{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5840",
    "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": 5840,
    "subject": "(no subject)",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2010-12-17T13:47:22+00:00",
    "last": "2010-12-17T18:33:54+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<SNT123-W374CB4BF2717D305652A9CF160@phx.gbl>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Lee Berman",
        "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2010-12-17T13:47:22+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) (no subject)",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Andrew Mason: But can we distance ourselves from Urth? Torture exists in our world.\nIf kahibits don't, it's just because we don't have the technology; exploitation of women, \nin various forms, does. The Commonwealth is a pretty nasty place in many ways, but is it \nworse than Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia? I think this is just the inherent corruption of\nhumanity, not a sign of a godless world."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": " \nIn my view, the world is gradually, with frequent backsliding, gradually improving and becoming\nmore humane. The atrocities of WWII are now recognized for what they were, even by the nations\nwhich perpetrated them (sadly the USA lags behind in acknowledgement of the atrocity of the \npurposeful killing of over 1 million civilians in Dresden, Tokyo etc. and of course Hiroshima).\n \nSince then we have progressed to the point that killing a few thousand civilian Iraqis and Afghans \nis somewhat frowned upon as are simulated drownings and stacking naked Muslim men into pyramids.\nGenerally, I see progress.\n \nIf Urth was Earth in the future it would show complete backsliding, back past WWII to Medieval \ntimes and ethics. Even the skimpy history/future of Urth we are given with Typhon's empire and the \ncreation of the Hierogrammates depicts a universe of cruelty.\n \nI find it a far more positive and uplifiting view that Urth is missing some essence of progressive \ngoodness that we on Earth possess. \t\t \t   \t\t  "
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<4D0BAD12.1010204@io.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jeff Wilson",
        "address": "jwilson at io.com"
      },
      "date": "2010-12-17T18:33:54+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) (no subject)",
      "in_reply_to": "<SNT123-W374CB4BF2717D305652A9CF160@phx.gbl>",
      "reply_link": "header",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On 12/17/2010 7:47 AM, Lee Berman wrote:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "Andrew Mason: But can we distance ourselves from Urth? Torture exists in our world.\nIf kahibits don't, it's just because we don't have the technology; exploitation of women,\nin various forms, does. The Commonwealth is a pretty nasty place in many ways, but is it\nworse than Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia? I think this is just the inherent corruption of\nhumanity, not a sign of a godless world."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "In my view, the world is gradually, with frequent backsliding, gradually improving and becoming\nmore humane. The atrocities of WWII are now recognized for what they were, even by the nations\nwhich perpetrated them (sadly the USA lags behind in acknowledgement of the atrocity of the\npurposeful killing of over 1 million civilians in Dresden, Tokyo etc. and of course Hiroshima).\n\nSince then we have progressed to the point that killing a few thousand civilian Iraqis and Afghans\nis somewhat frowned upon as are simulated drownings and stacking naked Muslim men into pyramids.\nGenerally, I see progress.\n\nIf Urth was Earth in the future it would show complete backsliding, back past WWII to Medieval\ntimes and ethics. Even the skimpy history/future of Urth we are given with Typhon's empire and the\ncreation of the Hierogrammates depicts a universe of cruelty.\n\nI find it a far more positive and uplifiting view that Urth is missing some essence of progressive\ngoodness that we on Earth possess. \t\t \t   \t\t"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "That's my opinion; Urth is a place where humanity (for whatever reason) \nhas squandered the light of Christ and is so much the poorer for it. \nThere are still good people in the world and essentially everyone feels \nthe urge to help one another at some point, but it is so much easier to \nignore some atavistic impulse than the Word of God, and the immediate \ntemporal reward is so much more tempting to really, grindingly poor \npeople that they stay in their rut for ages upon ages."
        },
        {
          "kind": "sig",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}