Crush on trial

Tony Ellis · 02 Apr 2005, 06:30 · from 2005-April.txt.gz

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From: tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com (Tony Ellis)
Date: Sat Apr  2 06:30:47 2005
Subject: (urth) Re: Crush on trial
Message-ID: <000001c53790$89b5f9b0$6401a8c0@TONYSPC>

Maru said, quoting me:

>>Severian=92s murder of millions can=92t be said to preserve any
>>more unborn generations than Ozymandias=92 murder of thousands.
> =20
>
>The essential question is whether the Urth being able to continue=20
>supporting life will probably
>produce more human life than the cost of making it so capable. With an=20
>open-ended universe, that
>can almost be guaranteed.

In the post you're quoting from, the question was whether the mere
preservation of future generations could be used to justify Severian's
mass-murder *at all*. To which the answer is still "No".

In the wider context, I don't see why the ability of the Urth to
produce, or not to produce, a certain number of humans, should be the
'essential' question.

'Why did so many innocents have to be sacrificed in the first place?'
seems a more important question to me.

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