Heinlein Reader’s Discussion Group
Thursday 5-11-2000
‘Delilah And The Space Rigger’ and ‘Space Jockey’
You have just entered room “BPRAL22169 Chat45.”
BPRAL22169: Hi – sorry for the delay. AOL bumped me twice, and then my machine had a nervous breakdown.
Fldax has entered the room
Major oz has entered the room
BPRAL22169: Greetings one and — two.
Major oz: I made it
BPRAL22169: Sorry for the delay — AOL bumped me twice, and then my machine had a nervous breakdown.
BPRAL22169: Laurie, I see you got AIM loaded. Congratulations.
Fldax: It took awhile, but I finally did it.
Major oz: I had no idea what the subject was to be for tonight. My ISP was down for about ten days, so I may have missed all sorts of news.
Fldax: I’ve been busy with other stuff too, so I’m in the same boat.
Major oz: Is there a site or board where the info is posted?
BPRAL22169: David Wright has opened another room using Dave Silver’s logon, so we may join them or they may join us. Standby.
Fldax: I had a very dead memory chip that needed to be replaced.
BPRAL22169: It’s all on alt.fan.heinlein right now.
Major oz: hokay
BPRAL22169: Standby — they are coming here.
DenvToday has entered the room
dwrighsr has entered the room
DenvToday: Ah, much better. Nicer furniture. lol
dwighsr: Hi again. Sorry I fouled things up. I was expecting to be using the same room that David Silver had set up.
DenvToday: So, how is everybody tonight?
DenvToday: Not a problem.
BPRAL22169: Lol. I’ve got to keep an eye out on AOL — people are supposed to IM me. Thge topics for today (Major oz has been down for about 10 days) are “Space Jockey” and “Delilah and the Space Rigger.” No problem, David — doesn’t matter to me either way.
DenvToday: Actually, I just reread of RAH’s early stories. Lost Legacy.
dwighsr: I see a number of other people tawn3, jj brannon, n1yqh a and prnzothvys and geeairmoe2. Do you see them?
Major oz: here?
Major oz: I have only five in the upper, right box.
Major oz: ….none of those among them
BPRAL22169: I don’t have anybody in my buddy list — you may invite them if you wish. I left a message for people to IM me.
dwighsr: let me try to invite them
BPRAL22169: Anybody can invite anybody.
Major oz: y’all come…..
BPRAL22169: Lost Legacy is a very important story, IMO.
DenvToday: It’s interesting to see the contrast between now and sixty years ago.
geeairmoe2 has entered the room
BPRAL22169: Hi, Will.
DenvToday: Many of the same names, phrases, buzz words…then and today.
dwighsr: I couldn’t get prince in. he is signed in on AOL only and n1yqh declined
geeairmoe2: Hello, all.
BPRAL22169: Thanks, David.
dwighsr: JJ is only on AOL also.
Major oz: JJ has AIM, I know
BPRAL22169: I found it very interesting that RAH took a scene or two in LL and put it in Stranger. Plus — maybe that’s what happened at the end of LL; everybody became CAW.
DenvToday: There was a certain resemblance to Clarke’s Childhood’s End. At least in the ending.
BPRAL22169: Very Stapledonian.
dwrighsr has left the room.
BPRAL22169: People do say Clarke was very influenced by Stapledon, but I guess Heinlein was, too.
DenvToday: Tor has a new paperback version of Assignment in Eternity, which is why I read Lost Legacy again. Also included was Jerry Was a Man.
Major oz: ….hokay, Bill……who is/was Stapledon?
BPRAL22169: Just a sec.
dwrighsr has entered the room
dwighsr: Thanks. I got kicked off before I could make a shortcut and had to ask back in.
BPRAL22169: Olaf Stapledon, writing in the 20’s and 30’s — most famous for LAST AND FIRST MEN and THE STAR MAKER — cosmic romances using Bergson and Teilhard de Chardin ideas. Also wrote an outstanding superman novel Heinlein liked a LOT — ODD JOHN.
Major oz: Norsk ?
BPRAL22169: I don’t think so — English perhaps. I’m sure he would be in any of the online encyclopedias.
TAWN3 has entered the room
BPRAL22169: Yo Tawn.
Major oz: yo, TAWN
dwighsr: Yo Yo Tawn
geeairmoe2: yo yo yo Tawn
TAWN3: French”Hi!
JJ Brannon has entered the room
BPRAL22169: Allons = hello?
Major oz: {shades of Barry Goldwater}……..(yo yo MacNamera)
BPRAL22169 has left the room.
TAWN3: I was wondering what was going on. Nobody was showing up in my Buddy List. 🙂 Then I received a letter from David saying Bill was having trouble. It looks like everything is OK now?
JJ Brannon: Major, you have the former Senator’s sunglasses?
Major oz: And his regular BC glasses.
dwighsr: Looks like Bill is still having trouble.
Major oz: third time he has been dumped
Major oz: Step up to the bat, Denv, and lead us……
BPRAL22169 has entered the room
BPRAL22169: Sorry for the fumble-fingering tonight
DenvToday: Interesting you should mention Stapledon. It’s been a loooong time since I read his stuff, but I remember Star Maker. Beginning to the end of the universe.
dwighsr: Welcome back Bill. Looks like a good night.
DenvToday: He came up with Dyson spheres first, didn’t he?
BPRAL22169: I was about to say, before I booted myself: I don’t have members on my buddy list, so I would appreciate anyone who sees a usual inviting him/her in.
BPRAL22169: I think there was a mention of shells around a star in LAFM.
dwighsr: Did any save that part of the discussion about Lost Legacy. If so, please e-mail it to me so I can get it into the log.
Major oz: I have the entire mailing list….it there a way I can “cast it on the net….”?
Major oz: “is”
BPRAL22169: I only have the first part.
