Heinlein Readers Discussion Group
Saturday Dec. 6, 2003 5:00 P.M. EST
Genetic Selection in Heinlein
You have just entered room “Heinlein Readers Group chat.”
OscagneTX has entered the room.
K8Gladst1 has entered the room.
K8Gladst1: Hello, everyone!
OscagneTX: You made it in.
OscagneTX: David is away somewhere.
K8Gladst1: Well, then, how do we “keep the log for” him as he asked?
OscagneTX: Basically, all we have to do is stay joined to the chatroom.
K8Gladst1: He said (to me via e-mail) that he’d arrive late, and that we should “keep a log for him” and send it to him.
OscagneTX: Then every now and again we save the log, to make sure we have it.
OscagneTX: I’ll take care of it.
K8Gladst1: Okay, so how do we “save the log”?
K8Gladst1: Fine – take care of it, but tell me how (so that I’ll know in future when I need to do it).
OscagneTX: File –> Save As –> Then put in a file name.
K8Gladst1: So … Oscagne, should one of us Say Something Clever and get this started, or wait till the hour begins?
K8Gladst1: Okay, thanks for the info!
OscagneTX: oops… not “save as” just “save”.
K8Gladst1: Okay, “save” – thanks!
OscagneTX: We’ve still got 20 minutes. I’m sure more people will arrive.
K8Gladst1: All right, then, we should wait.
K8Gladst1: I think I’ll take a minute or so to read that “Ginny: Power Behind the Throne” thing that Mike Cothran sent to me from the HEINLEIN JOURNAL.
OscagneTX: Ok
K8Gladst1: Well, I’ve returned. By the way, the article mentions a relational-database-like paper-filing system that Ginny set up for Bob – I could REALLY use something like that, and have not the intelligence to design it for myself. So …
K8Gladst1: … does anyone know where I could get a copy of the system, so that I could apply it to my own mass of stained-dead-tree derivatives?
K8Gladst1: Hmmm, perhaps the Heinlein Society could make money selling the system – if it works – to the chronically disorganized …
K8Gladst1: … such as myself and most other folks I know well.
OscagneTX: I don’t know.
K8Gladst1: Well, then, after the chat I’ll have to write to the author of the JOURNAL article and try to find out.
K8Gladst1: T-minus-13-minutes-and-counting …
K8Gladst1: … I sure hope that I didn’t scare anyone away by Doing Things Wrong on Thursday night or some-such. 😉
OscagneTX: nah. Saturdays are usually lighter.
K8Gladst1: Well, all right, then.
K8Gladst1: Before anyone shows up – just so I don’t sit here staring at a screen for eleven more minutes – let me ask you a question tangentially related to our ostensible current topic. …
OscagneTX: okay
K8Gladst1: … assume that, at some not-too-far-future date, a major church has anathematized gene-selection and all such Satanic Tampering With God’s Holy Image …
OscagneTX: that would not be unexpected.
K8Gladst1: … then, someone (perhaps an influential someone – perhaps a large group of someones) considers joining this church … gets 99% of the way through the conversion-process … BUT …
Kultsi KN has entered the room.
OscagneTX: Howyd, K.
OscagneTX: erk. Howdy.
K8Gladst1: Hyv:a:a huomenta, Kultsi! (I can’t type umlauts with AIM-chat, which I now use.)
Kultsi KN: Hi, guys!
Kultsi KN: Marvelous, Kate!
K8Gladst1: Anyway, Kultsi – to kill time, I’d just asked Oscagne the following …
Kultsi KN: And Good Morning to you, too!
K8Gladst1: … what if a major church bans all gene-selection/”tampering” …
K8Gladst1: Okay, how should I say, in Finnish, “Good evening”? I’d thought that what I typed meant “Hello”! ;-C
K8Gladst1: well … so a church bans all “Satanic Tampering with God’s Holy Image,” but then …
Kultsi KN: Well, it’s so-so… 23:55
K8Gladst1: … then, people who want to convert (and perhaps have money to give the church) find out (as they try to convert) that …
Kultsi KN: Kate, that’s ‘Hyvää Iltaa’
K8Gladst1: … predictably, the priest/elder/rabbi/whoever says “Uh-uh, you CANNOT convert to the church and get saved, even though you have come to BELIEVE in the church, because your parents ‘sinfully’ gave you genes for good vision …
K8Gladst1: … “and this makes you evil/unacceptable” …
K8Gladst1: Okay, then, “Hyv:a:a Iltaa” to you from here in New York State at 4:55 PM on a dark winter afternoon/evening.
K8Gladst1: … just as in FRIDAY (where her New Zealand family rejects her) … so, now, imagine it happening NOT to people seeking to JOIN a church, but to people already IN a church …
starfall2 has entered the room.
starfall2: hi
K8Gladst1: Hello, “starfall2”!
mkeith54 has entered the room.
starfall2: hi kate, i’m jackie
K8Gladst1: Hello, “mkeith54”!
OscagneTX: howdy, Jackie.
K8Gladst1: Hello, then, Jackie! I’ll try to remember.
mkeith54: Hi Kate
mkeith54: names Mike
K8Gladst1: Just musing about gene-selection and such, if it became part of our current society – Okay: hello, Mike! …
OscagneTX: Howdy, mike
mkeith54: Hi
K8Gladst1: … what happens if people in the near future do gene-selection for their children, and THEN their church (to which these parents and their children ALREADY belong) decides “gene-selection is Satanic – all you people who have it …
K8Gladst1: “all you who have selected genes must leave the church … God doesn’t want you not to need eyeglasses [or whatever] unless He chose to have you *born* that way … ”
K8Gladst1: Would sincere believers (sincere up to the point at which the church decided that) feel evil? Or would they just feel betrayed? Or would the church say: …
K8Gladst1: … “well, if you’ve done the ‘evil’ of selecting genes (or the ‘evil’ of getting born with selected genes), you can expiate your ‘sin’ by paying extra to the church … ” (quite a money-maker for the church!), or what?
Kultsi KN: A Good Thing, Kate — that would reduce the power of organized religions just wonderfully…
K8Gladst1: Yes – but imagine the agony of those who (for other reasons) feel unable to leave a church that no longer approves their good health.
K8Gladst1: I have in mind, for instance, Catholics who wanted to leave the Church when a papal bull explicitly banned contraception (shortly after priests had led congregants to expect that the forthcoming bull would explicitly APPROVE it) …
Kultsi KN: ’cause they could just go on interacting with their ghod personally, cutting out the middleman… O:-)
K8Gladst1: … but they felt that, for whatever reason, they got too much else out of the church simply to leave it because they’d ‘sinned’ – so they just kept quiet about their ‘sin’.
K8Gladst1: Yes – but, psychologically, they might not FEEL that they could “cut out the middleman and interact with their god personally” …
mkeith54: Kate, somehow I just don’t see it happening, after all each and everyone of us pratices gene selection everytime we choose a sexual partner, how would they even think to regulate that?
K8Gladst1: A church might ban “unnatural” gene-selection (BEYOND-THIS-HORIZON-type techniques) and not criticize the age-old “natural” kind.
K8Gladst1: Psychologically, I can certainly see someone needing to leave a church (because the church now considers his/her genes/choices “wrong”) but not having the ABILITY (psychologically) to do so … because the church has …
K8Gladst1: … very effectively, and over many years and decades, conditioned him/her into inability-to-leave-the-Church-*no*-*matter*-*what*.
mkeith54: The only church that I could envision doing this already prohibits modern medicine. eventually that will be self correcting. so would any attempt to ban gene selection, their members simply would not be able to compete
K8Gladst1: … which would include conditioning into inability-to-even-THINK-about-leaving-the-church …
K8Gladst1: Yes, “their members simply could not compete” against everyone else with the new-and-improved genes … UNLESS church-members got gene-modified anyway & just lied about it …
mkeith54: I think that you’re giving the church more thought control power thatn they have in most “developed countries”
Kultsi KN: Hmmm…. Then we, of course, found a Brand New Church to Everyone’s Liking — and make BIG bucks for the Heinlein Society.
K8Gladst1: … remember Hubert and Anne in BEYOND THIS HORIZON: they’d decided – “We don’t care what our church’s elders think; our kids will have the same advantages as others … ”
K8Gladst1: Well, churches in less-developed countries can (and do) have thought-control power. I doubt that the Taliban has much love for gene-selection of the type I have in mind.
Bookman99R has entered the room.
Kultsi KN: Hi, Rusty!
Merfilly27 has entered the room.
Bookman99R: Hiya, Kultsi
Kultsi KN: Hi, Steph!
Merfilly27: aloha all
K8Gladst1: … and I would really like to see Kultsi found a Church that could make money for the Heinlein Society (First Church of Lazarus Long, Infidel”? Why not!
Bookman99R: nice when your editing works!
K8Gladst1: Hello, Stephanie!
K8Gladst1: Hello, Rusty!
Bookman99R: Why not the church of the holy inseminato, or Divine Orgasm?
Bookman99R: Hi, K8
K8Gladst1: Sure – make it a Lazarus-Long-and-sex church: why not?
Bookman99R:
Kultsi KN: Well… ElRon did it; why could not the Heinlein Children do the same?
OscagneTX: Howdy, Rusty.
K8Gladst1: Hello, Rusty – and please feel free to call me “Kate.” What doesmean, by the way?
OscagneTX: long-time, I think.
OscagneTX: Wide Evil Grin
starfall2: hi!
mkeith54: typically in those countries where the churches do have that power internal or external forces eventually apply changes. Just look at the women in Iran that has been nominated for the peace prize for striving for
Bookman99R:
mkeith54: changes in her world
K8Gladst1: Sure – let’s make such a Church, with the proviso that membership does *not* preclude concurrent membership in some other religion if that happens to make sense to the member.
Bookman99R: the <>’s indicate actual reality
K8Gladst1: Okay, thanks for explaining the angle-brackets!
Kultsi KN: The actual reality is always in brackets.
Merfilly27: shorthand typing for the old
K8Gladst1: If you had the job of making the rules/rituals/etc. for a “Church of Heinlein” (or make it a fraternal/sororal organization, if you prefer that to a church) – what rules/regulations/rites/recognition-signals would you create for it?
K8Gladst1: … what credos/texts would church-members learn and teach?
Merfilly27: all members must continually better themselves
K8Gladst1: Good: “all members must continually better themselves” – so what criteria do you have for who can join the church?
Kultsi KN: “We Abide By The Eleventh Commandment, and Promise to Keep It Wholly”
starfall2: i’ll be back… i’m going to get some food
mkeith54: no attempt at regulating the membership
K8Gladst1: Okay, good – put in ALL of Maureen’s 11th through 20th Commandments.
Merfilly27: anyone seeking to live outside the box in a way not contradictory to the survival of humanity?
OscagneTX: I think that if the old man found out someone was creating a Religion (big ‘R’) in his image, the gyroscopic effects in the ocean from him “spinning in his grave” would change the Earth’s rotation.
K8Gladst1: Now: suppose that a man (or woman) presents him/herself to a “cleric” of that church (what title should the cleric have?) applying for membership …
K8Gladst1: … what determines admittance/rejection? what does the cleric look for, and how does s/he look for it?
Kultsi KN: Os, ROTFLMAO!
K8Gladst1: Re “anyone who lives outside the box in a way not contradicting human survival” – do we need to specify “outside the box”?
Merfilly27: come one come all, only your stupidity can get you the boot
Kultsi KN: Besides — that goes for both Bob and Ginny.
mkeith54: no doubt, but it is not really a religion, just a loose society of like minded individuals gathering to dicscuss items of mutual interest
Merfilly27: “outside the box” living according to what ones’ self expects, not the societal rules
K8Gladst1: Oscagne, why object to organizations-representing-thenselves-as-churches? RAH advocated such, as a way to freedom, at least twice: in STRANGER and also in SIXTH COLUMN/DAY AFTER TOMORROW. But …
OscagneTX: Even in Stranger, it was a church only for practical reasons… the whole point was education. And in Sixth Column the church was wholly a ruse.
K8Gladst1: … If you don’t like “church,” make it a club with rituals and funny hats and such, perhaps. Church or club, I’d agree with Merfilly’s interpretation of “outside the box” for it.
Kultsi KN: Stehpanie has an axe to grind — she’s ‘outside the box’ for many definitions. I _do_ agree with her.
Merfilly27: thanks Kultsi
OscagneTX: and I
Merfilly27: I like the outside of the box
K8Gladst1: Yes – and I didn’t suggest that a “Church of RAH” would constitute anything BUT a ruse (a “church” on the outside, an educational/self-development organization/freedom-movement on the inside.
