{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4394", "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": 4394, "subject": "'Doomed' multitudes", "messages": 14, "voices": 5, "first": "2005-04-03T03:21:38+00:00", "last": "2005-04-09T00:14:38+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<000201c53836$e6889f70$6401a8c0@TONYSPC>", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2005-04-03T03:21:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 'Doomed' multitudes", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I wrote, on the subject of Severian's victims being doomed:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "No, they weren't. The multitudes would have continued to live their \nordinary lives if Severian hadn't drowned them all." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Maru wrote:\nOn a dying planet. With the most dehumanizing gov.'t ever \nconceived poised to take over their lives, liberties, minds \n(Abaia & co. ?) quite literally." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Abaia and co have *always* been poised to over the commonwealth. They\nwere poised when Severian left to be Tested, and when he comes back\n70-odd years later the commonwealth is still there. We're even told that\nValeria's second marriage was a good thing because while she could take\ncare of the commonwealth 'he could take care of the Ascians.'\n\nBaldanders says: \"The armies of Erebus follow the waves, and all the\ndefeats they suffered at your husband's hands will be avenged.\" In what\nway does 'all the defeats they suffered at your husband's hands' suggest\nAbaia and co were poised to take over anything? \n\nGunnie and the other sailors are shown both futures. If the Frozen Urth\nfuture involves being horribly taken over by Abaia and co and everyone\nbeing doomed, nobody mentions it. A lot of the sailors think it's a\nfuture worth fighting for.\n\nNothing Master Ashe says suggests Abaia and co taking over either. If\nanything he seems to think they're running out of options. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I am curious as to what your life is like if you can consider that \n'ordinary'." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh, come off it. What constitutes an 'ordinary life' is entirely\nrelative to time and place. The lives of the everyday people of the\ncommonwealth Severian meets are ordinary for the people living them. I\ndon't recall many of them saying \"Wow, our lives are just so doomed and\nawful, aren’t they? I wish a big wave would come along and drown me and\neveryone I love.\" " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I wrote:\nSince a planet does have to be drowned to\nrealise the potential of a handful of survivors in the New Sun future,\nI\nthink that's more important. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Maru wrote:\nNot just a handful. A handful prolfically reproducing to repopulate\nthe \nplanet.\nA 'handful' which will persist throughout periods of time that if you \neven apprehended a smidgen of their yawning aeons..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's still a handful, Maru. In the Frozen Urth future handfuls, at the\nvery least, are taken to new worlds where they can reproduce with quite\nthe same degree of hyperbole." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Getting the idea of how many people have a chance to live should \nSeverian choose to sacrifice a few? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Getting the idea that just as many, if not more, will live if he doesn't\nsacrifice anyone at all?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f76173705040309526f94d24d@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2005-04-03T09:52:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Death and Destruction", "in_reply_to": "<000201c53836$e6889f70$6401a8c0@TONYSPC>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've been too busy (and still am) to comment on this \nthread; but...\n\nIt seems to me that a bit of light might be shed on the\nwhole subject by attending to the Biblical concept, of\n_the remnant_. This is a recurring theme throughout:\nthe idea that though Mankind or Israel sins, and God\nchastises, He always brings forth a remnant to carry\non. This applies to the sons of Noah, to the Benjaminites,\nto the returnees from the Babylonian Exile, and in smaller\nways to many other things. You find the theme all through\nthe prophetic books of the Bible.\n\nI suspect strongly that Wolfe has this theme in mind,\nthough perhaps not consciously.\n\n--Dan'l" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "You probably do not want to know what that odor is. \nhttp://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer" } ] }, { "message_id": "<42503789.5050904@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "maru", "address": "marudubshinki at gmail.com" }, "date": "2005-04-03T11:36:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Death and Destruction", "in_reply_to": "<1f76173705040309526f94d24d@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:\nI've been too busy (and still am) to comment on this \nthread; but...