DenvToday: Same here.
dwighsr: That’s the part I missed when I got dumped.
BPRAL22169: You can send an e-mail to everyone telling them we’re “right here, right now.” I can’t think of a faster or easier way.
Major oz: hokay…..brb
Major oz: …..where is “here” ?
BPRAL22169: Dave sent me a copy of the list in an e-mail, but I got home so late I didn’t have time to put it in shape for a mailing or buddy list or anything.
DenvToday: One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about RAH’s work is the distinctly American flavor of his characters. Uniquely American. That’s all the way through Lost Legacy.
BPRAL22169: The “here” I had in mind is BPRAL22169 Chat 45 — or AIM
dwighsr: If you haven’t done so, you can create a shortcut on your desktop that will bring you right back into the room if you get dumped
BPRAL22169: Very good idea.
Major oz: So I say in the message: …….what?
BPRAL22169: You don’t need to say anything — just type the name of the person you are inviting in the box.
BPRAL22169: I’m sorry–you’re talking about an e-mail.
DenvToday: However, and this is interesting, at a time when other authors thought of Chinese people as the Red Menace, Heinlein created the character of Master Ling (I think that’s his name)
BPRAL22169: Just say we’re online now on AIM; send an IM to my screen name or yours or anyone asking to be invited in.
BPRAL22169: It’ simportant to remember that Heinlein knew American when it was considered (by itself) a backward poor-relation in weltpolitik.
BPRAL22169: Pre-imperial
dwighsr: Again. RAH created a strong female character in Joan who usually outshone the males.
dwighsr: We are still talking about LL aren’t we?
TAWN3: What work are we talking about?
DenvToday: Yep. I’ve always wondered why RAH had the reputation of being sexist. He was vibrantly the opposite.
BPRAL22169: Still on Lost Legacy. Joan may also be his first black character — her nylons are “creole” shade.
TAWN3: Joan Eunice?
BPRAL22169: 1939 versus 1970
dwighsr: No Joan in Lost Legacy. She was the first to obtain the telepathic and clairvoyant abilities
BPRAL22169: However — we seem to have stabilized our population for the moment — shall we move on to the announced topic?
dwighsr: Fire when ready
DenvToday: Sure
TAWN3: He had lots of black characters before that, if your talking about what I think you are.
JJ Brannon: Go
TAWN3: Magic, Inc., SB, etc.
TAWN3: Oh. Sorry.
BPRAL22169: Okay — we’ve been working our way through the Future History stories and Past Through Tomorrow. We’re up to “Space Jockey” and “Delilah and the Space Rigger.” Both of these are pretty well acknowledged to be “minor” stories — POST era, rather than Future History per se.
BPRAL22169: That is — they were written for the slicks after WWII and folded into the Future History later when they were all collected into Man Who Sold the Moon, Greeh Hills of Earth, and Revolt in 2100.
TAWN3: I saw LL, thought of Mr. ll. 🙂 But you were talking about Joan. Confusing 🙂
BPRAL22169: Everybody familiar with “Space Jockey?”
dwighsr: At least there were tie-ins to the FH. As I recall, Both had mentions of Harriman.
TAWN3: Yes, both had DD Harriman.
TAWN3: Mentioned.
JJ Brannon: Yes, but weren’t they already on the chart that Campbell published?
DenvToday: To be honest, you’ll have to refresh my memory on Space Jockey. I would have reread it had I know. My fault.
Major oz: [have to type, individually, the whole mailing list into the “to” window on the chate invitation……not me, tonight anyway…..]
BPRAL22169: There’s a letter in GRUMBLES where Heinlein says he’s deliberately trying to do the world of the near future in terms like Sinclair Lewis’ Winnemac and Balzac’s Comedie humaine. So there are cross-references all over it.
dwighsr: I always thought it a bit odd that the problems that the pilot had with his wife were so easily worked out when he got a regular run. Wouldn’t she still be worried all the time about his work, even on a regular run?
Doc4Kidz has entered the room
BPRAL22169: Hi, Barry — we’re talking about “Space Jockey”
Doc4Kidz: hello group
DenvToday: Howdy Doc.
BPRAL22169: I think Heinlein was trying to “humanize” space travel — so he took a human problem of the traveling salesman and gave it a bigger scope.
TAWN3: SJ. A small tale about a wife’s devotion to her husband and vice versa. Set around the tale of a rocket pilot with the irregular route, always on call. Had lots of elements in it found in the juvies, such as a brat who sets the ship off course by being spoiled.
BPRAL22169: Wonderful tactic, IMO.
DenvToday: Thanks Tawn.
dwighsr: You could say the same thing about Delilah and…
dwighsr: Humanizing I mean
BPRAL22169: And the story is really about how they work out saving their marriage.
Doc4Kidz: I think all of those stories tried to “humanize” space travel. gave it a more “everyday” feel.
BPRAL22169: I think that was his primary “propaganda” purpose with those stories for the POST.
TAWN3: Lewis and Balzac, that’s interesting. I noticed that it is not a space story per se, it is a husband and wife story, set with a space background. I was going to say before that it is an old tale told many times. Even Kurosawa probably used it, just have to be a Samurai or traveling salesman instead of a rocket pilot.
BPRAL22169: he was the first and possibly stil the best propagandist for space.
Fldax has left the room.
dwighsr: Frankly, I think that you could say that most of RAH were ‘people’ stories set in a space/future background. That’s what appealed to me most.
DenvToday: Yep, I agree with that. It’s the characters, not the space travel or the science.
TAWN3: Well, this was more so I thought.
BPRAL22169: IIRC, these stories were originally set in the upcoming 1950’s. We were supposed to be in orbit by 1954. So this stuff was virtually tomorrow.
TAWN3: Most are space stories.
BPRAL22169: Maybe the next day. He’s trying to get people ready for moving wholesale into the solar system.