Merfilly27: any Heinlein grouping is likely to mimic early freemasons in some respects
K8Gladst1: But (as RAH pointed out) just about ANYTHING can qualify as a “church” under current USA law.
K8Gladst1: Yes – from what little I know of the Masons (too darned little!), I’d say that early Freemasonry could supply lots of inspiration (in both the intellectual and the emotive-ritual directions).
mkeith54: I’ve got some blue mud if you want some
Kultsi KN: Ain’t That Just Sweet! Just declare it as a ‘church’ and nobody can touch it!
K8Gladst1: Yes – we should have a ritual, at the end of every “Heinleiner Meeting,” where members ceremoniously rub blue mud into their navels as a symbol for having to do what the neighbors do (as in several RAH works, e.g., TO SAIL …
Kultsi KN: The two masons (I think) I know are quite exemplary persons.
Merfilly27: Go all out and have a handshake or ring or watch to identify others
K8Gladst1: … where Ira counsels Maureen: “If your neighbors rub blue mud into their navels every Tuesday, you’d better make sure to conspicuously do it too, so you won’t get killed” or words to that effect.
OscagneTX: The “declare it a church” thing doesn’t wholly work anymore, either. Otherwise certain religious groups wouldn’t keep getting arrested for use of peyote or pot.
Merfilly27: I kept bumping up against Masons in researching ealry American History, which is why I hope to pursue further investigations later
K8Gladst1: Yes – a ring or watch or pin or some-such … and DEFINITELY a handshake, special hand-wave, and a plethora of other recognition-symbols so that (whatever your situation) you can send/receive member-recognition.
mkeith54: how about Sekio kenitics for the watch, I like them
K8Gladst1: We wouldn’t, I think, make drugs part of our church/club.
Kultsi KN: We have the pin already — I have one, there’s one on the Society site…
OscagneTX: The drugs is the side issue. The main issue is that there is a part of that religion that’s not “hands off” to the governement.
K8Gladst1: Seiko kinetics? Possibly – but I’ve just bought (and very much like) a solar-powered watch which sets itself through radio-signals from Fort Collins, Colorado, USA (*exactly* as RAH predicted in “Blowups Happen.”)
Kultsi KN: The religion is — the members are not.
K8Gladst1: I spent over 100 bucks on what I think of as my “Heinlein Watch” – so I don’t feel very happy about having to go out and buy another one. But, well, I MIGHT buy a Seiko Kinetic (self-winding from human movements) watch …
K8Gladst1: … if only as a back-up to my solar-powered one.
mkeith54: It’s just that I’ve wanted a Seiko Kinetic for a long time
Bookman99R: Gotta scoot – xmas shopping calls
Merfilly27: have fun Rusty
Bookman99R: I got the link now
Kultsi KN: I have this Citizen Eco Drive — light powered.
K8Gladst1: We should make any expensive recognition-devices optional, not obligatory, to acquire. I don’t want to see anyone blackballed from “the Heinleiners” because s/he can’t spent a lot of money on a watch.
Bookman99R: be well, y’all
Kultsi KN: In titanium.
Bookman99R has left the room.
Kultsi KN: Kinetic is too massive.’
K8Gladst1: Titanium sounds good. Hmmm … encourage members to buy at least one piece of jewelry in platinum, for use as a catalyst in chemical processes if/when s/he survives the fall of civilization and has to start re-inventing it all …
K8Gladst1: (an idea I got from some Heinleinesque SF and non-fiction works by Dean Ing).
Merfilly27: “Strangers” as opposed to “Friends” ?
K8Gladst1: I don’t recall the title of the work(s) at the moment.
K8Gladst1: Encourage, generally, things that help us survive … survival now AND survival later …
Merfilly27: survival in the face of all odds, right?
mkeith54: Actually replicas of the Heinlein medallion offered by the Society could be a recognizeable symbol. worn as a necklace, charm or pin.
K8Gladst1: … general preparedness: storing food and tools and such, at the very least.
Kultsi KN: What I did refer to earlier is this red heart with the letters ‘SF’.
K8Gladst1: Yes – survival WITH STYLE in the face of all odds!
Kultsi KN: The Blood Drive Pin.
Kultsi KN: Survival is more attitude than means.
K8Gladst1: The red SF-heart (the RAH blood-drive pin) should continue, and members should qualify themselves to acquire it. We should also have other recognizable symbols, available (unlike the blood-drive pin) to members *only*.
SciFiman33 has entered the room.
OscagneTX: Howdy, Richard.
Merfilly27: hello
SciFiman33: Hello All!
K8Gladst1: I agree that survival involves attitude FAR more than means! (but don’t despise the means, when you can acquire them). Hello, Richard! We’ve drifted into the notion of forming a club devoted to Heinlein’s ideals …
mkeith54: If you used the blood drive pin, what would you do for the members like myself and others that are prohibited from giving blood?
OscagneTX: Everyone, this is Richard Madden. It’s his first time in. He just got added to the notify list.
K8Gladst1: … sort of a Heinleinish version of a fraternal.sororal order, with rituals/recognition symbols, and the like.
Dehede011 has entered the room.
mkeith54: Hello Richard
Merfilly27: hi Ron
OscagneTX: Howdy, Ron
Dehede011: Hi everyone.
K8Gladst1: Note that people who can’t give blood CAN still get the SF-pin if they contribute to blood-drive efforts in other ways – Hi, Ron! –
SciFiman33: I also cannot give blood.
mkeith54: hi Ron
Dehede011: How is the discussion going.
K8Gladst1: … for instance, if they can persuade eligible friends to give blood, if (as I recall) they help out in other ways with a blood-drive …
Kultsi KN: Hi, Ron, hello, Richard!
Dehede011: For me, giving blood is a chancy sometimes thing.
Kultsi KN: Mr. Madden, what’s your preferred nick?
K8Gladst1: … We’ve drifted into the notion of forming a fraternal/sororal order devoted to Heinlein’s ideals …
Merfilly27: time is always valued at drives
Dehede011: I’m joining the sorority
K8Gladst1: WELCOME, our new friend Richard Madden!!!
SciFiman33: My nicck is SciFiMan
Kultsi KN: Too long 😉
K8Gladst1: … sort of like a Heinleinish version of the Elks or Masons or what-have-you. Okay, “SciFiMan.”
Dehede011: A line marriage??
K8Gladst1: Kultsi, please repeat and shorten your “too long message.”
mkeith54: Or maybe a Star line
K8Gladst1: Individual members might get into line-marriages, but the “club” would not constitute a marriage.
Dehede011: Okay
Merfilly27 has left the room.
Merfilly27 has entered the room.
K8Gladst1: Similarly, I don’t think the club would constitute a genetic “Star line” – do we really want to ban people who have genetic defects or can’t reproduce? Then you’d have to ban me! ;-( …
K8Gladst1: … and you’d also have had to ban RAH and Ginny, as I understand it.
Dehede011: Or at least one of them
Merfilly27: no, because non-reproductive members can still vastly contribute
mkeith54: bad Idea I guess
SciFiman33: I don’t know what “Star Line” or “line Marriages” are?
K8Gladst1: Of course, “Star Line”/”Howard Foundation”-type projects could (and should) exist as one facet of the club’s activities.
mkeith54: Both are Ideas from RAH’s bookls
Kultsi KN: Lost me there, Kate. If you mean the ‘too long’ that was about Richard’s nick: SciFiman is too long for use here; so ‘Rick’ or ‘Ric’ or what?
mkeith54: books
K8Gladst1: For “star line,” see GLORY ROAD and BEYOND THIS HORIZON. For “line marriages” (a quite different thing), see THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS.
K8Gladst1: Okay, Kultsi, thanks for explaining!
SciFiman33: Thanks K8
Dehede011: A version of his homo novus already exists according to the psychometricians.
K8Gladst1: Ron – please provide me with more info on these “psychometricians” and their finding that “homo novus already exists.”
Kultsi KN: I’m all ears (or eyes), Ron.
K8Gladst1: For that matter, please provide the rest of us with this info – GULF-type “homo novus location/training projects” would form another important goal for “The Heinlein’s Children Club” (we really need a snappier name for the lodge!)
Dehede011: Not HN per se. The psychometricians according to the Bell Curve believe the folks in the top end of the IQ curve are different both quantitatively and qualitatively
K8Gladst1: What cut-off point do they use for the “top end of the curve” – and what tests/qualifications do they accept as demonstrating membership therein?
Dehede011: I understand they are talking about the top 5%
Kultsi KN: Kate: ‘The Ginnians’
Dehede011: IQ Kate.
Kultsi KN: 😀
K8Gladst1: I’d like to see some kind of online “Test Yourself for Homo Novus” site – Kultsi, please explain “The Ginnians”! Where does one apply to join?
Dehede011: But the general practice of those groups is to be inclusive at the boundaries.
K8Gladst1: Okay, but presumably some kind of line-of-demarcation exists, even if it gets a little fuzzy in dubious cases.
Dehede011: Personally I don’t want a formal admissions test.
Kultsi KN: Kate, you asked for a name; I gave you — or us — one.
Merfilly27: It beats “Heinies”
Dehede011: They seem to us GT for gifted and talented.
Merfilly27: 🙂
Dehede011: oops use
K8Gladst1: Yes – NO formal admissions test for a fraternal/sororal “fun” order … but special groups/projects within/run by that order might have their own tests/requirements.
Dehede011: Same group as the gifted classes in schools.
K8Gladst1: Okay – I don’t know, though, if I like the name “Ginnies.” It DOES, though, beat “Heinies.” But I could live with “Ginnies” if others liked it.
Dehede011: The reason for no test is also from The Bell Curve. An individual IQ test just isn’t predictive of anything.
K8Gladst1: Not all gifted people get into “gifted” classes, and _vice_versa_. In some schools, teachers routinely drop “troublemakers” from gifted/talented classes NO MATTER WHAT their tested IQ or demonstrated achievements …
Merfilly27: And, I have to point out that strict use of IQ tests gives you a bunch of stupid smart people sometimes
Kultsi KN: Besides — normal IQ tests are much too crude: the really smart cheat — downwards — and they do not measure, frex, leadership ability at all.
mkeith54: Why not use the Long Association, after all it figured into more of his works than any other name
Dehede011: True, “It ain’t Haines til I say it is Haines”
K8Gladst1: … some schools/teachers also forbid those with any neurological disorder (treatable or not) to enter gifted/talented programs because (e.g.) “if they have something wrong with their brain, then they can’t be smart.”
Merfilly27: Brains do not matter without savoir faire and common sense
Dehede011: All of which is why the groups are inclusive at the edges. They recognise the limitations of the system
Merfilly27: K*, would not have worked in my school…all us GT students had discipline records thicker than the school bullies
K8Gladst1: I could *certainly* live with “the Long Association” – consider the name to refer NOT only to LLong and his family, but also to suggest “taking the LONG view” – “planning to keep going for a LONG time [individually and as a group]”
LanaiHoward has entered the room.
Kultsi KN: Mike, might ‘Llong Association’ be even better?
LanaiHoward: Hi all.
Kultsi KN: Hi, Howard!
K8Gladst1: … and “LONG range projects” (cf. “the Long Range Foundation” in TIME FOR THE STARS. Hello, LanaiHoward!
mkeith54: works for me
OscagneTX: I think that the Heinlein Society probably fulfils all of the parameters that have been discussed here.
OscagneTX: Baby steps, you know. Baby steps.
K8Gladst1: I don’t know that I like a two-L “LLong Association” as a name for a fraternal/sororal/special-projects group intended to fulfill RAH’s dreams for human improvement – but I could live with it if spelled “LLong” rather than “Llong.”
Dehede011: Frankly, I have always accepted the afh Heinlein group as constituting a GT group and I frankly don’t give a hoot about actual IQ tests results
LanaiHoward: What was that cigarette that used the advertising slogan, “It’s not how Long you make it, it’s how you make it Long”. Entendres abound
mkeith54: yes and it should be that parent organization of what we are discussing
K8Gladst1: Yes, I see the Heinlein Society as the parent organization of a family of useful spin-offs … and I DO like that cigarette-slogan … has copyright expired thereon?
mkeith54: The heinlein Society, that is
K8Gladst1: Should we establish special recognition-signals between Heinlein Society members (secret handshakes and what-have-you)?
LanaiHoward: When I think of the Long Range Foundation, I often wondered if RAH really saw the exponential acceleration of today’s rate of technical growth, as vivid a thinker as he was
SciFiman33: How about “Pay It Forward”?