\n\nIt seems to me that a bit of light might be shed on the\nwhole subject by attending to the Biblical concept, of\n_the remnant_. This is a recurring theme throughout:\nthe idea that though Mankind or Israel sins, and God\nchastises, He always brings forth a remnant to carry\non. This applies to the sons of Noah, to the Benjaminites,\nto the returnees from the Babylonian Exile, and in smaller\nways to many other things. You find the theme all through\nthe prophetic books of the Bible.\n\nI suspect strongly that Wolfe has this theme in mind,\nthough perhaps not consciously.\n\n--Dan'l\n\n " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I personally suspect, since the remnant is always\n'more pure' than the previous population, this is merely\nnatural fall out of the 'us vs them' way of thinking, where\n'us' is always smaller than 'them'. Fires up the ol' zealotry spirit\neven in cases where thinking so is absurd. (Witness how Christians\nin the US feel presecuted!)\nThat, and 'we were spared, so God must like us better!'.\n\nBut Wolfe is not alone- look at Jordan's WOT series, and tell me\nif you can't see it there as well.\n\n~Maru" } ] }, { "message_id": "<001101c538d8$c936f280$60a3f63f@wynnhouse>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "thewynns at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2005-04-03T22:40:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Death and Destruction", "in_reply_to": "<42503789.5050904@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I personally suspect, since the remnant is always\n'more pure' than the previous population, this is merely\nnatural fall out of the 'us vs them' way of thinking,... " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hmmmm" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "....Fires up the ol' zealotry spirit\neven in cases where thinking so is absurd. (Witness how Christians\nin the US feel presecuted!)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Us vs Them\" thinking rears its ugly head in a most ironic way. :-)\n\n~ Crush" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4251E773.4020301@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "maru", "address": "marudubshinki at gmail.com" }, "date": "2005-04-04T18:19:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Death and Destruction", "in_reply_to": "<001101c538d8$c936f280$60a3f63f@wynnhouse>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I personally suspect, since the remnant is always\n'more pure' than the previous population, this is merely\nnatural fall out of the 'us vs them' way of thinking,... " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Hmmmm" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "....Fires up the ol' zealotry spirit\neven in cases where thinking so is absurd. (Witness how Christians\nin the US feel presecuted!)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Us vs Them\" thinking rears its ugly head in a most ironic way. :-)\n\n~ Crush" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "/me is disquieted; cannot reasonably parse & interpret above statement. \nIs it a cogent agreement and\namplification of the aforegoing? An especially ironic and subtle dig at \nthe author of\nthe aforegoing? Something else even diabolical and intricate, ramping \neven further\nup the dizzying infinite insane meta-levels of post-modern irony and \nepistolary techniques?\n\n/me head asplodes.\n\n~Maru" } ] }, { "message_id": "<001e01c53a07$5a9d5690$60a3f63f@wynnhouse>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "thewynns at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2005-04-05T10:46:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) OT: Death and Destruction", "in_reply_to": "<4251E773.4020301@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Crush wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"Us vs Them\" thinking rears its ugly head in a most ironic way. :-)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "An especially ironic and subtle dig at the author of\nthe aforegoing?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's the one, but more so at the concept that \"us vs them\" thinking can be \ntagged to a particular category of the human race or to a philosophic \ncategory. \"Us vs Them\" thinking is endemic to positively holding a point of \nview. I have the same reaction to this as the claim that there is something \n\"dangerous\" about \"people who believe they are right\" (which would suggest \nthat there is something dangerous about people who seriously believe that \nthere is something dangerous about people who believe they are right).\n\n~ Crush " } ] }, { "message_id": "<42532E40.5070509@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "maru", "address": "marudubshinki at gmail.com" }, "date": "2005-04-05T17:33:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 'Doomed' multitudes", "in_reply_to": "<000201c53836$e6889f70$6401a8c0@TONYSPC>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Tony Ellis wrote:\nAbaia and co have *always* been poised to over the commonwealth. They\nwere poised when Severian left to be Tested, and when he comes back\n70-odd years later the commonwealth is still there. We're even told that\nValeria's second marriage was a good thing because while she could take\ncare of the commonwealth 'he could take care of the Ascians.'