{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/611",
    "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": 611,
    "subject": "Digest whorl.v009.n039",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-05-15T23:45:07+00:00",
    "last": "1999-05-15T23:45:07+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0009-0117@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Greg Neyman",
        "address": "greg.neyman at gte.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-05-15T23:45:07+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v009.n039",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "good points, mantis.  I don't know how to effectively answer them.\n\nI know about L and D chemical configurations, and your point is valid.\ntheoretically, there is no reason why D-DNA life shouldn't work out.\n\nbut about robotic life ... i'm trying to remember the five aspects that\ndefine life ... one is reproduce, one is adapt, but I can't remember the\nother three ... anyhoop, it seems to me that terraforming robots will have\nto have some adaptation capability, but it will have a fairly low ceiling,\nunlike true life, in which adaptability is only limited by the environment\nthe life is adapting to, maybe one of the other 3 aspects is also NA to\nrobots ... and if not classified as life forms, perhaps standard ethics\ndon't apply to them.\n\nas for the rest of your e-mail ... I am completely unabashed at saying I had\nabsolutely no idea what you were talking about.  no affront intended ... it\ncould be because I just didn't read the  books you mentioned ... it could be\nbecause too many brain cells have died, and I've crossed the point of no\nreturn in terms of intellectual discourse ... :-) who knows ...\n\nwhat i'm trying to say is that, if at all possible, I would like a\nclarification, one more suited to my potentially diminished capacity :-).\n\nhat\n    /\\/\\     Greg Neyman               Greg.Neyman at gte.net\n___/____\\___      http://home1.gte.net/web100to/\n  |HE  HA|\n\n\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}