BPRAL22169: “Space Jockey” was published in the POST — April 26, 1947. “Delilah” appeared in BLUE BOOK in December 49. I think I have that one, btw.
geeairmoe2: When I first read them in the late 70’s they had that “it could happen tommorow” feel.
DenvToday: I have to get going. It was fun being here tonight. Thanks everybody. I’ll try to join in on Saturday.
Doc4Kidz: goodnight
TAWN3: Don’t anymore. We have lost our drive to space.
Major oz: I note in Delilah that they are building a geosynchronous sattelite. When, supposedly, did Clarke get credit for inventing it?
DenvToday: Nighters to all.
BPRAL22169: Good night.
DenvToday: Take care.
TAWN3: They “could”, but I no longer think they “will” soon.
DenvToday has left the room.
dwighsr: Can any of you feel the impact that such a story must have had at that time. One of the first, if not the first, science fiction story to appear in a regular magazine! Good night Denv
JJ Brannon: No, the Future History diagram has the moon reached ca. 1973, I believe. This has to be later.
BPRAL22169: First sf story in about 25 years.
BPRAL22169: JJ, you’re using a late version — the PTT one?
JJ Brannon: Clarke’s paper was in 1946, I believe.
BPRAL22169: Wells, etc., used to be published in the regular magazines up to the 20’s.
JJ Brannon: One of two.
BPRAL22169: I think he actually broke into the POST with “Green Hills.”
Doc4Kidz: Journal of Radio and Electronics, IIRC.
JJ Brannon: Didn’t “Grumbles from the Grave” have a photo of the original?
Major oz: I have always gotten the feeling that HE saw local space exploration as a very matter-of-fact undertaking. Even back in the 60’s, we could have gone most places with off-the-shelf technology.
BPRAL22169: But it would have been very different — not a bad thing, but different.
dwighsr: Do you think that so much of the space venture was tied up with the cold war, that when it was over, people just lost interest in it? Too costly, not enough benefit for real people? (sarcasm)
TAWN3: Yes.
TAWN3: Absolutely as a matter of fact.
geeairmoe2: I’ve always wondered just what exactly killed the space program.
BPRAL22169: The Chase Econometrics study in about 1980 said that for every $1 put into the space program, the economy got $14 in growth — and that was before miniaturization really took off.
BPRAL22169: Richard Nixon.
Major oz: nobody killed it….it died from neglect
JJ Brannon: Richard Nixon.
geeairmoe2: Watergate?
BPRAL22169: He chose foreign policy over space infrastructure investment, and the impetus died out.
TAWN3: Realpolitik?
Major oz: How did that inpact money, Bill?
Major oz: “impact”
BPRAL22169: With no administrative support for NASA’s budget, it was carved up and programs dropped.
JJ Brannon: They day he congratulated Neal & Buzz, he was zeroing out the budget.
TAWN3: Does anyone think Reagan was good for space? With Star Wars research, etc. Must have had some benefit.
BPRAL22169: Now they are trying to outsource stuff.
Major oz: so……not homocide, just neglect…..?
dwighsr: What about RAH’s comment about NASA’s poor public relations? Anybody know what he was talking about?
geeairmoe2: Reagan had a wider vision.
Major oz: Gorby did, Tawn.
JJ Brannon: I’ve discussed this with Yoji Kondo…
JJ Brannon: He confirms that Jerry Pournelle had the inside track to Reagan for the SDI policy paper…which RAH largely authored.
Lucylou98 has entered the room
LucyLou98: Hello everyone
Major oz: yo. loose
LucyLou98: Hi, Maj
JJ Brannon: They day I heard about Star Wars, my reaction on the reaction was: What??? This old hat — Heinlen did in Space Cadets & tThe Long Watch.
Doc4Kidz: Hi Lisa.
dwighsr: Greetings Lucy. Glad you could make it. BTW Merfilly might need some help too.
LucyLou98: Barry, how are you?
Major oz: JJ: my reaction was: ” ’bout time…”
Doc4Kidz: good, thanx
LucyLou98: Hi, dw, nice to meet you
Major oz: another off the shelf (well, almost) technology
JJ Brannon: let me try that again with grammar: The day I heard about Star Wars, my reaction on the reaction was: What??? This is old hat — Heinlen did it in Space Cadets & The Long Watch.
TAWN3: RAH was part of SDI? I read an article about the scientist who authored the original proposal which Reagan liked and picked up on.
Major oz: ah, so
BPRAL22169: We’re talking about how Heinlein in 1947 and 1948 expected space travel immediately and how we didn’t get it.
LucyLou98: And what a shame it is
JJ Brannon: I don’t believe he expected it immediately, just sooner than later.
TAWN3: No, SDI was to kill nikes, SC WAS nukes.
LucyLou98: Only use the Shuttle for a satellite to beam TV
TAWN3: Glad you got in Lucy.
Major oz: The Navy had the inside political track with the Kennedy whitehouse, such that the Vanguard was the favored vehicle. The Redstone was ready long before.
dwighsr: Vanguard = Edsel of space?
JJ Brannon: From what I’ve read of his statements and the trend of his writing as well as his knowledge of the historical process, that he first had to create the desire in thegeneration of kids who would be the ones to devise the space-industry infrastructure.
Major oz: …..if it had gone, we would be launching from NM
BPRAL22169: Heinlein may have expected really rapid advancement in rocketry because he was palling around with Jack Parsons in 1946 — eccentric but brilliant.
BPRAL22169: He invented the red fuming nitric acid propulsion system the redstones used.
TAWN3: I agree JJ.
Major oz: ….and it seems to have worked……
TAWN3: And he succeeded to an extent.
geeairmoe2: Make Them Want to Go and They Will Build It.
Doc4Kidz: anyone hear about recent theory which suggests that CIA “allowed” Sov’s to get Spurnik up first to establish overflight precedent. So they could then overfly USSR with Spy sats?