\n\n " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I recollect the Undines said that they could have, at any moment taken \nthe Commonwealth\nbut they forebore, to try and stop the New Sun. I find one of the \ninteresting things in Urth of the New\nSun is how Abaia & co are portrayed in a far more sympathetic light- \nthey fight on the side of the sailors\nto let Urth die a slow death, than a violent rebirth. 70-odd years \nlater the Commonwealth is still there\nbecause as Severian says, the 'time when my death could have prevented \nthe coming of the New Sun was past',\nand Sev didn't have to fear assasination at their hands anymore." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Baldanders says: \"The armies of Erebus follow the waves, and all the\ndefeats they suffered at your husband's hands will be avenged.\" In what\nway does 'all the defeats they suffered at your husband's hands' suggest\nAbaia and co were poised to take over anything? \n\nGunnie and the other sailors are shown both futures. If the Frozen Urth\nfuture involves being horribly taken over by Abaia and co and everyone\nbeing doomed, nobody mentions it. A lot of the sailors think it's a\nfuture worth fighting for.\n\n " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The sailors are shown the consequence of the New Sun fork, not the Ice \nUrth fork." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Nothing Master Ashe says suggests Abaia and co taking over either. If\nanything he seems to think they're running out of options. \n\n " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "More evidence that they sought the wrong fork in the path- shows that \neven their\ndesired end of a slowly freezing Urth dooms them and their progeny." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I am curious as to what your life is like if you can consider that \n'ordinary'.\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Oh, come off it. What constitutes an 'ordinary life' is entirely\nrelative to time and place. The lives of the everyday people of the\ncommonwealth Severian meets are ordinary for the people living them. I\ndon't recall many of them saying \"Wow, our lives are just so doomed and\nawful, aren’t they? I wish a big wave would come along and drown me and\neveryone I love.\" \n\nI wrote:\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Since a planet does have to be drowned to\nrealise the potential of a handful of survivors in the New Sun future,\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "think that's more important. \n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Maru wrote:\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Not just a handful. A handful prolfically reproducing to repopulate\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "the \n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "planet.\nA 'handful' which will persist throughout periods of time that if you \neven apprehended a smidgen of their yawning aeons...\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That's still a handful, Maru. In the Frozen Urth future handfuls, at the\nvery least, are taken to new worlds where they can reproduce with quite\nthe same degree of hyperbole.\n\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Getting the idea of how many people have a chance to live should \nSeverian choose to sacrifice a few? \n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Getting the idea that just as many, if not more, will live if he doesn't\nsacrifice anyone at all?\n\n " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Please explain to me how you can say that N worlds of people (where N \nrepresents the totality\nof worlds colonized by man, including a revitalized Urth/Ushas) could \npossibly only\nequal or be less (!) than N-1 worlds of people.\n\n~Maru" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2005-04-05T17:53:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) 'Doomed' multitudes", "in_reply_to": "<42532E40.5070509@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's actually not a difficult question at all; in fact it *seems* so \nobvious how he \"can say\" it that I won't bother to try to answer it. Instead \nI'll ask a more productive question:\n\nWhy are you using \"worlds\" as a unit of measurement instead of individual \nhuman lives?\n\nRelated: What kind of perspective would it require to make this a valid way \nto measure?\n\nTo bake a cake for six people: put two containers full of the relevant \ningredients into one container, and process appropriately. Separate contents \ninto six containers and serve.\n\nMaru said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Please explain to me how you can say that N worlds of people (where N \nrepresents the totality\nof worlds colonized by man, including a revitalized Urth/Ushas) could \npossibly only\nequal or be less (!) than N-1 worlds of people.\n\n~Maru\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4253362D.7010603@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "maru", "address": "marudubshinki at gmail.com" }, "date": "2005-04-05T18:10:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Doomed multitudes", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "...\nYou know what I mean.