{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/606", "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": "whorl", "thread": { "id": 606, "subject": "\"Post-Colonial\" Colonization", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1999-05-05T13:03:54+00:00", "last": "1999-05-06T08:36:47+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at sirius.com" }, "date": "1999-05-05T13:03:54+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) \"Post-Colonial\" Colonization", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Greg Neyman," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think I take it for granted, but I'm glad that when I wake up at two in\nthe morning to do that paper that I've been putting off, my computer doesn't\nreturn the error message \"what the @#$% are you doing up at 2 in the\nmorning, and more importantly, why are you bothering me!!!\" the thing is,\nmy computer was created to be my unquestioning servant ... if robots are\ncreated, whose sole purpose is to make a planet habitable for human\ndetachment, then they won't care that they're thrown out like rubbish as\nsoon a the terrans arrive ..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well sure, that's the usual rationale, especially pre-Asimov, who really\nwent far in exploring \"robot rights\" (which itself is either a cheap and\neasy rip-off of the serious civil rights movement, or a visionary\nmeditation on rights for intelligent beings).\n\nIf the artifact is \"just a tool,\" then it is like a flint arrowhead. But\nif the artifact has the artificial intelligence at the level of a mouse or\na dog (which would sure be useful in a terraforming robot, if not an\nabsolute requirement), and the self-awareness of say an iguana, and the\n\"Van Neumann-machine\" ability to reproduce (another very handy trait for\nthis type of project), then the artifact is very close to a lifeform. Even\nin the 20th century there was debate about whether certain =diseases=\nshould be rendered extinct.\n\nSo if your home computer had some robots and built your house and tailored\nthe environment of the house lot from the DNA-level up . . . never mind.\n\nWithin the Whorl, Gene Wolfe has approached robots in an interesting way,\nshowing how they are built, how they pay off the debt of their building,\nhow they can engage in reproduction. They are lifeforms.\n\n\nRobert Patterson," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Another point is that if humans are ever going to inhabit other planets,\nwith >or without current biospheres, those planets will almost certainly\nrequire some >level of terraforming. While I find the probability-based\narguments for the >existence of biospheres on other planets to be fairly\nplausible, I see no >reason to expect that their life-chemistry will be in\nany way compatible with >ours. I just re-read Vernor Vinge's\n_A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep_, and while it is a >great book, he seems rather\nnaive in assuming that everyone can eat everyone >else and not die." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Right. Even the \"minor\" difference between left-handed DNA and\nright-handed DNA is a vast barrier! To be fair, though, a lot depends upon\nthe story to be told. In this case you probably would have been satisfied\nwith a simple sentence or two alluding to whatever miracle would make this\npossible (forerunners, whatever). Those little details, which don't have\nto be built up into the central point of the Story, are often a source of\nvexation or delight: for example, Le Guin's Hainish universe has an escape\nhatch in the form of the forerunner race, the Hain. So some of the more\noutrageous biological whoppers, like the hermaphrodites of LEFT HAND OF\nDARKNESS and maybe some stuff in PLANET OF EXILE, can be blamed upon\nbio-tinkering by Hain in the distant past (LHOD is explicit in implicating\nthe Hain; which is expecially neat since it gives the otherwise angelic\nHain something of the taint of Nazi medical experimenteers).\n\n(If =only= those winged cat mounts of ROCCANON'S WORLD could be blamed on\nthe Hain!)\n\nWhile David J. Lake covers this DNA angle in THE RIGHT HAND OF DEXTRA, he\ncommits some whoppers of his own. Kingsbury's COURTSHIP RITE did a great\njob of showing humans on a \"habitable world\" where they couldn't eat the\nlifeforms.\n\nAnd yes, the terraforming! Even humans moving onto a habitable planet will\nengage in something disturbingly like \"slash and burn\"--bring your own\nbirds, bees, worms, ants, grain, etc. Carve out your little ecozone.\nAnimals that stray outside the perimeter will die of starvation. And the\necologies will be at war: I look out my window and I can see the victorious\ncamps of Australians over on the hill, where they've been for generations\nnow--eucalyptus; likewise, Australia has the cane toad, etc. It would be\nlike that--even if/when the humans stop burning the place, the Terran\nplantforms would be the vanguard, expanding where they could, preparing the\nway for other Terran lifeforms to follow. Classic Darwinian \"root and\nthorn\" stuff--battle of the lifeforms.\n\nAl," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's interesting that at the moment, SF seems to be questioning some of\nthe core assumptions which have held good for decades - like, if we\nhad the ability to settle other worlds (in this solar system or elsewhere)\nwe automatically would do so. Remember in Sterling's Schismatrix, how\nthe entire solar system has been \"taken over\" by humans, but hardly\nanyone actually bothers with settling planets or moons. Similarly in\nEgan's recent Diaspora, the posthuman explorers (actually just software\nrunning on tiny spacecraft!) are deeply reluctant to introduce any sort\nof contaminant into the planet they are exploring. Rather than sending\nsubmarine probes into the planet's ocean, they toy with the idea of\nwaiting a few hundred years until a tsunami dumps some sea-life onto\ndry-land, where they can study it from orbit." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In SCHISMATRIX, wasn't it the case that some fantatics (post-human\npioneers) were altering themselves into \"angels\" so they could live in the\nalien environment of a gas world? Here is a case of \"Nature worship\" so\nstrong (i.e., don't change the planet, change the people) as to be blind to\nthe ethical dilemmas of such radical self-modification. Such \"post\nhumanism\" might be only a mask for the serious generational questions faced\nby humans every day: should I emmigrate; should I wed; should I reproduce;\netc. But \"should I become a mermaid, and all my offspring become\nmermaids?\" is obviously of a different magnitude! And yet, people\nwillingly suicide in cults and on their own, so yes, people are capable of\nall sorts of things.\n\nBut yes, and this revision of sf's core assumptions has been going on for\nsome time now, especially post-Apollo. And it goes hand in hand with\nstarflight becoming more and more distant, more and more impossible--a\n\"sour grapes\" sort of reaction. Or we are only adopting the \"galactic zoo\"\ncredo which we used to think was the reason why the superior lifeforms\naren't contacting us!\n\n=mantis=\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1999-05-06T08:36:47+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) \"Post-Colonial\" Colonization", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, 5 May 1999, Michael Andre-Driussi wrote:\nIn SCHISMATRIX, wasn't it the case that some fantatics (post-human\npioneers) were altering themselves into \"angels\" so they could live in the\nalien environment of a gas world? Here is a case of \"Nature worship\" so\nstrong (i.e., don't change the planet, change the people) as to be blind to\nthe ethical dilemmas of such radical self-modification. Such \"post\nhumanism\" might be only a mask for the serious generational questions faced\nby humans every day: should I emmigrate; should I wed; should I reproduce;\netc. But \"should I become a mermaid, and all my offspring become\nmermaids?\" is obviously of a different magnitude! And yet, people\nwillingly suicide in cults and on their own, so yes, people are capable of\nall sorts of things." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If you want to see more of the ethical dilemmas of radical\nself-modification, you should read Greg Egan's works such as Diaspora,\nDistress, and especially Permutation City. He imagines people who take\nall sorts of body shapes, who become software and \"debug\" and \"edit\" their\nown personalities, people who have decided that emotions are just a bad\nidea and have surgery to become \"voluntary autists,\" and more! \n\n-Rostrum\n\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun." } ] } ] }