Doc4Kidz: (or Sputnik)
Major oz: sounds “spurious”…..
TAWN3: Speaking about NM, anyone notice the fires at Los Alamos?
Major oz: yo
Major oz: Have you been there?
Major oz: The canyon is a natural venturi.
geeairmoe2: If the Labs burn down we can get copies of everything from the Chinese.
LucyLou98: They said weather reports were unfavorable for a controlled burn
Doc4Kidz: LOL, GEE!!!
Major oz: The labs are ABSOLUTELY safe
BPRAL22169: Mean!
JJ Brannon: At cost.
BPRAL22169: And I hear Clinton has pull with them, too.
TAWN3: I would believe that except for one thing Doc, it took our nation, extremely united and scared, too long to catch up.
Doc4Kidz: Gore has MORE pull
Major oz: ….and that is…..?
TAWN3: Chinese. ROFLOL!!!!!
Doc4Kidz: NO, Jupiter was ready to go before Sputnik. Gov’t pulled reins on Von Braun.
Doc4Kidz: “Explorer I”
JJ Brannon: ‘Sbeen fun. Must dash —
JJ Brannon has left the room.
TAWN3: Clinton, 🙂
geeairmoe2: Is this the same CIA that couldn’t overthrow Cuba a few years later?
Major oz: tsk, tsk…..
Major oz: don’t confuse CIA with whitehouse policy
LucyLou98: what’s the difference?
TAWN3: That was JFK.
Major oz: CIA had it wired. JFK called off the air support.
BPRAL22169: I thought it was Sam Giancana who couldn’t overthrow Cuba — I’m so confused!
geeairmoe2: I think 90% of what the CIA gets blamed for and accused of is invented by people lacking the imagination to create other suitable villians.
Major oz: No,,,,,it was Cohen….
Doc4Kidz: no, Luce…we could easily have been first in space. UNmanned and manned.
TAWN3: CIA is an independent none partisan agency. Just as Clancy illustrates in Clear and Present Danger when Jack has to kiss the possible new Administrations ass.
LucyLou98: Doc, never knew that. Certainly not what they teach us in school is it?
Merfilly8 has entered the room
TAWN3: I agree geeair
Merfilly8: greetings all
LucyLou98: Hi, Merfilly:)
Major oz: Clancy has the relatioinship pretty clearly.
Doc4Kidz: much of what they teach is PC history
Major oz: Anyhoo…..anyone ever hear of Project Dyno-soar from the 60’s ?
TAWN3: It is amazing to watch college geography professors try to get radicals to use CIA maps! They think it is “bad”, the profs have a hard time convincing them this is not so.
LucyLou98: no tell about this?
Doc4Kidz: yes, 6 million dollar man footage
Doc4Kidz: lifting body reentry vehicles
Major oz: A Titan (IIRC) with a shuttle on top
TAWN3: Hi Merfilly!
Major oz: Could have been doing all that zoomie stuff in 1963
dwighsr: Hi! glad you made it
Doc4Kidz: man-in-a-can, quick and dirty approach to space flight
Major oz: I was retraining AF personnel for it in early 60’s before it was cancelled.
Doc4Kidz: X-20, right Major?
Major oz: Problem was: IT WAS USAF, NOT NASA
dwighsr: Yeah Military. We can’t have that
LucyLou98: You think that’s why it was cancelled?
Major oz: Never knew it by that title, doc
Major oz: of course.
Major oz: the other services (specially Navy) couldn’t share
Doc4Kidz: I think that was the designtion of the eventual vehicle (never built)
LucyLou98: Around my neck of the woods, some call NASA dirty names.
Major oz: ….and deservedly so, but not so much anymore. Their management is only illusory — WDC calls the shots.
TAWN3: Why LucY?
TAWN3: Lucy
LucyLou98: Except for the people working for them. Been told never to go to work for NASA.
TAWN3: Why?
Doc4Kidz: Walt Disney Co???
TAWN3: Besides the obvious, it has become a bueaurcracy etc.
LucyLou98: Bunch of worthless buracrats(SP?)
LucyLou98: yep
Major oz: Sell Cape Canaveral to Disney (for Space World, or some such) and use the money to build a truly great facility at V-Burg.
TAWN3: It appears that way from ground level, doesn’t it?
geeairmoe2: We need a D.D. Harriman.
TAWN3: What Oz? Please elaborate.
Major oz: …his name is Gates.
Major oz: ? Tawn
Major oz: …on V-burg?
Doc4Kidz: Gates + Heinlein = Harriman
TAWN3: Perhaps Gates will get the bug and become a DD. Now wouldn’t that be wonderful! Think about it though, just like the Billionaire in Carl Sagan’s “Contact”.
dwighsr: He could set up in space and not have to be worried about being broken up. 🙂
TAWN3: Oz, elaborate on Disney and Canaveral please.
Doc4Kidz: gates didn;t have the bug, and RAh didn;t have the $$$
Major oz: I though Sagan (may he rest in peace) was a media whore — but he did, at least, grab some people.
TAWN3: Wow, I thoght everyone would think I was crazy for saying Gates! I quess I am not alone in my observation. 🙂
TAWN3: I disliked a lot about Sagan myself.
BPRAL22169: “Where Do You Want to Go Today” is a very libertarian notion — and explains why he is so hated (actually, Windows is good enough reason to hate him.)
Merfilly8: Name one business man other than Gates that could do it.
TAWN3: He was too narrow minded in some ways about ETs. But he did write Contact. That surprised me.
Major oz: Just my idea, Tawn, about what to do with the cape. It is mostly useless real estate anyhow. Sell it to Disney, let them make a park out of it, get 2% of the gate plus a lump sum, and a great facility could be built, with the 2% providing operating expenses.
geeairmoe2: We need a driving force to overcome the myopic narcissism of “give me mine NOW” attitude prevasive in the US.