\n\nBut the reason I am using worlds as a measurement is that\nthat is the simplest way of saying it. I could say something\nalong the lines of all these 'containers' are necessarily the same size\nand so you couldn't separate into six containers; or I could say \nsomething along\nthe lines that if you take Urth out of the picture you have irrevocably \nreduced\nthe future potential of the worlds of man, and this reduced potential \nwill more than\noutweigh the people spared a New Sun. And so on.\n \nThe perspective that makes this a valid way of measuring is a long-term, \nuniversal\nviewpoint, which treats all humans as equal.\n\n~Maru" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Chris wrote:\nThat's actually not a difficult question at all; in fact it *seems* so \nobvious how he \"can say\" it that I won't bother to try to answer it. \nInstead I'll ask a more productive question:\n\nWhy are you using \"worlds\" as a unit of measurement instead of \nindividual human lives?\n\nRelated: What kind of perspective would it require to make this a \nvalid way to measure?\n\nTo bake a cake for six people: put two containers full of the relevant \ningredients into one container, and process appropriately. Separate \ncontents into six containers and serve.\n\nMaru said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Please explain to me how you can say that N worlds of people (where N \nrepresents the totality\nof worlds colonized by man, including a revitalized Urth/Ushas) could \npossibly only\nequal or be less (!) than N-1 worlds of people.\n\n~Maru" } ] }, { "message_id": "<000001c53b4c$4445b720$6401a8c0@TONYSPC>", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2005-04-07T01:32:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) RE: 'Doomed' multitudes", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Maru wrote" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I recollect the Undines said that they could have, at any\nmoment taken \nthe Commonwealth\nbut they forebore, to try and stop the New Sun." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What Joturna says is that Abaia \"might have destroyed you... In a day,\nor a few days. He's sought to tame you instead.\" UOTNS, XLIII.\n\nDestroyed, not taken. Abaia wants humanity alive. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The sailors are shown the consequence of the New Sun fork,\nnot the Ice Urth fork." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Zak showed us that Urth had two futures... It could die and be born\nnew. Or it could go on living for a long time before it died forever.\"\nUOTNS, XXII\n\nTzadkiel the Just shows the sailors that humanity drowns in one future,\nbut omits to mention that it is equally doomed in the other? Doesn't\nsound very likely to me.\n\nBut this is all by the by. Nowhere in the books does it say that in the\nFrozen Urth future humanity is enslaved by Abaia. Nowhere does it say\nthat branch of humanity is doomed. It says, quite categorically, that\nlife goes on." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Please explain to me how you can say that N worlds of people (where N\nrepresents the totality\nof worlds colonized by man, including a revitalized Urth/Ushas) could \npossibly only\nequal or be less (!) than N-1 worlds of people." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Because any attempt to predict which future will ultimately colonise the\nmost worlds is pointless speculation. The Green Men may eventually\ndecide Urth is so sacred they don't live on it at all. The Frozen Urth\npeople may build 50,000 ringworlds each with the surface area of a\nthousand Urths. Rather more probably, both races will at some point\ndecide that they don't actually want to fill the universe to capacity\nlike mindless animals at all, and control their populations accordingly.\n\nThis is precisely why measuring what the New Sun achieves in terms of\nfuture generations is a non-starter, as I've been saying for some time\nnow. The people on this list who suggest that it is worthwhile because\nit may bring about the Hierogrammates at least have an argument." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4255AF43.3040308@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "maru", "address": "marudubshinki at gmail.com" }, "date": "2005-04-07T15:08:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) RE: Doomed multitudes", "in_reply_to": "<000001c53b4c$4445b720$6401a8c0@TONYSPC>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Tony Ellis wrote:\nMaru wrote\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I recollect the Undines said that they could have, at any\nmoment taken \nthe Commonwealth\nbut they forebore, to try and stop the New Sun.\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What Joturna says is that Abaia \"might have destroyed you... In a day,\nor a few days. He's sought to tame you instead.\" UOTNS, XLIII.\n\nDestroyed, not taken. Abaia wants humanity alive. \n\n\n " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Remember, Abaia and Erebus already own the rest of Urth\n(apparently; at least we hear of noone else resisting them, and\nso it is reasonable they have all come to an 'understandin'.\nAnd That they own the rest of the world is reasonable when\nyou posit that they are modelled after the Soviet Union and the\ncircumstances of the Cold War. Didn't the whole thing with\napproved texts and the Ascians remind you of 1984?).