Dehede011: A GT society is the theme of the novels I am writing. I would make only one change in this group of Heinlein fans to have the beginnings of the society I write about.
Merfilly27: I need to re-join THS
LanaiHoward: Kate, I _did_ have an Official Captain Midnight Decoder Ring. Lenses are nice, but Arisian jewelers are hard to find.
Dehede011: THS??
K8Gladst1: We have 10 folks here at the moment – even God asked only for 10 good people before He would save Sodom (he didn’t get them, though). Yes, Stephanie, please rejoin THS! And I look forward to Ron’s novels! …
K8Gladst1: … Ron, what “only one change in us” would you suggest?
Kultsi KN: The Heinlein Society
Merfilly27: must be solvent
Merfilly27: which I’m not
Dehede011: To become conscious of the information we can tap collectively to improve our own lives.
mkeith54: It took me long enough to join the HS, everyone else that doesn’t belong should join, today as a matter of fact.
K8Gladst1: Yes, “survival with style,” in our society, implies access to our medium of exchange.
Merfilly27: I subsist off the charity of my children’s father
OscagneTX: Steph, if you’re worried about dues, I’m sure we can find enough folks to kick in.
Merfilly27: nah..I kicked in dues one year, will do so again once able
Kultsi KN: Yes. Definitely.
K8Gladst1: Who here has joined THS? (I have joined … and plan to pay more & become a retroactive-charter-member so that I can get the CD with the recording of RAH’s 1941 WorldCon speech.)
Dehede011: Me
Kultsi KN: I’m waiting for the CD as well…
K8Gladst1: Merfilly – how much do you need to help you “make the nut” on dues? If you take PayPal and can remind me of your e-mail address, I can send you ten bucks to help you towards that goal.
LanaiHoward: I live in extremes WRT to joining the Society — yesterday had to borrow to keep the lights on, today may have several months of fairly lucrative contracts
SciFiman33: I am a member.
LanaiHoward: so may well sign up on Monday
K8Gladst1: I look forward to that, Howard!
Merfilly27: K8, thanks, but after school starts I expect to be solvent again
K8Gladst1: Okay, then – someday, take ten bucks and “pay it forward” to someone else who needs it to join THS.
mkeith54: For some reason when I read Kate’s message about the CD the RCA dogs and the words “the masters voice” popped into my head
K8Gladst1: Should THS start a fund for the purpose?
K8Gladst1: Arf!
K8Gladst1: Call me a dog,if you like (as long as you mean a bitch and not a Jockaira).
LanaiHoward: Nixie would seem the appropriate dog.
K8Gladst1: I meant, “Should THS start a fund whereto members could donate small amounts towards the membership-fees of indigent potential members who promise to ‘pay it forward’ to others in the same circumstances later on?”
Kultsi KN: Kate, RL is the bitch, not you…
mkeith54: Visualize, the pups are all of us listening to the master– Heinlein talking to us.
Merfilly27: A worthy idea
mkeith54: Kate, take the idea to the Society, I’m in on the helping part
K8Gladst1: Hmmm … should we make up a pin with a dog-motif? That sounds, perhaps, just a wee bit TOO subservient! … faithful Fido “listening to the master” and not coming up with anything of his own, just a trained pup …
LanaiHoward: Kate, then perhaps a cat listening?
K8Gladst1: Okay, Mike – to whom should I e-mail my suggestion for helping people “make the nut” to join?
OscagneTX: Far more appropriate.
Kultsi KN: Never a dog — a cat OTOH…
K8Gladst1: How about a pin showing that vast impossibility … a herd of cats?
K8Gladst1: We independent cats have found it in ourselves to “herd” behind RAH …
Dehede011: Listening to their “Masters Voice.”
Kultsi KN: Kate — that sounds like Ayn Rand…
K8Gladst1: So … a herd of cats all facing the initials “RAH”?
K8Gladst1: I don’t care whom it sounds like …
Kultsi KN: With ONE facing the other direction?
K8Gladst1: … do you like it?
mkeith54: David Silver, would be wher I would
start
K8Gladst1: Yes – with ONE facing the other direction!!!!! HurRAH!
OscagneTX: Why don’t we call a break? Kate?
Dehede011: Folks, I have to leave at this time. Bye
Dehede011 has left the room.
Kultsi KN: 2fast4me
LanaiHoward: Please…let us not go too far in the direction of Rand’s actual salons, where people sat in the dark looking at glowing cigarettes
OscagneTX: Objections to a break? 10 minutes?
K8Gladst1: Oh, please, NO glowing cigarettes … health-hazard, you know …
Kultsi KN: Nah… we would never be like that, Howard.
K8Gladst1: I don’t mind a ten-minute break – and, yes, I’ve just e-mailed
David Silver my “pay-it-forward-to-indigent-applicants” proposal.
mkeith54: 10 minutes is good
OscagneTX: Okay. Break. Everyone be back by 10 after the hour.
SciFiman33: No Objection.
K8Gladst1: All right, then …
K8Gladst1: … see you soon!
LanaiHoward: The cigarettes were supposed to be meditative foci of man’s mastery of fire. She also recommended thanking smokestacks
Kultsi KN: That’s only six..
Merfilly27: Reminded of Denis Leary on his No Cure For Cancer album, some reason
Merfilly27: Something about sitting around fires, smoking, and eating meat
SciFiman33: How do I exit and return?
Kultsi KN: Here, smoking is prohibited in the workplace… so special spaces is reserved for that, anf those spaces are AWFUL.
K8Gladst1: I wouldn’t mind saying “thank you” to a smokestack for existing – I do feel gratitude for the achievements of those who have gone before (though I think we can best express that gratitude, in large part, by …
OscagneTX: Oh, you don’t have to actually leave the chat room.
OscagneTX has left the room.
Kultsi KN: Duh!
OscagneTX has entered the room.
Kultsi KN: WB!
K8Gladst1: … improving and building on what others before have left to us … improve on a smokestack by making it non-polluting.) But I WILL NOT say “thank you” to a cigarette, as a meditation-tool or otherwise … at least, not till …
OscagneTX: Nuts. At least I saved.
OscagneTX: I was saying, you don’t have to leave the chatroom. The break is just a chance to get munchies or go to the restroom, Scifiman.
Merfilly27: will return…dirty diaper and dinner needing attention
K8Gladst1: … not till the cigarette-people can come up with the kind that doesn’t kill you. (Ayn Rand died from emphysema because she denounced as “leftist” any suggestion/info/possibility that her beloved “symbols of achievement” could …
OscagneTX: I you want to leave the chatroom, I’ll re-invite you in 6 or so minutes.
K8Gladst1: … could cause that or any other disease.)
SciFiman33: OK!
SciFiman33: I’ll and listen to the noise!:-)
Kultsi KN: BTW, what’s the designated topic for today?
OscagneTX: Eugenics in Heinlein
Kultsi KN: Noise here is just wonderful, ain’t it?
Kultsi KN: Gulf does pop up…
OscagneTX: And BTH.
Kultsi KN: and Friday
K8Gladst1: Okay – at ten minutes past the hour, the break has ended and we presumably return to gene-selection in the works of RAH. Within RAH’s works, does anyone here particularly like/particularly dislike anything he has said on the topic?
K8Gladst1: How would you feel, growing up in (say) the world of BEYOND THIS HORIZON and learning (at some time in your life – as a child or teen or young adult) …
K8Gladst1: … that you belonged to the Control Naturals?
Kultsi KN: _I_ recognize the need, but to make the people — individualistic as they are — to conform is another animal.
OscagneTX: I think a CN probably knew they were different from day 1.
LanaiHoward: There are many directions in which the CNs could go. Is it a heritage? A disability? Consider the positions of some deaf activists today.
K8Gladst1: Okay – if the CNs “knew they were different from Day 1,” how would you as a CN have felt about the difference?
Kultsi KN: Resent it.
OscagneTX: I would guess about the same as the CN bartender felt. But that’s just me.
K8Gladst1: If you (as a CN) had CN kids, how would you teach them to feel about the difference?
K8Gladst1: I, like Kultsi, would CERTAINLY resent it!
georule1861 has entered the room.
OscagneTX: howdy, geo
Kultsi KN: Hi, Geo!
georule1861: Just in the neighborhood. . .
Kultsi KN: And ya caint ask for better neighborss….
K8Gladst1: Hello, GeoRule! I’ve just asked folks … “In the BEYOND THIS HORIZON world, how would you have felt growing up as a Control Natural? How would you teach your kids to feel about it?”
LanaiHoward: it also might be a challenge to them. We have the example of Darlington John (IIRC) not being able to play in Hamilton Felix’s version of the NFL…but I’d get killed playing pro football..
LanaiHoward: But that doesn’t stop me from excelling in other fields. Presumably the CNs can learn and create
K8Gladst1: Okay, so the Control Naturals might see it as a challenge … but they might also see that they could not reasonably expect to *meet* that challenge … or even some everyday challenges …
georule1861: Not good, I think. One could wonder about resumes, laws preventing employers from asking what might
K8Gladst1: … most people, for instance, apparently don’t want to marry Control Naturals or to have kids with them.
georule1861: be evident from observation, etc.
georule1861: Almost Friday in reverse.
K8Gladst1: And I CAN certainly imagine that Control Naturals might have a much harder time getting/keeping jobs (because they presumably can’t “learn and create” as fast/as well/as wonderfully as the other folks in the world).
LanaiHoward: geo, that’s already being tested in the courts. Southern Pacific Railroad tried to use tests of Hereditary Nerve pressure palsy syndrome to defend against ergonomic workers’ comp claims. They lost
georule1861: Not to mention what they’d do to a company’s worker comp/health coverage rates! Tho that might
georule1861: not be a factor in a HORIZON society.
K8Gladst1: Yes – but I suspect that the BEYONDers don’t have laws requiring employers to hire relatively-less-able-and-sturdy employees.
K8Gladst1: If you have a tendency to palsy or whatever, they probably just pick someone who doesn’t.
georule1861: You could argue the government should support them to some degree because they are clearly providing a public good.
K8Gladst1: The government in BEYOND *does* support them to some degree, for that reason … but I can’t imagine that not one of them resents this.
georule1861: But would be tuff on the psyche, I’d think.
Merfilly27 has left the room.
K8Gladst1: Yes – how, e.g., would a man of RAH’s personality and beliefs have felt, if designated as a Control Natural and given money because of it?
LanaiHoward: How does the BTH goverment feel about psychological conditioning? THinking of “I love being a gamma” in Brave New World
LanaiHoward: well, maybe it was beta or delta
georule1861: You could create a coventry for them of their own, but that has its own problems in the long term.
K8Gladst1: Yes – I’ve often wondered just what went on in those “development centers” that provided daycare/education for most of the children. Did the CNs have special classes, or sessions with special therapists, to train them into …
LanaiHoward: A coventry like LL described that was populated by the descendants of the New Frontiers? Alternate evolution?
georule1861: Right.
K8Gladst1: … an attitude of “I just LOVE being Control Natural! I really DON’T mind that I can’t think as hard/run as far/etc./etc./etc. as all the others … I’m inferior and PROUD of it!”
OscagneTX: The bartender didn’t have that attitude.
OscagneTX: So I’d bet he wasn’t “conditioned” in any way.
OscagneTX: Come to think of it, niether did Monroe-Alpha’s girlfriend.
LanaiHoward: a key, Kate, would be if there were stellar role models for CN’s, who had marched to a different drummer. It’s rather like asking if Stephen Hawking is disabled — or the Commodore of the Space Academy not being blind…
LanaiHoward: just having lost his eyes.
K8Gladst1: Okay, then, let’s assume that the CN’s *don’t* generally like their status. If you lived in that world as a CN, and had a CN child, what attitude (towards life as a CN) would you teach/demonstrate for your child?
Kultsi KN has left the room.
Kultsi KN has entered the room.
LanaiHoward: Kate, if the CNs still had the “wolf” genetics of humanity in general, you’re building an underground
K8Gladst1: Do we have any evidence that the BEYONDer CN’s have ANY stellar role-models? I don’t think that “owner of a fancy restaurant” quite qualifies as such.
OscagneTX: I think that people that had a problem with their station wouldn’t have children. Like the Bartender. Those who had reached emontional stability would have kids
K8Gladst1: Hmmm … Revolt of the CNs! I LIKE it!
OscagneTX: And teach them that harmony of atttitude. Like MA’s gf.
K8Gladst1: Okay … so you, an emotionally stable CN, have some CN kids.
How did you get emotionally stable, and how do you help your kids reach that stability.
georule1861: Entertainment. Comedians and singers. Particularly comedians of the needle sort.