BPRAL22169: We seem to have wandered a bit from the topic — shall we try to rein it in a bit — or shall we take a break and pick up with “Delilah” when we return?
Major oz: Turner could do it, and (rumor has it) once considered it.
Merfilly8: We don’t think long term anymore
LucyLou98: That’ll never happen
Merfilly8: Turner will be losing much over the next little bit
Major oz: After _Courageous_ it was an obvious step
TAWN3: I agree with John Stossel on Windows. It is successful because the public choose it. It is a good thing, standardized PCs and work stations. Look at how our economy took off once everyone was on a standard system.
LucyLou98: What were the reading assignment for this chat??
Doc4Kidz: “Courageous”??
Major oz: His America’s Cup boat
BPRAL22169: “Space Jockey” and “Delilah and the Space Rigger.”
Doc4Kidz: Gotcha
TAWN3: Interesting ide4a Oz. I am not sure what I think about it. Have to little subject matter knowledge in that area.
LucyLou98: ok. I didn’t read them.
Doc4Kidz: you get a “Zero”
Merfilly8: Re-reading Delilah now…just read both a few weeks ago
geeairmoe2: Read an article about Congress wanting 90 days notice –instead of 30 — before women were assigned to subs. Kind of reminded me of “Delilah”.
Major oz: Once upon a time, TT was a real maveric — in the good sense. He was daring and tried new things. Maybe Jane screwed him up…..who knows?
BPRAL22169: I like that story a lot.
TAWN3: Give me mine now pervasive in the world you mean? I think it is basic human nature Geeair.
LucyLou98: oh darn! Emerson and Thoreau took priority
BPRAL22169: To read Emerson is to read Heinlein — just a lot slower.
LucyLou98: no way, bill. Emerson is awful
Doc4Kidz: middle name “waldo”!!!
TAWN3: Subs are different.
Major oz: smacks head……..
BPRAL22169: A lot of Heinlein comes directly out of Emerson.
BPRAL22169: I think Ted Sturgeon’s birth name was Waldo, wasn’t it?
Doc4Kidz: I think so
Major oz: Yeah, they are, Tawn. the walls move in on you
dwighsr: I’ve never read Emerson. Can you elaborate on the Heinlein connection?
Doc4Kidz: I like KEITH Emerson!
BPRAL22169: The biggest one is the “Thou art God; All that Groks is God.”
TAWN3: ELP?
LucyLou98: Transcendentalism RAH could have borrowed,,,,but writing is much better in RAH:)
Doc4Kidz: YEP
BPRAL22169: Emerson says everything is one big thing, and the stuff we run into is tendrils of this “over-soul” intruded into time.
LucyLou98: Emerson was a bum
TAWN3: Transcendental RAH, I like that!
LucyLou98: sorry…..
Major oz: ….uh, oh — time to get out my omphaloskepsis shield out…..
TAWN3: Lao Tzu said somethingf similar perhaps a few thousand years ago? Nothing new under the Sun so they say.
BPRAL22169: So is the stuff in “They”
TAWN3: Yes.
dwighsr: Well, he always said that he was filing off the serial numbers 🙂
LucyLou98: Emerson preached that no traditional ideas were worthwhile, didn’t he?
TAWN3: I think, if I remember which story They is correctly.
BPRAL22169: Man in an insane asylum with paranoid delusions finds out there really is a cosmic conspiracy against him.
TAWN3: Exactly.
TAWN3: Know the story, quote it often.
TAWN3: Buddhist veils upon veils upon veils feel to it.
BPRAL22169: Emerson and Transcendentalism is neo-Platonist revival — very gung-go on the Trismegisti — i.e., hermeticism.
TAWN3: hermetically sealed?
TAWN3: 🙂
BPRAL22169: Stranger ties together buddhism, hinduism, and other stuff.
TAWN3: Sounds Sufi to me 🙂
BPRAL22169: yes, actually. The method was supposed to have been inveented by hermes trismegistes.
LucyLou98: Hermetic Brotherhood?
Doc4Kidz: “Thrice Great”
TAWN3: What is Trismegisti?
BPRAL22169: And the sufi, too, lest we forget. Emerson in the 19th century was swimming in the same stream that Heinlein was doing swan dives in in the 20th.
Major oz: An Indonesian dish, with cabbage and peanut sauce……
BPRAL22169: Yes — “thrice great” (tri/megistus)
TAWN3: I agree BPral, always have. A consistent theme, especially in later works.
geeairmoe2: Solipism, the theory that the self is the only thing really existent.
TAWN3: Hermes the God?
BPRAL22169: Increasing in later works. And the Glaroon from “They” shows up in JOB . . . so it was deliberate.
TAWN3: Ah.
TAWN3: A Trinity again.
BPRAL22169: it’s always puzzled me why “They” is called solipsistic — there are at least 2 and probably more real characters in that story. How can it be solipsistic?
geeairmoe2: The question is: Am I the only reality? Or am I one of your constructs?
BPRAL22169: There is, after all, “The Treaty.” (sepulchral tones . . .)
TAWN3: The Matrix.
TAWN3: Constructs.
BPRAL22169: And then there are the treaties with the opponents of the Circle of Ouroboros, even though they dont’ know exactly who they are . . . very puzzling.
BPRAL22169: The Matrix is based on exactly the same ideas Emerson used and Heinlein used. And Nietzsche.
TAWN3: Bartleby?
dwighsr: There was a brief mention of that theme in ‘Beyond This Horizon’ about some people being ‘mobiles’ or something like that. When Felix was coming out of the gas attack.
TAWN3: Existentialism?
TAWN3: In a small way?
BPRAL22169: Yes — and I think the Gray Voice, too, wasn’t it?
