shatters the world--revealing that the planet itself is dear old\nEarth.\n\nIf we read \"1-2-3\" in this vein, it seems weak: a cell phone, buried in\nsome tell mound, still works?  (I think I saw some comment about this\neither here first or here, reported from elsewhere.)  The drug connection\nstill delivers the heroin, crack-cocaine, name-your-demon-powder?\n\nNow see, if it were not something that looked to us like a cell phone,\nthings might be different.  Say it were a metallic conch shell, covered\nwith intricate runes and redolent with the odor of burnt asparagus; say\nthat it summoned a swarm of flying beetles, who delivered a pair of eye\nglasses that had rose-colored lenses.  Then it might seem less a \"just say\nno\" story, and more a fairy-tale type story about the perils of mucking\nabout.\n\nOr if it were the Rod of the Cumaean.  Or some other artifact seen through\nthe filter of Severian's sense.\n\nI agree that the robots are in charge, and this does seem like something we\nsee hinted of in posthistorical time.  And because the dingus seems more\nlike a cell phone than it seems like a horn of demon summoning, there is a\nfeeling that it is closer to our time than anything in Severian's narrative\n(with the possible exception of the Apu-Punchau gig <g>)."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}