{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2605",
    "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": 2605,
    "subject": "_Engine Summer_",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-04-27T09:04:34+00:00",
    "last": "2001-04-27T09:04:34+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0347@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "David Lebling",
        "address": "dlebling at ucentric.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-04-27T09:04:34+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) _Engine Summer_",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "The Angels are \"downloading\" the Rush recording for purposes of\npsychotherapy, in fact social psychotherapy. They state this explicitly. The\nglobes have been used to \"teach\" the angels. (The lesson from Dr. Boots is\n\"forget,\" and the other lessons are mentioned as well -- I don't have the\nbook handy). There is the strong implication that the purpose is to teach\nthe angels to _not_ be angels (i.e., to stop being people like us, 21st\ncentury Americans). The reason for having someone monitor Rush's story is\nthe same as for having the psychotherapist present in a therapy session; to\nguide it and monitor the patient's well-being.\n\nThis is not to say the monitor is necessarily a therapist in our sense of\nthe word, but she (perhaps he, I don't recall) listens to and comments on\nthe story as it is told. I was particularly struck by the passage in which\nRush asks if the story is different each time, and the monitor tells him\nthere's more this time about his love for [the girl who joins Dr. Boot's\nList]. This is clearly because the patient influences the story. (Rush may\neven be an unreliable narrator.) The monitors are watching the patients, who\nhave received a \"letter from Rush-That-Speaks,\" to see how much it has\nchanged them, how badly it has hurt them, how much it has helped them, and\nto subtly guide the progress of integrating Rush into the patient. The\nsessions would naturally be recorded so that future monitors can learn the\nsymptoms of trouble or success.\n\nOf course, the message of the title is that this societal therapy is going\nto fail.\n\n    Dave Lebling\n    aka vizcacha"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}