LucyLou98: I’d Rather not
dwighsr: Might be the same when Lazurus gets shot up too?
BPRAL22169: And that bit about making up the rules and assigning them to pieces of yoruself to playout without knowing it was all You all the time . . . cf. to Mike and the story about the earthworm meeting his other end.
BPRAL22169: Sorry — I’m getting carried away now.
BPRAL22169: But there are all these fascinating connections all over RAH.
Merfilly8: No, you’re enlightening us to your thoughts
TAWN3: We’re talking about “God” here, and the nature of reality. Do you know how hard it is to do that with most people? I’m sure you do.
geeairmoe2: Existentialism: stresses the active role of the will rather than of reason in confronting problems posed by a hostile Universe.
LucyLou98: I’m interested and paying attention, Bill.
BPRAL22169: You embarrass me — and I’ve run down (for the moment).
dwighsr: Well. Delilah and Space Jockey didn’t appear to have any of those elements, Or did they?
Major oz: The principal reason that existentialism will always be trendy is that, once you define it, it is no longer existentialism.
BPRAL22169: In a sense, RAH was a very religious writer, a very spiritual person — but it wasn’t Christianity, so people can’t see it.
LucyLou98: hehe like quantum mechanics….once it’s recognized….
BPRAL22169: Well, David — exactly how unspiritual is man moving into the cosmos . . . hmmm?
Merfilly8: Delilah boils down to that “do it for the women” theme I pick up the most from Starship Troopers
TAWN3: I thought existentialism was more along the lines of “you can’t understand what I am experiencing because you have not experienced it the exact way I have. Possible implications to Empiricism are contained within it no doubt.
geeairmoe2: “Friday” had religious conatations, in that the character is asking “How and where do I fit in the scheme of things?”
BPRAL22169: Primacy of experience over theory. A very “American” idea, btw.
Major oz: …..my point, Tawn — always evading definition…..
TAWN3: Deliah and Space Jockey were “real world here and now” type stories.
Major oz: …so always available for discussion…..
BPRAL22169: Also, come to think of it, Oz, very Korzybskian.
TAWN3: Not metaphysical.
Major oz: As I understand K (and I don’t — other than how RAH paraphrased him) I don’t see him as pretentious, which is the distinguishing characteristic of the existentialist.
TAWN3: Ah yes, GS.
TAWN3: The map is not the territory.
dwighsr: ‘A man is not the sum of his genes’
BPRAL22169: K says “the reality is bigger than the word; abstraction means leaving stuff out.” When you want to deal with the reality, you have to be silent and deal with the reality, not manipulate words. Very existential.
Major oz: …what,,,,,,it isn’t…..?
LucyLou98: So what teaches us that we are simply responsible for our selves?
LucyLou98: Aaaahhh i think you just answered my question.
TAWN3: Oz, read the two first Null-A novels by Van Vogt. That will give you a good intro. Also try Hiyakawa. K himself is apparently very hard to read from what I’ve been told.
Doc4Kidz: Well, goodnight group. See you next time.
dwighsr: So long Doc
LucyLou98: Bye, Barry
Merfilly8: nite Doc
Doc4Kidz: thanks for interesting discussion (as usual)
TAWN3: Bye Doc. Sorry to see you go!
geeairmoe2: Take care, Doc.
Doc4Kidz: night
Doc4Kidz has left the room.
dwighsr: I found K in an army post library. Frankly, I didn’t think that he was that bad. That’s been nearly 40 years ago, so I could be wrong.
Major oz: I think I attempted the one or another of the Null-
TAWN3: Bpral, Existentialism and GS, being similar. Hmmmm. Interesting observation I must say! I’m impressed!
BPRAL22169: He was a terrible writer — pedagogical methodology sux
Major oz: scuse….
BPRAL22169: I’ve forgotten GS.
dwighsr: Did I miss something, what is GS?
Major oz: I was saying: I think I tried one of them long ago and abandoned them as being philosophically mastubatory.
BPRAL22169: I mean, the meaning of the abbreviation. — never mind. General Semantics. Brain fuzz tonight.
TAWN3: K in an Army post library?!
dwighsr: Gotcha Sorry
dwighsr: This was the Army Language School Library in Monterey
TAWN3: The two Null-A novels are two of my favorite books.
BPRAL22169: It’s going on 8:00 pretty soon — shall we take a 5 minute break and reconvene at 8:05?
LucyLou98: Oz, Van Vogt’s Null-A?
TAWN3: TRhe third one written 25 years later or so is vastly inferior. Was done for money, not for love.
BPRAL22169: Unfortunately I have no unfortunate to fob off the conn, so it’s going to be “talk amongst yourselves.”
Major oz: I think so…..memory fades…..
TAWN3: Oh, a linguist!
dwighsr: They were among the first sf books that I read, but as usual, I never attempted to analyze them. I just liked them even if I didn’t understand all that was going on.
TAWN3: The smart people go there 🙂
Merfilly8:
TAWN3: 🙂
Merfilly8: Then my job is to keep the bloody linguists doing their jobs
TAWN3: :-):-):-):-):-)
Merfilly8: or was
Major oz: I seem to racall a anit-logical “feel the force, Luke…..” cast about them.
LucyLou98: The Gnostic folks are clogging my mail box insteadof Van Vogt folks.
TAWN3: Why Merfilly?
geeairmoe2: My first non-school library was Army-related: Sagamihara, Japan, base housing just outside Camp Zama Japan. Met the Hardy Boys, om Swift, James Bond.
TAWN3: Oz, feel the force feel in what?
Merfilly8: I was the techncal assistance that had to keep their equipment running. Knew how to work every piece they used, do their analysis for them, and why each piece did what it did.
dwighsr: I also read Stranger in the Ft. Jackson, SC library when I was in basic
Merfilly8: They knew to push the buttons and hopefully stay awake for juicy gossip
Merfilly8: You got to go to the libray?