\nThey want the Commonwealth intact... why? Why is it necessary\nthat the Commonwealth be 'tamed'? \nI think it is because the rest of the worlds\nof man and the Hs see the Commonwealth as the legitimate speaker for Urth\nand so if Abaia and co want a speaker for Urth who will choose an Ice \nfuture,\nthey must not raze the Commonwealth to the ground like they could, but \nas I said\ntake it intact and via more subtle and inefficient means. Sev says as \nmuch a few times." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The sailors are shown the consequence of the New Sun fork,\nnot the Ice Urth fork.\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Zak showed us that Urth had two futures... It could die and be born\nnew. Or it could go on living for a long time before it died forever.\"\nUOTNS, XXII\n\nTzadkiel the Just shows the sailors that humanity drowns in one future,\nbut omits to mention that it is equally doomed in the other? Doesn't\nsound very likely to me.\n\n " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sev says during the Flood that makes Ushas something to the effect\n'So this is what the sailors saw.' and agrees with their choice." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But this is all by the by. Nowhere in the books does it say that in the\nFrozen Urth future humanity is enslaved by Abaia. Nowhere does it say\nthat branch of humanity is doomed. It says, quite categorically, that\nlife goes on.\n\n\n " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, it says that life will go on for a little while, and then they\nwill all die, forever." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Please explain to me how you can say that N worlds of people (where N\nrepresents the totality\nof worlds colonized by man, including a revitalized Urth/Ushas) could \npossibly only\nequal or be less (!) than N-1 worlds of people.\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Because any attempt to predict which future will ultimately colonise the\nmost worlds is pointless speculation. The Green Men may eventually\ndecide Urth is so sacred they don't live on it at all. The Frozen Urth\npeople may build 50,000 ringworlds each with the surface area of a\nthousand Urths. Rather more probably, both races will at some point\ndecide that they don't actually want to fill the universe to capacity\nlike mindless animals at all, and control their populations accordingly.\n\n " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "May, may may... (How could the Frozen Urthers build any Dyson rings? It \nis all\nthey can do to import a few cannons, much less engage in mega-engineering\nprojects. The future of a Frozen Urth is one of *irreversible* \ndecline. If they\ncannot at the time of BOTNS make a ring, they will not be able to in the \nfuture.)\n\nHumanity may be murdered tomorrow, and so leaving a world my descendants\ncan live in tomorrow is utterly irrelevant to any decisions I may make!\n\nThe Urth may be swallowed by a hidden, undetectable black hole\nthe bday after tomorrow, therefor let us make decisions only with\nregard to us!\n\nIf we cannot be sure of anything, let us do nothing!\n\nIf it is not 100% certain that our food shall not infect us with tiny\nalien parasites which will feed off us and burst messily out of\nour chests, let us not eat at all!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is precisely why measuring what the New Sun achieves in terms of\nfuture generations is a non-starter, as I've been saying for some time\nnow. The people on this list who suggest that it is worthwhile because\nit may bring about the Hierogrammates at least have an argument.\n " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But the Hierogrammates have already been brought about...\n\n~Maru" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2005-04-07T15:30:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) RE: Doomed multitudes", "in_reply_to": "<4255AF43.3040308@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Maru said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No, it says that life will go on for a little while, and then they\nwill all die, forever." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This point has already been discussed a few times in this thread, and what \nyou seem to be implying here seems to be ignoring that.\n\nAlso, that sentence is... well, just look at it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Because any attempt to predict which future will ultimately colonise the\nmost worlds is pointless speculation. The Green Men may eventually" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "May, may may... (How could the Frozen Urthers build any Dyson rings?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If we cannot be sure of anything, let us do nothing!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If I am not misunderstanding things here, it sounds like you are battering a \nstraw man here. I don't think he was suggesting not making any choices at \nall. What he was suggesting was that evaluating \"future generations\" was not \na sound basis for making that choice.\n\nAnd that's arguable. Just not on the terms you're presenting here." