Crush on Trial

maru · 02 Apr 2005, 13:45 · from 2005-April.txt.gz

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From: marudubshinki at gmail.com (maru)
Date: Sat Apr  2 13:45:16 2005
Subject: (urth) Re: Crush on Trial
In-Reply-To: <000001c537cb$d0b7ea90$6401a8c0@TONYSPC>
References: <000001c537cb$d0b7ea90$6401a8c0@TONYSPC>
Message-ID: <424F1268.10105 at gmail.com>

Tony Ellis wrote:

> ....
>
>
>>...all that *easily* compensates
>>for the death of the multitudes, who frankly were doomed anyway.
>>
>
>No, they weren't. The multitudes would have continued to live their
>ordinary lives if Severian hadn't drowned them all.
>
>
On a dying planet. With the most dehumanizing gov.'t ever conceived
poised to take over their lives, liberties, minds (Abaia & co. ?) quite 
literally.
With a sun guttering out.
I am curious as to what your life is like if you can consider that 
'ordinary'.

>
>>Do you follow ethico-political issues at all?  What is the abortion
>>debate over if not over the *potential* of a fetus, or the debate over 
>>Schiavo if not over her *potential* to one day wake up and be what we
>>consider human again?
>>
>
>The last time I followed ethico-political issues, I don't recall that
>planets had to be drowned to realise the potential of a fetus, or the
>unfortunate Mrs Schiavo. Since a planet does have to be drowned to
>realise the potential of a handful of survivors in the New Sun future, I
>think that's more important. 
>
>
Not just a handful.  A handful prolfically reproducing to repopulate the 
planet.
A 'handful' which will persist throughout periods of time that if you 
even apprehended
a smidgen of their yawning aeons of time would drive you mad.  A 
'handful' which will
quite literally engender a number of descendants which are difficult to 
express in your
mundane numbers, partially fused as they are with infinity.
Getting the idea of how many people have a chance to live should 
Severian choose to sacrifice
a few? It is not inconceivably somewhere in the range of quadrillions 
for each
current Urthian Sev. sacrifices.
To tie this in to Catholicism, is it unreasonable to demand the death of 
one man to save and give
a chance at eternal life for multitudes yet to come?

~Maru

'Hmm. I am puzzled, and not a little alarmed.'
-Sin City

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