Kultsi KN: And football players to die for ya….
OscagneTX: The same way deaf or blind or crippled people do. You realize that being alive at all, even if “dis”abled, is better than not having lived.
LanaiHoward: geo, while I doubt you meant that, I had an unpleasant flash of a blackface minstrel show
OscagneTX: YOu take you’re pleasure where you can get it, and you tell the green-eyed-monster to piss off.
K8Gladst1: Re Monroe-Alpha’s girlfriend – it turns out that she doesn’t belong to the CNs after all – she has a mutation from her grandpa that makes for emotional stability, and that puts her into an “experimental” group (because …
K8Gladst1: … the MDs/psychs don’t yet know whether to call it a good mutation or a not-so-good one).
georule1861: I didn’t think of that when I wrote it, but the comparison is not entirely off either. Think more Richard Pryor tho. Entertainment and underground at the same time.
LanaiHoward: Osc, I’d challenge whether that realization is universal, thinking in particular of people i know with progressive degenerative diseases
K8Gladst1: And I DO NOT want to imagine the CNs serving as society’s “blackface minstrels/court jesters/funny men and women/capering clowns” for the amusement of their betters.
LanaiHoward: 9–+6
Kultsi KN: And they would never know — because these mutations do happen in every generation — they are just not that visible.
OscagneTX: I know it’s not universal. But I was speaking as Kate’s hypothetical “emontionally stable CN”
LanaiHoward: Rhonda on keyboard…I am a capering clown for feline entertainment, sometimes.
OscagneTX: She asked how to get emontional stability… I gave an example.
K8Gladst1: The non-CN population would laugh at the CNs, feeling sure that these lesser folk could never REALLY threaten their betters’ built in superiority.
georule1861: Not every profession requires the kind of skills that are genetically there. Or do we think
georule1861: there is a gene for kindness? ability to get along with others? empathy?
Kultsi KN: Quite a math ability, Howard… 😉
K8Gladst1: Yes, but growing up knowing yourself as a lesser type of human (in at least some ways) can’t do a person much good, I should imagine.
OscagneTX: But another whole philosophy of RAH’s work is thumbing your nose at Mrs. Grundy. As a stable CN, I’d (in my mind) tell all those folks laughing at me to piss off.
OscagneTX: Depends on what you mean as lesser.
K8Gladst1: And genes for kindness/empathy/ability to get along MAY well exist – if we can believe the sociobiologists (Heinlein seems to have believed them).
georule1861: I’m a lesser kind of human compared to Brad Pitt in some ways and Stephen Hawking in other ways. I get by.
OscagneTX: Exactly, Geo.
LanaiHoward: Osc, you infer the existence of a get-along-with-others trait among the non-CN’s. The bth society doesn’t ostracize them
K8Gladst1: Thumbing your nose as Mrs. Grundy gets A LOT harder when Mrs. Grundy can outrun/out-think/out-achieve you, can get a date when you can’t, looks better than you, keeps her good looks for far longer, and gets a better job.
K8Gladst1: Why wouldn’t the non-CNs also take that get-along-with-others trait into their own genetic mix? Or does it always-and-forever compete with “wolf” abilities?
OscagneTX: Yeah, but at what price does she do all that. If’s she’s laughing at me, she’s a bitch. And I wouldn’t make myself like her even IF she was superior those other ways.
LanaiHoward: In the psychosociobiology of BTH, I’m not as convinced that they selected for every dimension of intelligence. CNs might well outthink is specialized areas
Kultsi KN: If that’s the case, I’d like to grow antlers o Mr. Grundy…
K8Gladst1: If she laughs at you and she runs the show, whether or not you emulate her you have a hard time snickering at her.
K8Gladst1: What does “grow antlers on Mrs. Grundy” mean, Kultsi?
OscagneTX: Why?
OscagneTX: When a wife strays to another’s bed, her husband is said to have “grown antlers”.
georule1861: It seems to me there must be some genes that are mutually exclusive. That is probably one of the risks. Losing some of those because of selecting for the others. Also the tempation to breed
OscagneTX: I don’t know where that euphamism derived from.
K8Gladst1: Oh, you said “on MR. Grundy” – I understand THAT! But do you really WANT to “do it” with that nasty woman?
Kultsi KN: Mister Grundy is the one to grow antlers — you breed with the best, IOW.
georule1861: sprecialists and what you might be having to leave out to do it. And also the temptation to settle on
LanaiHoward: Do it for what motivation, Kate? Most rape is about power, not sex
georule1861: a “optimum” that practically everyone then uses and become totally homogenous. It is happening to a large degree
georule1861: in fruits and vegetables for much the same reasons.
K8Gladst1: The “antlers/horns” euphemism, some say, originated in the Byzantine Empire – when the Emperor diddled a married woman, to buy her husband’s silence the Emperor would give him a large hunting-estate …
OscagneTX: Here’s my question about the whole CN issue… are CN’s allowed to produce offspring with non-CNs? If so, how are the kids classed?
OscagneTX: Both the Bartender and his wife were CN. So, only “pure breed” CN kids get the benifit?
K8Gladst1: … and the owners of royally-deeded hunting-estates had the right to post antlers above their doors. So …
OscagneTX: Ah… Thanks, Kate.
LV Poker Player has entered the room.
georule1861: Hello, apartheid. No miscgenation allowed, please. This has always been the problem with this area.
OscagneTX: Howdy, LV>
K8Gladst1: … when you saw a less-than-noble house suddenly sporting antlers, you might have a notion of how the head of the household had GOTTEN the antlers …
LV Poker Player: hi
Kultsi KN: Hi, LV!
georule1861: After the last chat, it occured to me that one could argue that Heinlein over his career was promoting replacing God. . .
georule1861: with the human dna strand.
K8Gladst1: Re CNs/non-CNs marrying: I see no reason that they wouldn’t let this happen. Of course, presumably the offspring don’t get the CN stipend … presumably, also, the parents can decide together to do gene-selection if they …
K8Gladst1: … have anything to select for.
LV Poker Player: Hi Kate, I sent you email last night, no reply. Do you still have your problem where you don’t see all email?
OscagneTX: So, in what way are CN’s discriminated against? A pure-breed CN gets a lifetime of welfare payments. They don’t HAVE to compete.
OscagneTX: I’d bet that some non-CN were pretty jealous of that.
K8Gladst1: “one could argue that Heinlein over his career was promoting replacing God with the human dna strand” – and/or with the human capacity-to-achieve-and-progress generally (= also in non-genetic respects).
mkeith54: Did they have to take the payment? I thought htey could compete if they wanted to
Merfilly27 has entered the room.
K8Gladst1: I just didn’t have time to check e-mail yesterday or today. So give me a few moments, LVPP, to go and look at yours.
LV Poker Player: ok
LV Poker Player: I assumed control naturals would get the payment whether or not they also worked. Don’t know if this is specifically mentioned though
georule1861: You can’t force someone to take the payment even if you force them to take the payment, if you see what I mean. You could burn the money, hand it out on the street, give it to a home for wayward cats, etc
OscagneTX: They could runs their own businesses… sure. But why not take the benefit too?
georule1861: Pride. There are people who refuse –or try to refuse– social security and medicare. Rare, but they exist.
mkeith54: Some may have been to “durn Proud” to accept the money
OscagneTX: Point being, it’s their choice. They can, or not.
Kultsi KN has left the room.
LanaiHoward: I keep hearing an underlying message that CN’s “know their place.” How stable is that assumption in the real world
K8Gladst1: I don’t know that a properly-bred-and-trained “wolfish” non-CN would envy a “doesn’t-have-to-compete” [because “CAN’T-compete”] welfare-recipient.
Kultsi KN has entered the room.
Kultsi KN: I _do_ hate America OnLine.
OscagneTX: Certainly not every non-cn would be envious of them.
LanaiHoward: I never had the impression, in BTH, that the difference was quite so stratifying as, say, Brave New World
georule1861: The thing is, what can they do about it? Other than get the hell out of Dodge, or attempt genocide against the others, which I can’t see.
OscagneTX: One of the main tenants of the rebellion was to get rid of all the CNs.
K8Gladst1: I imagine that “CNs could compete if they wanted to” but that few would so choose, because of the difficulties involved – just as people with an IQ of 75, today, would find it difficult to compete on equal terms w/ higher-IQ folks.
mkeith54: My take is that human natuure, if you will, compells us to compete. I think the whole part of knowing “their place” is a farce.
OscagneTX: Envy would certainly be a motivation for that action.
LanaiHoward: Kate, a 75 IQ indeed might have trouble competing as a mathematician. But surely we’ve given up on the idea of a single metric of intelligence…or even performance…
Merfilly27: I have an acquaintance who has gone out of her way to avoid honest work thru life
georule1861: I still think they can find spots to compete, just not for president & ceo of major corporations, technical jobs, etc. I don’t see any reason why a CN couldn’t be the best darned greeting card designer in the world.
OscagneTX: I still don’t see that they even _have_ a “place”. They are normal humans. They are not discriminated against. They just happen to get a government check due to their parentage, if they want it.
Merfilly27: her form of competition appears to be that of being the sickest member in the family
LanaiHoward: That 75 IQ might be a magnificent artist that has trouble with abstract reasoning.
K8Gladst1: I agree that not all CNs (and probably VERY few of the CNs!) would feel entirely comfortable with “knowing their place”! Remember, by BEYOND THIS HORIZON standards, ALL the freedom-fighters of our history came from “CN stock.”
LV Poker Player: You have a member of this chat who has avoided it for the last five years. 🙂
mkeith54: Okay, but she excells at that, right?
K8Gladst1: “They are not discriminated against”? Oh? As I recall, “the better sort of people” frown on marrying one of them.
Merfilly27: yes..showing that competition can take many forms
LanaiHoward: Osc, I’ll take an example of a person thoroughly used by the football industry — Dexter Manley. Graduated illiterate from a major university…
OscagneTX: I don’t recall that, Kate. Is that something Monroe said?
K8Gladst1: To whom do LVPP and Mike refer (the female chat-member who avoids-but-excels-at logical reasoning)?
LanaiHoward: But a great athlete and a charismatic man…unfortunately who also couldn’t stay out of trouble with drugs until recently
mkeith54: who was it that said “everyone rises to their level of mediicorty (SP)”?
K8Gladst1: The woman with whom Monroe-Alpha falls in love reminds him that Monroe-Alpha’s part of society generally frowns on marrying a CN.
georule1861: Institionalized discrimination (thru force of law or quasi-law) is a much worse kind of thing, and we don’t
Kultsi KN: Kate, the “better people” have _always_ frowned upon one of theirs marrying the “other kind”
georule1861: see any of that, I think.
OscagneTX: Okay, Manly was used pretty badly, but it was with his consent and by his design. I would not say he was discriminated against.
LV Poker Player: Lawrence J. Peter (The Peter Principle) says that everyone rises to his or her level of incompetence
K8Gladst1: She tries to dissuade him from marrying her with “What will people think of you?”/etc. – ONLY when he protests that “I don’t care what you are or what they think, I love you!” does she reveal the proof that she has …
LanaiHoward: Wasn’t talking about discrimination — more that he had several superior performance abilities but not necessarily IQ
LV Poker Player: Kate, I have been sending you IMs, are you getting them?
K8Gladst1: … an “experimental” rating and not the despised CN.
K8Gladst1: No, LVPP – how do I get IMs?
mkeith54: Thanks LV that’s what I wanted
OscagneTX: Oh… I wasn’t arguing agasint that, Howard.
Kultsi KN: And the corollary to that, LV, is thay the ones doing that _never_ realize it happening.
LV Poker Player: Don’t know, how did you send one? Should be similar
LV Poker Player: Don’t know about “never” but probably not very often
OscagneTX: IMs (Instant messages) just come to you, you don’t have to do anything special to get them.
K8Gladst1: Okay, I got that straightened out.
mkeith54: The chat room box may be covering the IM box
LanaiHoward: Osc — so I come back to wondering if a CN is always inferior. There may be a special talent that no one knew to select. There may be mutations among the CNs.
LV Poker Player: Gotta go
LV Poker Player has left the room.
OscagneTX: Exactly. Just because someone deems them “genetically inferior” doesn’t mean they can’t compete.
OscagneTX: And it doesn’t make them any less a person, unless they LET it make them so.
georule1861: And Lazarus Long himself was a mutation; again RAH sort of playing both sides of the street.
Pixelmeow has entered the room.
OscagneTX: See Monroe’s hyper-inferiority complex about his “mutation” or whatever it was.
georule1861: Heya, Pix. . .
