{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/813",
    "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": 813,
    "subject": "Fingers (Adam) and Lamarckstuff (Dan)",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-06-16T11:42:31+00:00",
    "last": "1998-06-16T11:42:31+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0014-0025@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy Oakes",
        "address": "ddanehyo at us.oracle.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-06-16T11:42:31+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Fingers (Adam) and Lamarckstuff (Dan)",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Adam observes:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "So your argument is that the characters who are portrayed on\nthe surface as paunchy men/women in business suits disguised\nas the Queen, Hook, and Wolf are really the Queen, Hook and\nWolf disguised, or manifesting themselves as, paunchy men/women\nin business suits disguised as the Queen, Hook, and Wolf?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "More like the latter.  Paunchy folks in business suits _are_\nthe villains in the version of reality in which Mauss lives\nand works, so when these villain-archetypes enter that version\nof reality, that's how they appear.  "
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "So where does this leave your earlier contention that \"sometimes\na pipe is just a pipe\"?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Good question.  It all seemed so clear at first...\n\n\n**************\n\nAnd Dan Parmenter wrote:\nSubject: Substitute me for him, substitute my coke for gin...\n\nNot a chance, Dan.  I may ask myself, \"Why did I fall for that,\"\nbut we won't get fooled again."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "From: \"Dan'l Danehy Oakes\" <DDANEHYO at us.oracle.com>"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "The same holds true, to a lesser extent, for many prelinguistic\nanimals -- cats and birds can readily be seen teaching their \noffspring how to perform various survival-oriented activities.  "
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "And if that skill is not acquired during a particular phase of\ndevelopment, it is never acquired.  Kittens never taught to hunt can\ncoexist with pet mice without the slightest problem."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Right.  Sturgeon was fascinated by this stuff -- he called it a \n\"window\" in some stories published in the late '70s, by analogy \nwith a \"launch window\" or \"window of opportunity.\"  Language in\nparticular seems to be \"windowed\" in humans; the occasional\nferal child never really learns language if brought back to human\nsociety beyond a certain age (\"three\" sticks in my mind but\nthat's probably too old)."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "...What if the\nshape-shifting ability (to whatever extent it exists) "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "...I'm beginning to lean toward the idea that it doesn't, that\nthere are no abos (left) at all..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "is like language\n- a characteristic of the species the particulars of which\nmust be realized during a \"critical stage\" of their development. \nAll abos have the capacity to shape-shift but if its \"parameters\"\naren't set (through parental/societal examples and interactions,\nas with language) the knack is never fully realized and such abos\nare like the examples one hears about occasionally of children\nraised in severely abusive isutations where they aren't allowed\nto interact and learn language (e.g. Kaspar Hauser).  Such abos\nwould have limited or nonexistant shape-shifting ability and no\nability to use tools."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Interesting.  By the more-or-less standard model, poor or no tool\nusing ability seems to be endemic to abos even when they're raised\namong their own kind...\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------\n|                                 |                                 |\n|        Dan'l Danehy-Oakes       | First Amendment Pop Quiz:       |\n|    Staff Curriculum Developer   |                                 |\n|   Oracle World-Wide Education   | Is it all right to shout        |\n|  e-mail ddanehyo at us.oracle.com  | \"movie\" in a crowded firehouse? |\n|        phone 650.506.0793       |                                 |\n|                                 |                                 |\n---------------------------------------------------------------------"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}