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4255E9C8.3010703@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "maru", "address": "marudubshinki at gmail.com" }, "date": "2005-04-07T19:17:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) RE: Doomed multitudes", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Chris wrote:\nMaru said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "No, it says that life will go on for a little while, and then they\nwill all die, forever." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This point has already been discussed a few times in this thread, and \nwhat you seem to be implying here seems to be ignoring that.\n\nAlso, that sentence is... well, just look at it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well c'mon. That's pratically a direct quote, which I didn't bring in, \nmind you. Someone else brought up\nthe UOTNS quote to the effect that 'they will live a long time, then die \nforever', about Urth's choices.\n(Not the worlds of man, if that's what you thought I was referring to. \nThe H's cannot do it for all the worlds\nbut only Urth- or so we think.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Because any attempt to predict which future will ultimately colonise \nthe\nmost worlds is pointless speculation. The Green Men may eventually" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "May, may may... (How could the Frozen Urthers build any Dyson rings?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "If we cannot be sure of anything, let us do nothing!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If I am not misunderstanding things here, it sounds like you are \nbattering a straw man here. I don't think he was suggesting not making \nany choices at all. What he was suggesting was that evaluating \"future \ngenerations\" was not a sound basis for making that choice.\n\nAnd that's arguable. Just not on the terms you're presenting here." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But if you trying to evaluate on basis of human happiness, you must take \ninto consideration future generations, to not do\nso vastly magnifies your current generations rightful share of the pie.\n\n~Maru" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Chris", "address": "rasputin_ at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2005-04-09T00:14:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Doomed multitudes", "in_reply_to": "<4253362D.7010603@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Measuring by worlds is at best one step removed from what you're really \ntrying to get at. There are hidden premises required which can at best be \ncontingently true, if that. For one thing, to make \"worlds\" be the limiting \nfactor it would require that humans find and eventually fill to capacity all \navailable worlds. For another thing, why couldn't the planet be \n\"rehabilitated\" after the ice future comes to pass and repopulated by human \ncultures that left earlier? All they need is enough science to whip \nthemselves up a white fountain.\n\nThis perspective perhaps treats all humans as equal, but just in the sense \nof being equally valueless. No number of presently existing human beings, \nno matter how large, is capable of outweighing infinite \"potential\" future \ngenerations. Actual human beings, in this view, can count for nothing.\n\nOn another note, I think that to some extent we are not thinking of Urth as \njust a planet like any other. Through the framing device of the play, we are \nat some level being led to treat Urth as a sort of microcosm. Its death and \nrebirth are in some way treated as the death and rebirth of *everything*. \nI'm not sure if this sort of allegory should be attributed to Wolfe, or if \nit would be better to attribute it to Severian." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "...\nYou know what I mean.\n\nBut the reason I am using worlds as a measurement is that\nthat is the simplest way of saying it. I could say something\nalong the lines of all these 'containers' are necessarily the same size\nand so you couldn't separate into six containers; or I could say something \nalong\nthe lines that if you take Urth out of the picture you have irrevocably \nreduced\nthe future potential of the worlds of man, and this reduced potential will \nmore than\noutweigh the people spared a New Sun. And so on.\n\nThe perspective that makes this a valid way of measuring is a long-term, \nuniversal\nviewpoint, which treats all humans as equal.\n\n~Maru\n\nChris wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "That's actually not a difficult question at all; in fact it *seems* so \nobvious how he \"can say\" it that I won't bother to try to answer it. \nInstead I'll ask a more productive question:\n\nWhy are you using \"worlds\" as a unit of measurement instead of individual \nhuman lives?\n\nRelated: What kind of perspective would it require to make this a valid \nway to measure?\n\nTo bake a cake for six people: put two containers full of the relevant \ningredients into one container, and process appropriately. Separate \ncontents into six containers and serve.\n\nMaru said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Please explain to me how you can say that N worlds of people (where N \nrepresents the totality\nof worlds colonized by man, including a revitalized Urth/Ushas) could \npossibly only\nequal or be less (!) than N-1 worlds of people.\n\n~Maru" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_______________________________________________" } ] } ] }