"Realistic fiction leaves out too much." - Gene Wolfe

Jeff Wilson · 01 May 2011, 16:46 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Sun, 01 May 2011 11:46:56 -0500
Subject: (urth) "Realistic fiction leaves out too much." - Gene Wolfe
In-Reply-To: <EC349B0AFE9B4DBB9F03C781C6261AE4@jill>
References: <4DBB1060.1020105 at gmail.com>	<794632.94323.qm at web161803.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>	<BANLkTinVfFohh9fu7VwbgjSKKOfv2Bg-0Q at mail.gmail.com>	<4DBB3F16.4000500 at gmail.com>	<BANLkTikERbP9OsLJArNvPEp1PScccdP1SA at mail.gmail.com>	<4DBC3F51.6070703 at io.com>	<BANLkTik4f3+Pam8qjUpd0iViPKQqyJq4-Q at mail.gmail.com>	<4DBC7A40.4090306 at io.com><BANLkTinrXbXqxp9uQzr+Q8J_qustH5tUNw at mail.gmail.com>	<4DBCCACC.6050401 at io.com>
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Message-ID: <4DBD8E80.6000501 at io.com>

On 5/1/2011 9:03 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
> Those other questions you ask may be interesting too, though they are
> different questions. [Indeed, you could have found questions that are
> nearer the point - the computer waste thing in particular does not
> really fit into easy categories of 'mistreatment by the First World',
> given that we don't oblige anyone to import and process said waste; you
> would have to extend the argument to make it fit.]

We don't know that Omelas obliges people to put their kid in a hole, 
either. The hole has to be filled for Omelas to prosper more than it 
would otherwise, so a family that would risk starvation would be 
motivated to put their kid in the hole so the kid is better off alive 
than dead, and the family is much better off.

Likewise, the First World has to spend much less to deal with its 
garbage than the profit of the garbage-making enterprises in order to 
prosper acceptably, so they find places in the second and third world 
where poverty is bad enough that people are willing (either directly, 
collectively, or mostly by their representatives) to let their kids be 
poisoned by the garbage in return for enough salvage to feed them 
instead of letting them starve.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

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