OscagneTX: Howdy, Pix.
mkeith54: Hi Pix
OscagneTX: XXXOOO
Pixelmeow: hello!
K8Gladst1: Hello, PixelMeow!
Kultsi KN: It woiked!it woiked!
Pixelmeow: awwwww
LanaiHoward: {{{Pix}}} and save Heather from the camel.
starfall2: hi pix!
Pixelmeow: ROFL!!!
Pixelmeow: I will.
Pixelmeow: Hugs to everyone!
Kultsi KN: {{{{Teresa}}}}
Pixelmeow: I’m working with a very slow connection, so don’t think I’m ignoring anyone.
SciFiman33: Hug recieved!
K8Gladst1: When a CN gets a mutation, they make him/her an “experimental line” and add it into the selection-program (cf. Monroe-A’s girlfriend’s grandfather)
DavidWrightSr: Hi folks. I just got caught up with the discussion.
K8Gladst1: … or have I misunderstood what she said about her grandfather?
Pixelmeow: I don’t recognize Scifiman…
Pixelmeow: Hi, Dave SR!!!
K8Gladst1: Okay, then, David – what do you think?
OscagneTX: howdy, David.
starfall2: hi
K8Gladst1: Hello, David!
mkeith54: Welcome David
SciFiman33: I’m a newbe.
Pixelmeow: I’d like to add your nomen to my screen names list, if I may
OscagneTX: He’s new, Pix.
Pixelmeow: Ah!
Pixelmeow: Then welcome, and what will you have from the bar?
Pixelmeow: Now that I’m actually here and can serve…
DavidWrightSr: I think that part of the reasons for the CN’s being subsidized is that the geneticicists knew that they didn’t know everything and the CN’s might have some characteristics which would be handy later.
Pixelmeow: *puts drinks in front of everyone*
OscagneTX: He may be the only one that my global email encouraged to join the chat. So far, anyway.
K8Gladst1: Yes – the story makes that pretty clear.
Kultsi KN: A 12-year-old Bowmore, please, Pix…
DavidWrightSr: ‘mutation’ might have just been a term for something that was there all along and just not recognized
K8Gladst1: So (looking at another RAH-and-genes work) I wonder what happened in METHU’S CHILDREN where the genetics cared about one and only one trait – what if a Howard Families kid turns out *not* to share the long-life mutation?
Pixelmeow: Here you go.
SciFiman33: Pix: Give me a glass of Two Buck Chuck’s “Shiraz”
Pixelmeow: May I ask what story we are discussing?
K8Gladst1: Do they still let him/her breed with another Howard because of having the requisite 4 long-lived grandparents, or because of birth into the society?
Kultsi KN: He’s purged, >Kate.
mkeith54: Genitics in RAH’s works
OscagneTX: We had been talking about BTH, Pix.
mkeith54: sorry about the spelling, fat fingers
Pixelmeow: a specific story, or just the theme?
Pixelmeow: Ah.
Kultsi KN: Theme
Pixelmeow: Thanks, Osc.
OscagneTX: “Eugenics in Heinlein”
DavidWrightSr: We’ve had discussion in the past, but it always seemed to me that BTH was considerably different thatn GULF. Whereas in GULF, the HN tended to separate, the idea in BTH was to spread the conserved ‘good’ genes throughout the…..
DavidWrightSr: whole population.
Pixelmeow: Here’s your wine, Scifi!
DavidWrightSr: Not Eugenics, Os, Genetics. Or are you joking?
K8Gladst1: Initially we discussed BEYOND THIS HORIZON, but now METHU’S CHILDREN. Kultsi says that a Howard born without the long-life gene (for whatever reason – mutation or whatever) “gets purged” out of the Howards …
SciFiman33: Thanks!
DavidWrightSr: ‘by the simple method of not living long enough’ IIRC
Kultsi KN: TEFL states that.
K8Gladst1: … before puberty/marriage, one presumes … if so, does the “purge victim” resent his/her properly-longaevous-gened parents/brothers/sisters?
Pixelmeow: that sounds reasonable…
OscagneTX: Actually, not joking. I think officially it was “Genetic selection”, but if that’s not eugenics, then it is its not-talked-about stepchild.
mkeith54: Not only the individual, but the whole line if memory serves me
K8Gladst1: Okay, I guess they just let Nature take its course …
Pixelmeow: but if the one without that gene “propogates”…
Kultsi KN: Yup, Mike.
DavidWrightSr: because they died too soon of old age
LanaiHoward: Eugenics has a pre-scientific connotation, where decisions were made on stereotypes. Things are much more difficult today…witness the UK commission recommendation..
Pixelmeow: it just means a branch off of the Howards?
LanaiHoward: against fetal sex selection for social reasons
K8Gladst1: …so … I’ve always wondered what happens to a Howard who DOES have the long-life gene but who also has an incurable problem that prevents the production of offspring: no offspring, no “cash register” funds …
DavidWrightSr: they paid on results. what else should they have done?
Pixelmeow: *off topic quickly
K8Gladst1: … might such a person feel tempted to reveal the Howard organization to those vengeful “ephemerals” (us?)
Pixelmeow: everyone get my message that the picpage is moving?
OscagneTX: They’d still be a howard, but would get no baby-funds.
DavidWrightSr: No Pix.
Merfilly27: yes, Pix
OscagneTX: no, pix.
DavidWrightSr: on afh?
SciFiman33: No, Pix
Pixelmeow: it’s going to be up on my space hopefully this evening, maybe not until tomorrow.
Merfilly27: on NG, yes, Pix?
Kultsi KN: No, Pix. Whazzat?
Pixelmeow: Steve’s webspace is running tight so he gave that to me.
Pixelmeow: Yep.
K8Gladst1: I agree w/the necessity of “paying on results” – okay, “still a Howard but no baby-funds”: this probably leaves him/her feeling pretty darned second-class as the years and centuries wear on …
K8Gladst1: … I wonder just how it would warp a person over all that time.
Kultsi KN: Ok, Goaya, Pix.
Pixelmeow: I’m downloading the zip file right now, will be working on getting it all together
Merfilly27: only if he is pre-diaspora
Pixelmeow: and will hopefully have it up by tonight or tomorrow.
Pixelmeow: I still want pics, from anyone who hasn’t sent them yet.
K8Gladst1: … especially on a planet like Tertius where Howards have ended up as the majority of the population, …
OscagneTX: yup. If he lives on to Minerva’s time, they can clone him an offspring, much as Minerva “cloned” herself a body.
Merfilly27: post-diaspora probably gave him other options to genetically contribute
K8Gladst1: … so only a minority cannot “ring the cash-register.” Okay, “clone him an offspring like Minerva” – but didn’t Minerva identify herself as “a proscribed construct”? In other words …
OscagneTX: I’ll go with Steph. Pregnancy and Birth are not the only ways to reproduce by the time they got to Tertius, and probably Secundus.
starfall2: k, i’ll send pics when i remember
Merfilly27: not to mention the Foundation would have utilized any skills he had
K8Gladst1: … the law of that time and place forbids (proscribes) the construction of people like Minerva.
K8Gladst1: But I’ll happily go, too, with Steph on the matter at hand.
DavidWrightSr: Not the law, the regulations of the clinic or the professional ethics.
OscagneTX: Okay. Proscribed _on Secundus_. It was one of the reasons they founded Tertius.
K8Gladst1: Okay, David – thanks for clarifying.
mkeith54: However once they moved on, LL made his own laws and sge was no longer proscribed
K8Gladst1: And thanks to Oscagne, too.
DavidWrightSr: Ira was basically the law on Secundus
georule1861: Was the Foundation still paying on kids after the Great Escape? Why? Uh. . how? Weren’t the assets on Earth?
Kultsi KN: Ain’t it about time for a brake – if they are once an hour…
Kultsi KN: *break
OscagneTX: Yeah… anyone object to a break?
OscagneTX: going once…
Merfilly27: I think the foundation’s control of the Libby Sheffield drive let Howards have incomes
LanaiHoward: It is worth noting that these proscriptions, in an early way, are subjects of current debate. For a time, the ethicists were saying genetic treatment of humans, but no reproductive cell modification…
DavidWrightSr: See Kate. what I said about non-english speakers having trouble with spellingO:-)
OscagneTX: going twice…
Merfilly27: seconded
K8Gladst1: About genes and such – we learn in NUMBER OF THE BEAST that Andy Libby had XXY chromosomes and could have become _in_utero_ either a normal girl or a normal boy. Does any real-world genetic basis exist for this assumption?
OscagneTX: Okay. Break. We’ll resume at… 20 past the hour.
mkeith54: thirded
Kultsi KN: Dave, you wanna keep your teeth…
K8Gladst1: Yes, we may as well break now.
georule1861: Gotta go. . .have fun. . .
Pixelmeow: okay
OscagneTX: ‘night, Geo.
georule1861 has left the room.
LanaiHoward: now that’s being challenged — but for both removing disease as well as “breeding supermen”. Thing is … we know how to do the first
Kultsi KN: Bye Geo!
Pixelmeow: later geo!
LanaiHoward: Kate, I think that could be true wrt phenotype, but such would probably be sterile.
DavidWrightSr: No offense intended. Kate and I have been having a discussion part of which dealt with the difficulties people learning English have with spelling because of it’s peculiarities.
Merfilly27: XXYs tend to be boys, by default, but some do have trouble with the hormonal messages
K8Gladst1: By “any real-world genetic basis,” I meant “do XYY people typically grow up either as normal females or as normal males?”
DavidWrightSr: Break!!
Merfilly27: it is feasible that an XXY could be fully pushed the other way without genetic surgery
LanaiHoward: For that matter, 5-alpha reductase deficiency in utero results in a female phenotype regardless of genotype
K8Gladst1: I’d learned in high-school bio that XXY (Klinefelter syndrome) normally produces somewhat-mentally-retarded males, distinctly low in math-ability though more-or-less-OK in verbal ability: and this DOES NOT sound like Andy Libby …
Kultsi KN: AND you both (David, Kate) know better than that. It’s the fingers having a life of their own.
K8Gladst1: … let alone like Andy Libby’s other-universe “twin” Deety Burroughs (who, we learn, shares his genome).
Merfilly27: I have heard someone disprove that all XXYs are deficient
Merfilly27: but can’t cite the work
K8Gladst1: Okay, then – I’ll accept that till any other evidence comes in: if only for the sake of letting RAH’s story stand till I know firmly one way or the other.
Merfilly27: Pharaoh Ahkenaten was suspected of being an XXY
DavidWrightSr: I know, Kultsi. I was funnin.
K8Gladst1: Interesting!
DavidWrightSr: I am extremely impressed by your English skills.
Pixelmeow: He was the one who wanted to change the religion of Egypt…
K8Gladst1: Who first suspected Akhenaten of having XXY genes? Has anyone found and tested his mummy?
Pixelmeow: Interesting change in the artwork of the time.
Merfilly27: and thus led to the monotheism of the hebrews, supposedly
Pixelmeow: I did so love my art history courses…
Merfilly27: I think they have identified a mummy as his, but do not know if they tested for that
Merfilly27: it was put forth based on his erratic behavior, supposed sickliness, and the art depictions of him
K8Gladst1: Okay, Stephanie – thanks!
Merfilly27: the sagging belly, strange hip to shoulder proportion are some visible signs of certain XXY abnormalities
Pixelmeow: it was a big change from the previous artwork.
K8Gladst1: Well, that certainly changes my mental picture of Andy Libby!
How did he pass the CCC physical?
Merfilly27: more realistic than deifying
Pixelmeow: they also went into a technique of sinking the lines down into the medium
K8Gladst1: I presume that the Cosmic Constructin Corps had *some* kind of physical exam.
Kultsi KN: A Finnish author wrote a book on that pharaoh’s time, and Wollywood made a film on that book: ‘The Egyptian’, I think, is the title of that film.
Pixelmeow: yes, filly.
Merfilly27: did not know that
Merfilly27: must find it
LanaiHoward: Also the Discovery Channel miniseries on Akhenaten suggested A. was either female from the start, or a female replaced him.
Merfilly27: I am an amateur Egyptologist by several reasonings
K8Gladst1: I saw, and enjoyed, THE EGYPTIAN – whose Finnish author actualy based his work, in large part, on an ancient-Egyptian novel (found in a tomb, and apparently favored reading of the tomb’s occupant).
Merfilly27: I did see that one
Pixelmeow: cool!
Pixelmeow: have you been to the Virginia Museum, in Richmond?
Pixelmeow: they do have a bit of an Egyptian section.
