{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3503", "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": 3503, "subject": "Jonas's joke, Roy's fembot", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-10-22T16:25:27+00:00", "last": "2002-10-24T05:41:28+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-10-22T16:25:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Jonas's joke, Roy's fembot", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Roy quoted me and wrote:\nIn the joke that Jonas tells, a woman interviews three sailors to find out\nwhat each one wants the most. The first says power, the second says\n(social) polish, and the third says love.\n\nThe woman laughs and says that they are all robots. The first sailor says\nthat is true, and he can see how she figured it out from the first two\nanswers, since power and polish are things all robots look for, but he\ncouldn't figure out how she detected a robot in the third answer.\n\nShe says it is because she began life by looking for power and polish and\nwound up just like the third sailor. Then the woman and the third sailor\ngo off for a drink and neither of them ever came back to the ship." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "So what is the joke? We know that Wolfe has a warped sense of humor, and\nthat Jonas is telling the joke. It only dawned on me today that the woman's\nlast line is also the punch line. We've heard this joke before, in PEACE.\nThe one Weer told Lois: \"I knew we were mechanical engineers, but I didn't\nthink we'd wind up like this.\"\n\nShe's a robot, too." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, yes, that is a possible funny answer to it . . . and it does put an\nextra twist . . . and it is a nice tie to the joke in PEACE . . .\n\nBut hang on a second! The context of the joke must be expanded a bit: in\nTBOTNS, Severian the backwater bumpkin knew Jonas was a sailor, but what he\ndid not know was that (star) sailor = robot (more often than not), which is\nwhy he was surprised to finally learn that the prosthetics were the\nbio-bits rather than the metal parts.\n\nReaders of \"These Are The Jokes\" are assumed to have already read TBOTNS,\nand thus are expected, I assume, to be on equal footing with the woman\nconducting the poll (i.e., she knows and we know that sailors = robots).\nFor example the robotic sailors in URTH look as much like a bio as a full\nsuit of plate armor -- there is no mistaking them!\n\nWhen she laughs and says they are all robots, it can be taken as meaning\nnot \"I have deduced from your responses that you are all chems\" (which is\nhow the first sailor says he takes it, slyly or not), but rather the Roy C.\nLackey attitude of \"How can a bunch of chems like yourselves have such\nlofty, bio-seeming goals?\"\n\nI think the joke plays on the ambiguities of \"power\" and \"polish\" when\napplied to bios and non-clever tools like chainsaws and toasters. And the\nfirst sailor is slyly trying to trick the woman into making bio-centric\nstatements, i.e., anti-robot prejudices, but we are told she is a quick\nthinker and she slips through the trap by claiming their desires as her\nown, and thus the equality of chem and bio desires.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-10-24T05:41:28+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Jonas's joke, Roy's fembot", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "mantis quoted me and wrote:\nSo what is the joke? We know that Wolfe has a warped sense of humor, and\nthat Jonas is telling the joke. It only dawned on me today that the\nwoman's\nlast line is also the punch line. We've heard this joke before, in PEACE.\nThe one Weer told Lois: \"I knew we were mechanical engineers, but I didn't\nthink we'd wind up like this.\"\n\nShe's a robot, too." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, yes, that is a possible funny answer to it . . . and it does put an\nextra twist . . . and it is a nice tie to the joke in PEACE . . .\n\nBut hang on a second! The context of the joke must be expanded a bit: in\nTBOTNS, Severian the backwater bumpkin knew Jonas was a sailor, but what he\ndid not know was that (star) sailor = robot (more often than not), which is\nwhy he was surprised to finally learn that the prosthetics were the\nbio-bits rather than the metal parts.\n\nReaders of \"These Are The Jokes\" are assumed to have already read TBOTNS,\nand thus are expected, I assume, to be on equal footing with the woman\nconducting the poll (i.e., she knows and we know that sailors = robots).\nFor example the robotic sailors in URTH look as much like a bio as a full\nsuit of plate armor -- there is no mistaking them!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Granted. But if she had been looking at three sailors who were obviously\nrobots (whether the slender type in URTH or those that looked like Sidero),\nthen her statement that they are all robots would be of the water-is-wet\nvariety. The sailors have to look like bios, and they do. The first sailor\nhas a \"red beard\". The third looked \"young\". The first sailor also uses a\nJonas-like expression referring to a bio-specific function meaningless to a\nrobot; specifically, the sexual innuendo involving the skipper and the\nstrumpet." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "When she laughs and says they are all robots, it can be taken as meaning\nnot \"I have deduced from your responses that you are all chems\" (which is\nhow the first sailor says he takes it, slyly or not), but rather the Roy C.\nLackey attitude of \"How can a bunch of chems like yourselves have such\nlofty, bio-seeming goals?\"\n\nI think the joke plays on the ambiguities of \"power\" and \"polish\" when\napplied to bios and non-clever tools like chainsaws and toasters. And the\nfirst sailor is slyly trying to trick the woman into making bio-centric\nstatements, i.e., anti-robot prejudices, but we are told she is a quick\nthinker and she slips through the trap by claiming their desires as her\nown, and thus the equality of chem and bio desires." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The first line of the joke has three \"sailors\" on \"shore leave\". Now what\nimages come to mind of sailors on shore leave? From movies, books, and tv it\nis all the same: men, temporarily freed from the strictures of shipboard\nlife, engaged in fervid pursuit of the pleasures of the flesh. What is a\nrobot sailor on shore leave going to do for kicks? Go drinking and whoring?\nImpossible. What is he going to spend his pay on--spare parts? Worthy\ncharities such as a home for retired sewing machines and scholarships for\naspiring pocket calculators?\n\nAltruistic love, platonic love may be possible for a robot or chem--such as\nMarble's for Teasel, at least in the Lupiverse. But that's not the kind of\nlove Jonas was looking for with Jolenta, nor is it the kind that the third\nsailor went AWOL for in the joke. Power and polish may be obtainable for a\nrobot, but the love the third sailor desired isn't. Note that the word\n\"desire\" is used only by the third sailor in connection with expressing what\neach wanted.\n\nWhen the Little Tin Soldier in the folk song jumped into the Fire of Love,\nall that was left was a puddle of molten metal; or, as Mick Jagger put it,\n\"You can't always get what you want.\"\n\n-Roy" } ] } ] }