Major oz: …as in the Star Wars movies. No need to think — just feel the force…..
dwighsr: Yeah. Sunday afternoons
TAWN3: Van Vogt was always hot on “IQ”, Hard cold here and now. Not metaphysics per se, like RAH was at many times.
Merfilly8: Did Basic at Ft Jackson as well
geeairmoe2: Probably wouldn’t have become the reader I am today if I hadn’t had to spend three years with no American TV and only Armed Forces Radio during ages 10-12.
Merfilly8: had visitors on Sunday instead since was close to home
dwighsr: I hope that you weren’t there in August.
TAWN3: They let you read in Basic? !!!!!
Merfilly8: August, end, til October. Got hurricane, heat, and first frosts
BPRAL22169: This seems to be a Zen break!
dwighsr: I didn’t tell them. 😉
Merfilly8: Was allowed to read on Sundays last two weeks
dwighsr: Heat. You had better believe it !
TAWN3: Oz, in who, Van Vogt? Null-A? I don’t follow you.
Major oz: ah, yes…Zen. Learned it late in life.
LucyLou98: Mer, sounds horrid
geeairmoe2: Where is Ft. Jackson?
Merfilly8: Had much more fun living in Arizona for ten months of school
Merfilly8: Columbia South Carolina
Major oz: Tawn, memory fades. I may be mixing it all up with something else. It was so long ago that I tried the Null-A stuff.
dwighsr: I lived in Mesa, Arizona in the mid 70’s
Major oz: ASU ’67
BPRAL22169: Wow, I was in Phoenix and Tempe, depending on which years in the mid-70s.
Merfilly8: I was down at Sierra Vista, near the southern border
TAWN3: What school in AZ Merfilly?
dwighsr: Hot, but dry
Merfilly8: Fort Huachuca Military Intelligence
Major oz: Ojo ?
dwighsr: I was there from 74 to 77.
Major oz: Oho….
geeairmoe2: Anyone spend time at Ft. Hood?
Major oz: ….or oh, ho….
Merfilly8: they crammed a two year associate’s of Electronics into my brain
TAWN3: Yes, Oz, you are. Null-A is the typical post WWII “Sane” mentality I have seen in so many of their generation. “Real world”.
Merfilly8: Almost went to Hood. My best system was helicopter based, and had more at Hood
BPRAL22169: I think the null-a books started appearing during the war, didn’t they?
geeairmoe2: Talk about where you don’t want to be in August!
Major oz: my apologies to A.E.
TAWN3: I go to Tucson about once a year. I like it thee a lot.
Major oz: mayhap I will try them again.
BPRAL22169: Pleasant college town, or used to be.
BPRAL22169: Well, I have 8:06 — shall we talk about Delilah and the Space Rigger. Feminism!
Merfilly8: Huachuca was nice. High enough up (a mile or so) to be fair most of the year
Major oz: go, Bill
dwighsr: I think that ‘World’ is copyrighted in 45
Merfilly8: I don’t see Delilah as overly feminist. She had every right to be indgnant with Tiny
BPRAL22169: It was published just before the real crackdown on women, to get them out of the job market entirely.
dwighsr: Another good example of the ‘competent woman’. Who said that RAH wrote about ‘competent men’ 🙂
BPRAL22169: Panshin — following Blish’s lead.
TAWN3: Yes Oz, please do, try Null-A again. Worth it. So are the Weapon Shops, if you believe in the 2nd Amendment.
BPRAL22169: In a sense, “Delilah” is a prelude to his comments to Walter Cronkite during Apollo 11.
BPRAL22169: Get the best person for the job, including women.
dwighsr: Any significance to the name ‘Delilah’. It obviously wasn’t the name of the female character.
BPRAL22169: So it’s generically women?
Merfilly8: Tiny was Sampson then?
Merfilly8: or the task of getting the Space station on schedule?
BPRAL22169: Or was Samson the male establishment.
Merfilly8: Tiny being the rep of that
geeairmoe2: Read it (Delilah) for the first time in the late 70’s and was a bit puzzled why it (woman doing a “man’s”) should cause so much consternation.
Merfilly8: I always check copyright on such stories
BPRAL22169: A “delilah” is generically a temptress who seduces one away from one’s duty.
BPRAL22169: There were still a lot of barriers to be broken in the 70’s — women in construction, warehousing, etc.
TAWN3: Samson would have to be the male extablishment.
dwighsr: It must really be hard for these kids 🙂 to see just how innovative RAH was at the time he wrote, since so much of what he wrote about is commonplace today
TAWN3: Yes, she did that, didn’t she. Camille Paglia revisited.
TAWN3: Distracting from duty I mean.
BPRAL22169: It is — and not just “kids.” Even us old farts often read stuff the first time a generation or more after it was written.
BPRAL22169: Is there any resonance with Dr. M.L. Martin?
Merfilly8: Expound
dwighsr: Well, I’ve been reading him for 47 years and I’m just learning some of what he was writing about, (beyond the obvious story I mean.) you been very helpful Bill.
BPRAL22169: In “Let There Be Light,” M(ary) L(ou) Martin.
Merfilly8: ahh
TAWN3: No.
BPRAL22169: Thank you. It’s amazing what you can find in RAH whenyou start lifting up the corners of carpets and peering underneath.
Merfilly8: Read a book for the story first, then dig out the meaning
TAWN3: Martin = Degree professional scientist/thinker. “White collar” extreme. Deliah was guild level “blue collar”. But similarities in orther areas.
BPRAL22169: Okay, Tawn — why not? Both supercompetent women, tops in their fields.
Merfilly8: so each re-read I gather a bit more
TAWN3: On some level, “feminism”, yes, but two different classes of women.
BPRAL22169: I think your answer got there before my question.
TAWN3: 🙂
BPRAL22169: IMO, Martin was “damaged.” Not true here.