K8Gladst1: I don’t think so, Teresa.
Merfilly27: I’d love to, but have not yet
K8Gladst1: I mean – I don’t think I’ve visited that museum.
LanaiHoward: Pix, I know they revere the old days in Richmond. But Confederate pharaohs?
AGplusone has entered the room.
Merfilly27: lol
Pixelmeow: HUH???
mkeith54: hello David
OscagneTX: Howdy, David.
Pixelmeow: hey, dave!
K8Gladst1: Hello, David Silver!
Merfilly27: Hi, David the Younger
OscagneTX: We’re still in break… about 2 or 3 more minutes.
AGplusone: :::: waving :::: had stuff to do, sadly. Glad I’m finally here.
LanaiHoward: Well, I suppose I was thinking of the Museum of the Confederacy there
K8Gladst1: Welcome, at any time.
Pixelmeow: Howard, that is a totally different museum…
Pixelmeow: the Va museum has a very respectable collection.
Reilloc has entered the room.
starfall2: hi
K8Gladst1: Oh, hi, Reilloc.
AGplusone: real live conferates, huh? Hi, LN
Kultsi KN: Hi, LNC!
Merfilly27: hey there
mkeith54: hi
Pixelmeow: LN, you snuck in on me!
Reilloc: Hi, guys
Kultsi KN: and Hi, David Ag!
Pixelmeow: how you doing?
OscagneTX: Okay… let me start off the next segment with these questions….
K8Gladst1: Idle question (vaguely on topic) – if you could change one thing about your own genetics, what would you change? I would make myself smarter.
OscagneTX: The only difference between Heinleinian “Gene-selection” and eugenics is the selection-criteria?
OscagneTX: That eugenics selects for some stereotypical attributea and gene-selection chooses “objectively”?
K8Gladst1: I don’t know, Oscagne!
OscagneTX: Or could you say that the whole idea of selecting is arbitrary, making the two concepts morally equivalent?
K8Gladst1: Again, color me ignorant on all these counts.
Kultsi KN: My family’s affliction for hyperlipids.
Merfilly27: the gene(s) for diabetic tendency
OscagneTX: Howard? David the Elder?
AGplusone: arbitrary in a sense, sla the selection isn’t one that kills directly or indirectly to such a degree it’s ‘selective’ for extinction
OscagneTX: Basically, is ANY choosing for attributes of your offspring morally equivalent to Nazi-esque eugenics?
DavidWrightSr: If I had had that question 40 years ago, I could have suggested a lot of things, but now. I am satisfied with what I am, warts (symbolically) and everything. Not to say I wouldn’t have done a few things differently, but that’s ….
DavidWrightSr: question
AGplusone: or “a wide range of “reasonable” arbitrariness”
K8Gladst1: NO, Oscagne! I can’t condemn all genetic choice as Nazism!
OscagneTX: Good! (I was looking for that answer)
OscagneTX: now…
OscagneTX: There’s a dichotomy somewhere between morally correct (good) and not (bad).
Merfilly27: Genetic planning, like medicine, had the either/or potential
OscagneTX: Where’s the veil drawn?
K8Gladst1: If my parents could have made me smarter (or could have made me not suffer poor vision or have other medical problems), what would make this “Nazi-like” of them?
DavidWrightSr: Does Godwin’s Law count here? O:-)
AGplusone: what’s moral?
LanaiHoward: Hmmm….depends on what constitutes a change. Specific biochemistry, like lipid metabolism? Athleticism, or more likely the drive to exercise?
Kultsi KN: NO, it does not, David.
OscagneTX: The Heinleinian answer to “what’s moral” is “Anything that does not unnecesarily hurt another person”.
K8Gladst1: Well, Dave Silver, what does the word “moral” refer to when *you* use it? Specify that, and we can take a stab at whether to call something “moral” as you mean “moral.”
AGplusone: his property and person only, not intangibles such as feelings
K8Gladst1: And I can’t see how gene-selection “unnecessarily hurts another person.”
AGplusone: I take the definition that says doesn’t hurt person or property (unless sanctioned by law).
Kultsi KN: It does not, if done b4 boffing her…
OscagneTX: What about the never-born? If you select genes, are you not preventing the existance of a person who might have natually been formed by chance?
Merfilly27: piffle
AGplusone: too remote
OscagneTX: And if you did, would that count as “harming” them?
AGplusone: too speculative, and too remote
Merfilly27: they exist in some other elsewhen
K8Gladst1: Does it “unnecessarily hurt another person” if a mother obtains for her daughter corrective lenses (eyeglasses or contact-lenses)? Then how would it hurt another person if the mother secures, for her child, good vision genetically?
mkeith54: trying to prove a negative are we?
OscagneTX: It wouldn’t be the same child, though, would it? (Keep in mind, I don’t beleive any of this, really, I’m trying to advocate infernally. Feel free to go off on another tangeant, if it’d be more interesting.)
Reilloc has left the room.
K8Gladst1: If my parents before my birth could have made me smarter (or prettier, or able to see better), ought I to have lamented the non-existence of some other “me” (my present “me”) less attractive, less smart, and less clear-signted?
Kultsi KN: To me, it’s a very acute problem. My nephew is living on a transpanted liver — because his own could not handle fat, i.e. lipids.
K8Gladst1: “The same child” or not doesn’t matter. NONE of us remains “the same” from one nanosecond to the next. I don’t remain “the same” when I put on clothing in the morning – does that mean I mustn’t dress before I leave the house?
OscagneTX: But you wouldn’t be you, Kate. You wouldn’t exist. Your parents would have had a completely different child. As if you had a (nother?) sibling, and you had died in birth.
LanaiHoward: I have trouble with this thread simply because most of the things being discussed as changes are much more macro than a likely gene pattern.
K8Gladst1: And who would tell Kultsi’s nepher: “Better die the same person, than have a new organ and live”?
Kultsi KN: His prognosis was ‘dead by age of _six_ from coronary infarct’.
Dehede011 has entered the room.
Dehede011: Welcome back Kotter
Merfilly27: to an extreme corrolary of that “randomly formed being”, using a condom prevents him as surely as genetic tampering does
K8Gladst1: “You wouldn’t be you”? That doesn’t make any sense to me (I don’t undersand the propositional content of that phrase, or of Oscagne’s message that contains it) – please clarify.
K8Gladst1: Welcome back, Ron!
OscagneTX: Nobody. That’s my point. Kultsi’s nephew is the same consciousness whether he gets the new organ or not. So give it to him and he lives, and he’s still the same person.
AGplusone: It’s all resolved by the old saying, “‘Balls,’ said the Queen, ‘If I had two I’d be King!'”
OscagneTX: But if you select genes… I’ll pair gamete a with gamete 1 and make a person with X attribute. Or pair b and 1 and make a different person without X attribute.
AGplusone: But she doesn’t …
OscagneTX: Persons a1 and b1 are completely different people.
Kultsi KN: Yes, he is, and I _never_ deny him that — I just hope he doesn’t procreate.
K8Gladst1: “still the same person” inasmuch as any of us remains “the same person” despite inevitable constant change (cf. GLORY ROAD and the conversation on Planet Center regarding Oscar’s sword)
DavidWrightSr: I think that ‘completely different people’ is extreme. Different yes, significantly so, probably not.
AGplusone: But we don’t travel through time-space continua … so irl the question doesn’t pertain.
OscagneTX: I’m thinking of “same person” as in chain of consciousness. Anything you do to something after it gains consciousness is just chaging that person. If you do it before conciousness, you making a different person.
OscagneTX: Of course, the same could be said of child-rearing, I suppose.
mkeith54: Are you sure that it’s a different person?
AGplusone: We only travel one step and one second at a time.
K8Gladst1: In Oscagne’s example – if the two people thus created both exist together, then we can and must call them two people (and may mourn if one dies). But if one person exists, and the other never existed …
AGplusone: Until we stop.
OscagneTX: Exactly kate… choosing genes means choosing which child you want. do you want child b1, or a1, or b2, etc. The other’s never get to exist.
Merfilly27: doesn’t faze me
DavidWrightSr: Me neither.
OscagneTX: So choosing genes is not like “modifying the child you get” it’s like “picking which child you want”.
AGplusone: Clone the cell, and make all three.
K8Gladst1: … well, I will not mourn the fact that a non-existent person has remained non-existent, or else I’d have to mourn every sperm that never met an egg. …
AGplusone: If she wants to support all three.
OscagneTX: Me either. But apply it religion… ie. the way the Catholic Church feels about birth control.
LanaiHoward has left the room.
Merfilly27: if child a1 is supposed to exist, it shall be the one I pick
K8Gladst1: … (Joke car-bumper sticker I once saw: END MASTURBATION AND MENSTRUATION! – PREVENT THE SLAUGHTER OF MILLIONS!)
DavidWrightSr: t’ousands and t’ousands of them sperms and eggs 😎
OscagneTX: This relates back to the conversation in the first hour.
OscagneTX: That’s the problem you might have with a religion in a gene-choosing society.
OscagneTX: Like the one Kate proposed a couple hours ago.
OscagneTX: If masturbation and birth control are “The murder of millions of half-people”, then gene selection is the murder of millions of whole people.
Dehede011: The religion angle doesn’t bother me. The religious have a saying “If it prospers it is of God.”
K8Gladst1: As Oscagne says, continuity of consciousness (or continuity of existence, in the case of inanimate things like swords) can serve as a criterion for the rough working approximation that we call “remaining the same[person/sword/etc.]”
AGplusone: Is there a difference between random chance and artificial selection morally? Is that what we’re arguing? How can you harm a person if a person never exists? the gametes never join?
OscagneTX: And I’ll step off the lectern now. %^)
K8Gladst1: “Murder of millions of whole people”? You cannot “murder” people who never existed.
OscagneTX: Sure you can, at least in science fiction… (which is our topic, right?)
Merfilly27: right
OscagneTX: You throw in time travel, and a scope-sighted rifle, right?
OscagneTX: or time travel and a condom of a particular couple in Austria…
OscagneTX: Either way you’ve killed Hitler.
K8Gladst1: When a fertilized egg fails to implant in the womb, and thus dies – a VERY frequent occurrence – do we call it “a murder victim”? No? Then how can we call “murdered” a zygote which existed only in imagination/possibility?
AGplusone: And you get sent 100 years in the future by Twitchell’s marvelous machine. You arrive and they take the rifle away and lock you up for unlicensed time travel.
mkeith54: If you did who would have taken his place and what would have happened?
K8Gladst1: “If it prospers, it is of God” could justify any prosperous horror you care to name.
AGplusone: And execute you for not prepaying your time travel tax.
Kultsi KN: Erase, David, erase.
Merfilly27: perhaps here, ignorance is an excuse
Merfilly27: we, at this time/place, do no tknow what becomes of the individual we choose to make or not make
Kultsi KN: Erasure is better, ’cause you’ll never feel it.
Merfilly27: but someone further down a timeline would be guilty of immorality to manipulate the genes of an offspring destined to make history, as they know
AGplusone: That way all the discontinuities are erased. But Daffy can feel the eraser. And he complains loudly!
OscagneTX: So did Sam Beaux, David.
Merfilly27: Did I explain that lucidly, cause it does not read well
AGplusone: Yep, sure did.
OscagneTX: I got it, Steph.
LV Poker Player has entered the room.
OscagneTX: WB LV.
K8Gladst1: Ignorance might NOT excuse, if the Time-Travel Control Board posted the tax-code warning-sign 4000 years ago under the paws of the Sphinx where we have yet to excavate. Technically,”we warned you, ‘way back – you just never looked!”
LV Poker Player: Hi again, dinner in oven. 🙂
K8Gladst1: Hello again, LV!
Merfilly27: lol
AGplusone: Ignorance is never an excuse
OscagneTX: I guess boiling it down… if you’re going to filter the human race, is there a moral issue in whether you choose to place the filter before the gametes join or place it after the gametes join?
Merfilly27: if I am going to accept that I murdered a possible zygote, I refute that it will come to pass in another space/time dimension
Kultsi KN: Actually, LV: we are discussing things in the oven…
OscagneTX: If before, it’s genetic selection…
OscagneTX: If after, it’s murder.
OscagneTX: *shrug*
LV Poker Player: I prefer before, but I’m not sure I justify that by any logical terms
Merfilly27: fixing the bad genes of a parental pairing, athen letting them copulate?
AGplusone: No, just culling the undesirables … e.g., Luna, and the mobster who doesn’t listen when told how to operate the valves on his breather.
AGplusone: Never makes it into the shelter.
