Subject: (urth) chem slavery and bio slavery

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Sat, 05 Oct 2002 14:58:27 +0000

Roy,

Interesting post on Bio bias and the potential of disguised chem slavery.
Very meaty.  The situation of the chems at points comes close to "wage
slavery," but even then, the term slave is firmly in place.

Moving along . . . Once the Cargo got to the world of Blue, we know that
real, no mistaking it, bio slavery started up almost immediately.  (IIRC it
was "early bird" colonists seizing late bird colonists.)  Do you suppose
that the chems on the Whorl "kept slavery alive" and thus facilitated the
adoption of bio slavery (that is, the colonists express a learned
institution), or is bio slavery an inherent part of the human condition
which would have come up even if there had been no chems (in which case
chem slavery is a blessing in the sense that it moves bios away from bio
slavery: allowing bios to treat bios as non-slaves)?

=mantis=

P.S.  Olivia an adultress?  Roy, you surprise me again!  I had not thought
such a thing was in your no-nonsense reading of PEACE . . . I hesitate to
even guess who the party or parties might be, nevermind the complicated
ramifications.  Please tell!

=m=

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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Sun, 06 Oct 2002 18:26:20 +0000

What follows was prepared yesterday; I didn't post it then because I
thought I would leave well enough alone, that and wait to see if there
would be any further response to my "Bios bias" post. In the wake of
mantis's post of about an hour ago about the NYRSF article, I wish I had
sent it then. I can only say that, no, I've never even seen an issue of
NYRSF. I'll comment about mantis's comments on the article in a separate
post, but I will note here that, in the penultimate paragraph of
yesterday's Bio bias post I wrote, of chems: "But even to call them slaves
is to grant them a status their creators never intended--you don't pay a
machine." I belong to the "clever tools" school of thought mantis
mentioned. FWIW.

----------------------------------------

>slavery: allowing bios to treat bios as non-slaves)?

Given human history on Earth/Urth, I have to agree with slavery being "an
inherent part of the human condition which would have come up even if
there had been no chems".

I really wasn't concerned with the subject of slavery as it applied to
chems. I just wanted to point out the logical inconsistency of trying to
maintain on the one hand that chems were just differently-made people, on
an equal footing with bios, when on the other hand the way they were
actually treated on the _Whorl_, both in Typhon's day and in Silk's,
demonstrated that they certainly were not equal to humans. "Wage" slaves,

as you put it, is a reasonable description of the de facto situation of
most people living today. Sure, unlike 'real' slaves, people are free to
stop working; they won't be beaten or killed for it, but they will suffer
obvious consequences, one of which, if carried to its ultimate conclusion,
is death. But you can't starve a chem or talus to death.

It's a given, in the text, that a talus is 'born' owing for its flesh, er,
existence. (And a possible nod to Philip Jose Farmer.) It is quite
reasonable to infer the same for a chem. Hammerstone bitched about his
crummy life as a soldier. Why didn't he quit? Are there any retired
soldiers in the LS books? No. A soldier leaves the army KIA or resigned to
the recycling bin for any reusable parts, just like my old cars. What
would happen to an uppity talus that refused to work off its birth debt?
Does its creator 'kill' it? How would that satisfy the expense of its
creation? Would that be murder? Just turn the thing loose to do as it
pleased, whatever that might me? No, a talus is too stupid and dangerous
to be left on its own. The soldiers aren't much better. Sgt. Sand
thoughtlessly tossed an employee of Ermine's over the railing of the
stairs.

All these thorny questions become moot when you stop thinking of taluses
and chems as people. If a talus doesn't work right, fix it or replace it,
whichever is cheaper, just as you would a car or can opener. Was there any
"save the chems" movement on the _Whorl_? Nope, not even by chems. Twenty
years after Horn left the _Whorl_, Olivine was the closest thing to a
femchem still living in Viron. The chems didn't follow the bios to Blue
and Green--the subject never even came up. They had been built to last
about two-hundred-and-fifty years, the intended duration of the voyage of
the _Whorl_. Planned obsolescence. When the trip was finished, so were
they.

It comes down to: if chems were people, then they were slaves. A slave is
not equal to, in law, its master. No matter how you look at it, a chem was
not the equal of a bio. But it's worse for a chem because, in fact, apart
from the function they were created for, their existence is meaningless.
They were created to serve bios. If they can't do that, they may as well
slip, like Puff the Magic Dragon, off into a cave somewhere and shut down.

-Roy

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From: Mark Millman <millman at heimdallr.dyndns.org>
Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 03:52:42 +0000

On Sun, 6 Oct 2002, Roy C. Lackey wrote:

> [snip]
> But you can't starve a
> chem or talus to death.
> [snip]

It may be true that you can't starve a
chem to death, Roy, but a talus runs on
fish-oil; deny it that, and I do think
that you'll succeed in starving it to
death.  This doesn't, of course, affect
your arguments, except in that it gives
a talus' owner an additional means of
control over it.  Actually, I believe
that Swallow mentions fish-oil consump-
tion as one of the expenses that a tal-
us has to pay off before it can buy its
freedom, as would an indentured servant
who must pay room and board before put-
ting down money toward the contract ob-
ligations.

Nacre

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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 14:58:17 +0000

--- "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
...
> The chems didn't follow the bios to Blue
...

I generally agree with your point about how the chems were thought
of when the _Whorl_ was created, and I thank for you for all this
bits of evidence of prejudice on both sides.  I have a quibble with
the above, though.  Marble was taken to Blue, and isn't Cijfer a
chem?  Outside of New Viron, we may not know about some characters
whether they're chems or not.

-- 
Jerry Friedman

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
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From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2002 18:49:06 +0000

>whether they're chems or not.

Marble ending up on Blue was a fluke; as Mucor's guardian she was just in
the right place at the right time, and being the calde's friend didn't
hurt. Cijfer was married to Wijzer, who was a bio, so I don't think she
was a chem. Silkhorn traveled to several other cities and was even the
ruler of one. There is no textual evidence to indicate that any chem other
than Marble ever went to Blue or Green that I am aware of. Chems would
have been impervious to inhumi attack and near invincible as a weapon
against them, which is probably why Wolfe left them on the _Whorl_.

-Roy

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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2002 23:15:11 +0000

--- "Roy C. Lackey" <rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
> >> about two-hundred-and-fifty years, the intended duration of the
> voyage
> >> of
> was a chem.

Apparently I was confused.  There is an odd sentence in Ch. 7 of RttW in
which Silkhorn says that if Cijfer were an inhuma, she wouldn't have
covered the comatose Jahlee's face or summoned a *bio*.  Why "bio" instead
of "human", unless Cijfer isn't a bio?  But aside from that and possibly
her name, there doesn't seem to be any suggestion that she's a chem, and
her being married to Wijzer isn't the only suggestion that she's a bio. 
And I was mixed up about who Cijfer was and thinking of a conversation
that turned out not to exist.

Wait a second--could Wijzer be a chem?  Probably not...

Thanks for the correction.
...

Jerry Friedman

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