{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2764",
    "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": 2764,
    "subject": "Shattered Scots (but mostly to Tony)",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-08-06T12:18:00+00:00",
    "last": "2001-08-06T12:18:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0611@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes",
        "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-08-06T12:18:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Shattered Scots (but mostly to Tony)",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "to Michael Straight:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Many Universes means all possible universes exist.  I can't belive\nthis is a possible universe."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "At this point I'm not sure whether you're talking about Pullman's \nalternate U in TGC, or Wolfe's in TAD, but in either case, this\ndoesn't disqualify them as possible universes, only as plausible-\nwith-respect-to-Michael-Straight universes.\n\n\nTo Tony Ellis:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Hey, -my- hypothetical child occasionally looks words up when it\nfinds them being used in an unexpected manner, or asks a grown-up.\nI can't help it if your hypothetical child is too lazy. :-)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Actually, so does mine, and so do I; but frankly, this doesn't seem\nto qualify as using the word \"daemon\" in an unexpected manner. It's\nsome supernatural being that changes shapes, okay, that's a demon,\nmy hypothetical [\"You bitch about the present/and you blame it on\nthe past/I'd like to find your hypothe, uh, inner child/and kick his\nlittle ass\" -- D. Henley] child has no problem with that. And then,\nbecause said child has read a moderate amount of SF/F, she has no\nproblem adapting when the word is revealed to mean something like an\nexternalized soul. At no point does anything happen which would send\nsuch a child scurrying to look it up in her funk & wagnall's.\n\nNor, if she did, would I bet on said child giving even a glance to \nthe word's etymology; nor, if she did, is said etymology likely to\nbe much help -- consider Merriam-Webster's Collegiate etymology of\n\"demon\" (to which \"daemon\" refers one), for example: \n\n\tMiddle English demon, from Late Latin & Latin; Late \n\tLatin daemon evil spirit, from Latin, divinity, spirit, \n\tfrom Greek daimOn, probably from daiesthai to distribute\n\nNothing in here even hints at Socrates' usage, which is what (I\npresume) Pullman has in mind. From all of which I stand by my \noriginal conclusion: that it is fairly unlikely that a child, \nreading THE GOLDEN COMPASS, will (as you originally put it)\n\tlearn that a word used by Christianity to mean an\n\tincarnation of evil originally meant something as \n\tharmless as \"spirit.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "As for Pullman's alleged \"childishness\"... We're getting down\nto personal taste here, and it seems pointless to argue about\nthat. You say \"childish\", I say \"pleasingly irreverent\"."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "As a veteran of (among many other things) more Robert Anton Wilson \nbooks than I immediately care to admit, I think I have a handle on \nirreverence, including at least some of the pleasing sort. Again \nand again I have to say that my problem is _not_ that he dislikes\nmainstream (whatever that is!) Christianity; it is that he expresses\nhis dislike in a manner that frankly reminds me of a child shouting\n\"poo poo!\" over the school PA system as soon as he's sure the \nmicrophone is on. Yes, this is a matter of taste, and I have to \nadmit I have developed a rather jaded palate where irreverence and\nblasphemy (which is _not_ involved here) are concerned; if it can't\nbe at least moderately subtle or original, why bother? And in the \ncontext of a book which is in so many other ways tremendously subtle\nand tremendously original, this crudeness stands out like the proverbial\nhammer-whacked digit."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "The main thing is that you're still enjoying the story. I hope you\nenjoy the other two books as well."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Picked up the second over the weekend. Probably won't pick up the\nthird until Del Rey issues the paperback -- I don't buy _that_ many\nhardcovers; Wolfe is a significant percentage of 'em.\n\n\nTo Alga:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "What fun to have stimulated such a lively, informative and\nentertaining sparring-match! Do carry on."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Yes, and thank you for recommending the book in the first place; I\nenjoyed it and am enjoying this little contret, uh, discussion, a\ngreat deal.\n\nAnd to Tony agin:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "I'm willing to bet the Holocaust would turn out not to have\nhappened, at least not in the form and to the extent it actually\ndid."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "...[T]here is no shortage of people who think that the one thing\ntheir country needs is a good ethnic cleansing.\n\n...Hitler just happened to be in the right place at the right time.\nThere was an emergency backup anti-Semite standing on a chair and\nshouting in every second beer hall in the Weimar Republic. Kill\nAdolf, and it would be rather surprising if one of these other men\n-didn't- rise to power."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "All true.  And quite true that nasty anti-Semitic shit would have gone\ndown. But I seriously question that anything really closely resembling\nwhat we know as \"the Holocaust\" would have gone down without Hitler's \nsyphilitically-crazed brain in charge of the whole operation. And maybe \nit would have, and I could be wrong; obviously neither you nor I can \n_know_ the outcome of such a fantastically complex counterfactual. "
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Nobody said anything about history \"simply healing over\", only of\nit managing to arrive at a similar 1988 to our own -through\ndifferent means-."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": ".....mmmmaybe. And maybe there is some plausibility here (the idea\nof converging forms in evolution comes to mind, i.e., why sharks,\ndolphins, and icthyosaurs are so similar in shape); maybe there is\nsome kind of convergentness in the shape of societies at some given\ntech level.\n\nAnd maybe not. As I said above, you can't really know \"the\" answer \nto a counterfactual this complicated (orders of magnitude more \ncomplicated than the \"if Hitler had died\" thing). But the more \ndifferent the starting premises, the more unlikely I find convergence.\n\n\n--Dan'l"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}