LV Poker Player: Although I have always taken the position that brain function is what makes humans what they are, and ending a life before there is any brain activity is not murder
OscagneTX: “Mother Nature, red of claw and tooth” David?
Pixelmeow: Hi, LV…
K8Gladst1: In FRIDAY, the geneticists thought not (they didn’t implant all zygotes) – in BEYOND, the geneticists apparently thought “yes – kill no zygote.” As I recall, RAH considered abortion no sin – which implies OKing zygote-destruction.
AGplusone: Positually!
Pixelmeow: I’m working on the picpages too…
Pixelmeow: sorry I didn’t see you!
AGplusone: Beware the Truce of the Bear
LV Poker Player: Did Heinlein ever take a position on abortion, especially in non fiction?
AGplusone: Laz Long in TEFL, The Twins that Weren’t”
LV Poker Player: I have asserted on afh that given his overall libertarian position, it would surprise me to find that he favored outlawing abortions, but that is conjecture, not direct evidence
K8Gladst1: In TELF, LLong says something against shamans forcing a woman to carry an embryo to term whether she wants to or not, whether it will grow up healthy or not … and LLong seems quite prepared to abort Lita’s fetus if necessary.
mkeith54: In fiction in TEFL he felt better to abort a defective and patch the parents back to gether. Other than that I can’t recall any other.
OscagneTX: Yes, Kate, but that would’ve been a post-birth abortion… %^)
LV Poker Player: Good point, Kate. You are thinking of a Notebook entry.
Kultsi KN: If getting rid of a zygote is murder, then _many_ females are guilty of it — ’cause spontaneous abortion is _so_ common.
OscagneTX: I can think of a couple folks who could profit from a 60th trimester abortion… %^)
AGplusone: Happens ever 28 days I thought.
LV Poker Player: Friday decided against aborting the offspring of the First Citizen she was carrying
LV Poker Player: That says little or nothing about abortion overall though
K8Gladst1: Yes – the “shaman” thing appears in a NOTEBOOKS entry; the LLita’s-fetus-might-get-aborted thing coems fromt he “Tale of the Twins Who Weren’t”
Merfilly27: Friday was faced with that being her only chance to do it the way cats did
LV Poker Player: Not sure what you mean, Merfilly?
AGplusone: Know how male cats do it?
OscagneTX: We were talking about how to “harm” a person who was never formed… I think I’ve figured out a way to illustrate the damage, but it took me a while because I’m being speculative… I don’t agree with this, myself:
Merfilly27: Thatw as her exprssion for natural child birth
K8Gladst1: Yes, Friday kept her baby – in part (probably) because she had no evidence of anything wrong with it. If the fetus had had some crippling genetic defect, and if she had had some way of knowing that, then she might not have kept it.
AGplusone: Wyoming in Moon had her child aborted.
OscagneTX: If you kill a person, you’re taking away all the existance he’d naturally get in his life. But he’s still had his past experiences…
LV Poker Player: That may have been a consideration, but mainly she felt she could not end the life inside her
OscagneTX: If you select a person out of existance you’re taking away ALL of the experiences that person ever could have had.
AGplusone: because it did have a crippling genetic defenct
Merfilly27: David, I don’t think so…thought she actually birthed a monster, in her terms
AGplusone: defect
K8Gladst1: I say that because Friday seems to have no problem with the notion of an embryo/fetus not coming to birth if something wrong exists therein – though I agree with LVPP that probably she just couldn’t do it.
OscagneTX: Making the selection a net-worse crime.
LV Poker Player: So does any woman who has a chance to get pregnant but chooses not do so, Oscagne. Carrying this to an extreme, all fertile women have an obligation to bear as many babies as possible
K8Gladst1: David Silver – if a person never existed, because you did not ensure its coming to existence, then you did not “take away its experiences” since its experiences never occurred: or so I see it.
OscagneTX: *shrug* Oh, well. I didn’t say it was earth-shakingly profound.
AGplusone: I’ll accept that. What on the Moon did they do with the monster? Surely they didn’t try to keep it.
OscagneTX: didn’t they kill the ‘monster’ in Moon?
Kultsi KN: Yes.
LV Poker Player: “had to be destroyed” – sure sounds like killing
AGplusone: probably wasn’t any Warden’s Regulation against it
K8Gladst1: I suspect that, if a “monster” came to birth, they just let it die if it could – cf. TEFL where LLong describes himself as “the kind of doctor too busy helping the mother to spank a monster” into life.
Merfilly27: he did say that
mkeith54: tough love
AGplusone: OTOH, in TEFL they won’t let him die, will they?
AGplusone: Capped off his suicide switch.
OscagneTX: LV: No, because the births wouldn’t have happened anyway. If you select for genetics, you are consciously rejecting the child that would have occurred by chance. Replacing the one that would have happened with the one you want.
K8Gladst1: In other words, if a “monster” comes out, then LLong (and probably the Loonies) get busy helping the mother first, tending to her before seeing what to do about what she’s borne. If it’s died by then, shed a tear and back to work.
OscagneTX: Same argument for all those spontaneous abortions.
Kultsi KN: Who? LL — most certainly not
AGplusone: Played 1 night and a 1000 nights with him to keep him alive
LV Poker Player: In the case of TMIAHM, we are talking about a society with very limited resources. Maybe families figured that their limited resources had to go toward supporting viable children who would eventually become assets to the family…
LV Poker Player: …and any baby that was unlikely to ever become a net asset had to be discarded, too bad but them’s the breaks?
Kultsi KN: But LL was not — by any standards — a genetical failure.
K8Gladst1: Oscagne – sure, and if I get vaccinated, I’ve “consciously rejected the Kate that would have gotten measles by chance – replacing the one that would have happened with the one I want” …
AGplusone: And Baby Barlow probably tastes pretty good if properly prepared . . .
Merfilly27: if the genetic selection is done by choosing the gametes involved, you’re just lending a hand to random chance
K8Gladst1: … the same if I brush my teeth ather than let them rot in my skull and fall out one by one.
AGplusone: like milk-fed veal
OscagneTX: nope nope, Kate, because you’re changing something that already exists. Changing something is not the same as destroying it, either post- or pre- birth.
K8Gladst1: Well, RAH apparenetly accepted cannibalism as moral (and even as needful) in certain circumstances.
Kultsi KN: I’m off to bed — nite, folks!
AGplusone: Nite K
mkeith54: nite
OscagneTX: back to the chain-of-consciousness definition of “same person”.
OscagneTX: ‘night, K.
Kultsi KN has left the room.
Dehede011: nite, K
K8Gladst1: If I select one sperm/ovum/zygote over another, then I “change something that already exists” – I change (part of) a universe that already exists: no real differnce, I think!
DavidWrightSr: *every* choice you make means that a different person comes into being from that if you had chosen the other way. The difference may be small or large, but is different.
Merfilly27: I think that genetic selcetion will probably remain a more controversial topic for longer than the pro-life/pro-choice debate
OscagneTX: The universe doen’st have consciousness. Unless you’re talking about God or god or ghod, and then you can throw all the rules out, because He She or It makes the rules for you.
K8Gladst1: Yes – every choice changes things, so do we refrain from choosing?
DavidWrightSr: Never
Merfilly27: back to the if it was supposed to pass, it will, when you throw a deity in the mix
K8Gladst1: Part of the universe (the part called “humanity”) *does* have concsiousness.
DavidWrightSr: Not choosing is a choice
AGplusone: Only if He/She/It believes in artistic consistency.
Dehede011: Genetic selection?? What do you call genetic engineering to correct a weakness after birth?
AGplusone: Or to grow a micro-mini hand with eyes to enable fine machine work?
OscagneTX: I suppose that depends on whether you think the zygote has a consciousness or not. My answer to THAT is “i don’t know”.
Dehede011: I have a weight problem. There are indications of a genetic cure coming down the pike. How does that fit into our scheme.
K8Gladst1: I’d call it “genetic engineering” – and I like having that, but like still better the notion of having also genetic selection (so that the gene-changed person can do what normal people do: pass on his/her good genes to the future).
AGplusone: James Blish wrote a story called the “Seedling Stars” iirc in which they did all that before allowing birth, to enable humans to evolve and disperse throughout the universe ….
Dehede011: Good point Kate, I think the genie is out of the bottle.
OscagneTX: Okay, bottom line… I think gene selection is person selection. And *I* think person selection is OK. But others probably don’t. *shrug*
K8Gladst1: Banning gene-selection and banning germ-line genetic engineering/genetic therapy looks (to me) like precluding this opportunity: forcing the engineering to happen again and again and again in every generation, …
Merfilly27: I agree Osc
AGplusone: not merely “kolbold miners” or wired up pilots for freighters
K8Gladst1: …. rather than do-it-once-and-inherit-the-results.
AGplusone: Isn’t it god’s will that we take dominion over everything … if so, we’ll need some genetic modifications to take dominion over Jupiter.
Merfilly27: lol
K8Gladst1: Funny!
LV Poker Player: Doesn’t it specifically state the Earth?
DavidWrightSr: Clifford Simak had a story about that on Jupiter IIRC
Dehede011: During the early 70s there was a move to outlaw gene research. Suddenly all was quiet about any attempt to do that. I thought the reason was revealing.
AGplusone: So genetic modification is required!
Merfilly27: people who argue against using gene-splicing/selection/engineering to get by harmful genes…
K8Gladst1: What “revealing reason,” Ron, did people give in the 1970s?
Merfilly27: and justify it by saying it interrupts god’s will….
AGplusone: metaphorically, perhaps. but we’d have to modify in gills to take over the ocean floors wouldn’t we, even on Earth.
Merfilly27: should stop using all of modern medicine, as they are thwarting that same will
Dehede011: They suddenly realized that the space, money and education required was so small that any attempt to outlaw gene research was doomed to failure.
OscagneTX: Yup, Steph.
AGplusone: It’s God’s Will! Back to the test tube and the knife!
K8Gladst1: Okay – it makes you wonder what kind of gene-research has *secretly* happened *already*.
Merfilly27: that group earlier this year that claimed to have cloned humans?
OscagneTX: Sorta. Does anybody beleive those wackos (IMHO) that were displaying the “cloned” baby.
Merfilly27: never saw the outcome of that
Dehede011: At that time they said a suburban home was sufficient space, a Master’s degree was sufficient education and the money was within the reach of large numbers.
LV Poker Player: If God did not want us to fly, He would not have given us the brains to build airplanes. If God did not want us to do genetic engineering, He would not have given us the brains needed to accomplish it. YMMV though
OscagneTX: Not wacko because of the cloning, wacko because of the religion they’ve based on cloning.
SciFiman33: ?
SciFiman33: ?
OscagneTX: I cant’ remember the name of that group.
Merfilly27: question to whom?
OscagneTX: They claim that they’ve created a human clone, and shown a baby as proof, but won’t show the documentation to scientists.
K8Gladst1: LVPP, some wacho might warp your argument to say: “If God did not want us to kill or enslave all black people [or whatever], He wouldn’t have given us the brains to imagine doing this & to think up how to do it.”
K8Gladst1: Oscagne, you mean the Raelians.
SciFiman33: Are we done?
OscagneTX: Yes, the Raelians.
K8Gladst1: ANd I meant “wacko” insetad of “wacho” which I typed.
OscagneTX: I don’t think so, SFM.
K8Gladst1: If we feel “done” for the evening, we can consider ourselves “done.” Who feels so? (I’ll quit when the majority quits, or shortlt thereafter.)
LV Poker Player: True Kate. And if I make any sort of reply on the basis of ethics, they will probably reply that genetic engineering is unethical
DavidWrightSr: We generally get done when everyone gets tired and starts leaving, but anyone is free to leave or come as they please.
OscagneTX: I’m still ok to go on. Whatever you guys want.
Merfilly27: I’ll be around for a while
DavidWrightSr: OTHO, *I* have to hang around. I’m keeping the logO:-)
OscagneTX: scifiman is having a problem…
DavidWrightSr: Thursday’s session went for well over 4 hours.
OscagneTX: he hasn’t seen anything in the group for 5 minutes.
Pixelmeow: I’m doing stuff with the new picpage
SciFiman33 has left the room.
Pixelmeow: http://pixelmeow.com/afhpics
Pixelmeow: ?
Pixelmeow: what problem?
K8Gladst1: LVPP, when someone says “X is unethical,” ask them what instrument they point at something to calibrate its “ethicalness” – then ask (if they answer) how they calibrate that instrument.
SciFiman33 has left the room.
Pixelmeow: Good one, Kate.
DavidWrightSr: Hey, how’d he do that Left twice without re-entering or did I miss something?
