{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/996",
    "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": 996,
    "subject": "Digest Urth, or brains thereo",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-07-16T08:04:00+00:00",
    "last": "1998-07-16T08:04:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0017-0020@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Craig Christensen",
        "address": "2644 at mn3.lawson.lawson.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-07-16T08:04:00+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Digest Urth, or brains thereo",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "From: \"Mark Millman\" <Mark_Millman at hmco.com>\nSubject: Re: (urth) Digest Urth, or brains thereof\nDate: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 12:04:38"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Rostrum wrote:\n...\nI have to admit some confusion on that point.\nWouldn't anyone judging the Autarch also\nhave to know the words in order to recognize\nthem?  Shouldn't any such person be able to\nspeak \"the words\" and pose as the Autarch?\n..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "And Mark Millman replied:\n... For one thing, many of the words command mechanical\ncontrivances, so all a putative Autarch would have to do, for\nexample, would be to open the door behind the throne..."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "This was my thinking, too- the Autarch's oldest personalities remember   \nhow to operate the voice-recognition machinery.  The episode I remembered   \nwas near the end of CITADEL (Father Inire's Letter) where Severian opens   \nthe door to the Autarch's quarters with a word.  I scanned this at home   \nlast night, and I noted a mention of 'words' a little further on, at the   \nbeginning of his conversation with the homunculus.  The homunculus opens   \nby saying (something like) \"Why have you interrupted my contemplation of   \nyour world?\" and Severian replies (something like), \"I now know this   \nworld to have seven continents, of which only part of this one honor the   \nholy words.\"\n\nWhere I had thought that the use of words was a simple use of old   \ntechnology appearing magical in this age, I think that this last tidbit   \nindicates something more.  It seems that the use of 'words' elicits   \ncontrol over the populous.  Or maybe just voluntary allegance."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}