Merfilly27: only the main page is there, Pix
mkeith54: nope he’s good
Pixelmeow: Yes, it’s a big upload to get it all back up
K8Gladst1: Call him “The Member Who Walks Through CyberWalls” …
Pixelmeow: I’m going to be doing that over this evening
Merfilly27: ok, just checking it out for you 🙂
mkeith54: good one Kate
Pixelmeow: thanks!
OscagneTX: I’m helping him with it.
K8Gladst1: Thanks, Teresa and Mike!
Pixelmeow: 😀
Merfilly27: How’s your shop coming, Pix?
Pixelmeow: No sales yet
Merfilly27: 🙁
Pixelmeow: but it’s damn slow getting new products listed
SciFiman33 has entered the room.
Pixelmeow: so we don’t have much up yet
OscagneTX: sfman, can you see the chat now?
mkeith54: whatcya sellin?
Pixelmeow: we haven’t gotten up to the top in the search engines
SciFiman33: Yes
DavidWrightSr: Good. WB
OscagneTX: Okay, good.
K8Gladst1: It looks as if we’ve entered “chit-chat mode” for the evening – assuming we remain in that stae for 15 minutes more, at the end of that time I aim to sign off – Okay?
Pixelmeow: We have a site for survival and emergency supplies
Merfilly27: I just clicked on that
mkeith54: Pix, what is the site?
SciFiman33: OH!
OscagneTX: It was time for another break, anyway, huh?
K8Gladst1: “OH!”, what, SFM?
Pixelmeow: http://www.storesonline.com/site/thesurvivalstation/
Merfilly27: ok, Kate…we tend to digress late in the game
OscagneTX: In, say, 15 minutes, if nobody wants to start another segment we’ll call the offical log.
Merfilly27: gotcha
Dehede011: okay,
SciFiman33: Unknown site!
Pixelmeow: huh?
OscagneTX: I got it, Pix. The “survival station”?
Merfilly27: The Survival Station – here to help you prepare for emergencies with survival and emergency kits.
DavidWrightSr: I had no problem with the site.
mkeith54: worked for me
Pixelmeow: whew!
K8Gladst1: Fair enough – I feel the need of some (non-cyber) refreshment, so expect me back in 5 minutes or fewer.
Pixelmeow: okay, K8
Dehede011 has left the room.
Pixelmeow: I’ve gotta get a barbie castle up to my daughter’s room, brb
OscagneTX: Oh, g’night Pix.
DavidWrightSr: Why would here daughter want to do a barbecue in a castle?
SciFiman33: Bye, look forward for the next chat!
OscagneTX: {{{{{pix}}}}}
SciFiman33 has left the room.
K8Gladst1: I’ve returned … and the Survival Station site works fine for me, too! By the way, Teresa, I slightly preserve to reserve “K8” for my chat-address – call me “Kate” if you will (though if not, I really don’t mind).
Merfilly27: Osc, there is a way to reconcile the need for random selection and use the benefits of genetic manipulation
OscagneTX: Good question. I’d ask, is there any need to?
K8Gladst1: I meant “I slightly preFER to reserve ‘K8’ for” my identifier, rather than for text-wthin-chat naming me.
Merfilly27: let ehm randomly combine, then use gene engineering to fix any problems, once we know the full sequencing
OscagneTX: I’m perfectly ok “murdering” all those non-existent people.
OscagneTX: but I’m a bit of a jerk, too. %^)
Merfilly27: I’m speaking for those who do not wish to do so, but would like to help the resultant offsrpring
DavidWrightSr: Sounds vaguely reminiscent of ‘The Minority Report’
K8Gladst1: I don’t see “any need to” – let those select who wish to select, and let the others continue to “do what comes naturally.”
Merfilly27: you, sir, are always a gallant friend
K8Gladst1: If anyone “weants to help the offspring,” let her/him do so (with the consent of the parent/guardian or of the offspring if of age/capacity to provide consent.)
OscagneTX: I’d guess that any genetic manipulation done after quickening would be on the moral equivalent of a medical procedure. So if it was imporant for you to maintain random characteristic selection, you could still fix any genetic..
K8Gladst1: That makes sense, Oscagne!
OscagneTX: problems afterward.
Merfilly27: I was thinking of the typical wishy washy, my church doesn’t lik eit, but I don’t want a defective
OscagneTX: exactly.
K8Gladst1: Do you think people will ever sue their parents for not getting them “fixed”? (especially in the case of problems for which the “fixing” has to happen pre-quickeing or at any rate in childhood, if such problems exist)?
Merfilly27: let us hope the ligatious nature of our people has evaporated by then
OscagneTX: Of course, what do you want to bet that the church wouldn’t, or wouldn’t be able to, make a distiction between gene selection and genetic-manipulation after quickening.
K8Gladst1: Note that Hubert and Anne in BEYOND *do* use the “Church doesn’t like it, but we want the best for our kids” line of reasoning.
Merfilly27: true
OscagneTX: Hrm. That’s really a decision for the person, isn’t it? The church doesn’t like adultery or poly-amory either (for most values of “church”), but if a person feels it’s morally ok, they’re going to do it anyway.
Pixelmeow: Kate, I prefer to address people how they prefer, so your preference is noted. 😀
K8Gladst1: Note also that a church banning selection and/OR manipulation of genes may (as Kutsi suggested some hours ago) quickly lose members (I get the idea, in BEYOND, that Hubert and Anne’s church [the First Truthers] has few members.)
Pixelmeow: And it’s a BARBIE castle…
OscagneTX: Pix… as in “throw a shrimp on the…”
Pixelmeow: OH!
Pixelmeow: got it.
Pixelmeow: I’m slow tonight.
Merfilly27: Pix…that one had to do a loop to get you 🙂
Pixelmeow: Well, slower than usual.
DavidWrightSr: Well it is getting late.
Merfilly27: late…’tis only 8:30
K8Gladst1: Yes – “if a person considers it OK, s/he will do it” – e.g., many Catholics quietly use birth-control pills, several million Jews regularly dine on pork/shrimp/other Biblically forbidden foods, etc.)
Merfilly27: 🙂
Merfilly27: “I’ll have a slice of that pink salmon”
DavidWrightSr: RAH’s ‘Rational Anarchy’
DavidWrightSr: GMTA
Pixelmeow: Mom and I have spent the day working in heather’s room, cleaning, purging
OscagneTX: Exactly, Merf.
Pixelmeow: building her new daybed
Pixelmeow: hauling mattresses up and down the stairs
Merfilly27: I had the delivery crew assemble my kids new bed
Pixelmeow: heh.
Pixelmeow: WHAT delivery crew???
LV Poker Player: Sent you several IMs Kate, a condensed version of what I mentioned earlier
Pixelmeow: That would be my mother and stepdad.
Merfilly27: it’s a captains bed with a built in trundle…gives them so much more space by day to play
Pixelmeow: and since my stepdad is recovering from surgery…
Merfilly27: ouchies
Merfilly27: I’d’ve lent a hand, but I’m a few miles short of the addy 🙂
Pixelmeow: Her new bed is a trundle daybed, which is wonderful for giving her lots of room
Pixelmeow: thanks anyway, Steph!
K8Gladst1: Few ham-eating Jews, these days, actually stoop to the verbal subterfuge of “pink salmon” or the like – except in Israel, where restaurants in Jewish areas cannot legally carry pork on the menu so …
Merfilly27: I’ve read the dietary restrictions of the old testament…
K8Gladst1: … Jerusalem has quite a few restaurants that serve pork and call it “white meat” (on the menu, and in discreet second-story signs reading simply “white meat” …
Merfilly27: and they are infinitely sensible for a non-refridgerant culture living in scrubland deserts
K8Gladst1: … often, only thus (in Jerusalem or at least some other cities) can one FIND these restaurants (no other clue identifies them as anything but second-story apartments).
OscagneTX: you bet. It probably saved lives. But… I wonder about a clergy that will allow a thing official condemnation, even after the usefulness of the condemnation has waned. No slight, intended to anybody, BTW.
Merfilly27: that was my thought
LV Poker Player: I agree with Dr. Mahmoud that the dietary restrictions make no sense today
K8Gladst1: I don’t argue, Stephanie … people in such places (such as parts of California) may want to keep such things in mind for After The Blowup. …
Merfilly27: be fruitful and multiply makes sense when taking over a land…but not once the resources are being outstripped
Pixelmeow: Agreed.
OscagneTX: yup
LV Poker Player: Mission accomplished on the be fruitful and multiply
Merfilly27: more multiplying will be fruitless 🙂
K8Gladst1: … of course, Orthodox Jews or others practicing the regulations do not regard the health-concerns as the main reason to obey the rules – therefore, they do not regard the change in circumstances as a reason not to obey the rules.
Merfilly27: a message I tired to get across to Kevin when he questioned my determination to be ‘fixed’ after Victor’s birth
LV Poker Player: Hehehe. I think I have made my own views clear on afh when it comes to rules just for the sake of rules. 🙂 I don’t think I would make a very good observant jew. 🙂
K8Gladst1: … but “mission NOT accomplished” on the “your descendants-will-number-as-the-stars-in-the-sky” part – you can’t accomplish that, given Earth’s carrying-capacity, without going TO the
stars. …
K8Gladst1: … a good reason for space-travel 😉
Merfilly27: maybe that’s what was really meant 🙂
mkeith54: you should have “fixed” him. it’s easier and safer
Merfilly27: bad translation
AGplusone: Well, I’m pretty much at my limit without eating …. gonna sneak off now. Bye everyone.
Merfilly27: bye David
OscagneTX: “be fruitful and multiply” will be ok, in net, after we get off the primary dirt-ball.
mkeith54: dye david
OscagneTX: ‘night, David.
AGplusone: what color MIke
mkeith54: bye, sorry
Pixelmeow: bye dave jr
Pixelmeow: 😉
LV Poker Player: Yeah, but how do we get there if we can’t take pictures? One of the commandments says we can’t do that. You can prove anything with the Bible.
AGplusone: 😉 darn! I was going for sky-blue-pink this time.
AGplusone has left the room.
Merfilly27: and disprove the same thing with it too
Merfilly27: it has extremely circular logic cycles in it, and we have lost much by the numerous translations
K8Gladst1: Also, Bible-reading not-pickers will recall the verse in Deuteronomy (can’t look it up at the moment) that says Jews must obey the rules for all of our “days ON THIS EARTH” (capitals added by me) …
OscagneTX: good point.
Merfilly27: good point
LV Poker Player: So ones who go to the moon or whereever are exempt? 🙂
OscagneTX: gmta
Merfilly27: I need to go…Victor has had enough of life without sup
Pixelmeow: alrighty
Merfilly27: good night all
Pixelmeow: gnight
Merfilly27 has left the room.
mkeith54: nite
K8Gladst1: … which would seem to demonstrate that, once you get out into space (off this Earth) you have perfect freedom to eat pork, have sex with multiple partners, commit homosexuality, and lots of other things …
LV Poker Player: Did you get my IM’s about my latest lunar idea, Kate? Condensed version, no way to go into detail with IMs. The medium is the message, you know.
OscagneTX: So… by nit-picky logic, a Jew on an airplane is exempt, also?
K8Gladst1: … presumably, some future Jewish sect might take LVPP’s interpretation (and thereby have a darned good incentive to take to the
stars!)
OscagneTX: he/she wouldn’t be ON the earth.
mkeith54: how about in a cave, not on earth, in it
Dehede011 has entered the room.
K8Gladst1: Yes, LVPP, and I’ll agree with you – lacking time/energy/processing power at the moment to critique.
OscagneTX: re
mkeith54: WB
OscagneTX: So… are we done?
K8Gladst1: I don’t think ANYone has yet extended “on this earth” logically to airplanes (or even ships), let alone to space-travel. But I expect to see some Jews (or some sect of Jews) eventually use this as a “Jews-in-space” incentive.
DavidWrightSr: Folks. I am going to close the log officially and leave. If anything is said reasonably on topic that you want me to post, please e-mail me. Good discussion. C ya later.
OscagneTX: Go ahead, David. I’m taking off in a minute or two, also.
Pixelmeow: I’m just hanging in here, also working on the website
DavidWrightSr: Log officially closed at 8:45 P.M. EST.
Dehede011: Bye
DavidWrightSr: Night All
OscagneTX: ‘night.
LV Poker Player: Time for me to call it a night too
Pixelmeow: gnight!
LV Poker Player has left the room.
Pixelmeow has left the room.
mkeith54: I think so, my eyes are tired
Final End of Discussion Log