TAWN3: I was still busy explaining. 🙂
BPRAL22169: ‘splain on.
LucyLou98: How was Martin damaged?
Major oz: Delilah was a space-based “Rosie the Riveter” that was being told to go back to home and hearth and raise you kids.???
BPRAL22169: co-dependent.
BPRAL22169: That was starting up then.
TAWN3: Yes Oz.
geeairmoe2: I think we change, mature between readings. Also, RAH seems to present certain archetypes we aren’t always immediately consiously aware of.
TAWN3: A highly skilled Rosie.
BPRAL22169: A radio-operator Rosie.
LucyLou98: I thought she just saw a means to an end.
TAWN3: How Lucy?
LucyLou98: She just went to …whatwashisname again? Anyway, for help with technical problems.
TAWN3: ?
BPRAL22169: Archie Douglas?
Major oz: ’twas also timely — in 1947, Rosie was told to give her job back to the vet and start suckling the boomers.
TAWN3: Yes Oz.
TAWN3: Lucy, what technical help? I forgot.
BPRAL22169: holdover of Depression Era mentality — jobs are scarce and the men need to be breadwinners.
LucyLou98: I forgot exactly what it was too…..
BPRAL22169: She had isolatedthe chemical processes of luciferin/luciferase in test-tube lots and needed his help to turn it into an industrial-lot process.
TAWN3: Think of this. One million unemployed returned vets with combat psychologies and no jobs. Can you say revolution? I think the society simply protected itself. Beside, since when did the women take care of the men economically, on a macro scale. Doesn’t happen in human nature on the macro level.
dwighsr: But they really didn’t use any of that work did they? Archie worked out a totally different process IIRC
TAWN3: Oh Oh Oh. I was thinking of Deliah. You mean Dr. Martin in “Let there be Light”.
LucyLou98: yes, Tawn
geeairmoe2: Didn’t RAH often have his “competant” defer to men as a way to protect the fragile male ego?
TAWN3: Sorry!!!!!
BPRAL22169: Women took care of men economically on a macro scale in WWII — the Rosie the Riveter syndrome. It has always happened — back to hunter-gatherer days when women provided 70-80% of the calories.
Merfilly8: As pur in NOTB, men work better with their illusions intact
Merfilly8: pur = put
LucyLou98: gee, that’s it
BPRAL22169: That brings up another point I have wondered about — does it strike anybody else as very odd that Heinlein moved his “point of view” pretty much into women in the last several books.
Major oz: ….and (I just can’t resist) women are their major illusions…..
Merfilly8: Agreed Oz
LucyLou98: BPR, I noticed that and thought he was writing himself as those women.
BPRAL22169: That comes across very strongly in “To Sail.”
Merfilly8: His women, though highly competent, are still the observers, somewhat, allowing a better view of the overall picture
BPRAL22169: Interesting observation.
Merfilly8: Even Friday is caught up in the things maneuvering around her
Major oz: Bill, I think he tended to listen to Ginny more as he aged and wanted to look at things through a woman’s eyes (impossilbe, I know) but they were his attempts to try.
geeairmoe2: But in the end the women take control of their lives.
LucyLou98: Writing himself into the story as female characters.
TAWN3: Disagree Bpral. That was a necessity. As a process, I have observed, as have so many others, that women to take care of interpersonal topics (sex harrassment boundaries, etc), set the social norms, and in short take care of the emotional issues. Men tend –note “TEND” in both cases, to do the exploring, dnager work, etc. These are Macro processes, individuals may vary where required by law 🙂
BPRAL22169: He uses that observer device a lot. IIRC, the first thoughts about Stranger were to tell it from Ben Caxton’s point of view.
Merfilly8: The observer POV allows readers to get more into the story without feeling like God(dess) looking down
BPRAL22169: That’s a very juicy observation, Tawn — as he gets more “novelistic,” and concerned about interpersonal topics, he presents himself more often as a woman.
geeairmoe2: Perhaps he was suggesting that women have more power then they realize.
Merfilly8: Or that we do and he was trying to point this out to his large male reader base
dwighsr: He said that, specifically, several times, IIRC
Major oz: ….or, as he would say, it sold books.
dwighsr: That women had more power, that is
BPRAL22169: And the “transition” work is FEAR NO EVIL — where JSBS is killed off and reincarnates as a woman.
Merfilly8: I don’t know many male readers who resisted Sail’s cover 🙂
LucyLou98: Maybe he was just fascinated by the roles women play? Wanted to get in touch with his “female side”
dwighsr: What cover. I saw the name Heinlein in the book store, picked it up and read 70-80 pages just standing there
Major oz: ….uh……no
TAWN3: Brain sex and hormones. With age, men lose testosterone, get more female hormones, with age, women tend to shift from female hormones to male one (just some –shift– in both sexes. In other words, both genders become more alike with age. There has been a lot of research done into this. Still is being researched. Part of evolutionary biology. Try reading Ann Muir’s “Brain Sex”.
BPRAL22169: Have read it.
LucyLou98: So that’s why i have to take testosterone blocker? LOL
Merfilly8: Bill, gives me a whole new look at IWFNE with your comment
BPRAL22169: IWFNE is a VERY strange book. But I think the relationship angle bears looking at.
Merfilly8: I had seen the classifications used to define sexual orientation in the book before
Merfilly8: I had trouble reading it over the years….only just read it last year for the first time completely
BPRAL22169: Women control relationships; men control things. That’s the formal dichotomy played out in our cultural institutions. But relationships — family, community, etc. — have always been overwhelmingly important to RAH.
Major oz: ok, I confess: for some time, I have wished I could be female for a day or so to see the what, where, why, etc through “her” eyes.
Major oz: Perhaps RAH just took that to a higher level
BPRAL22169: R.A. Lafferty did some very amusing stories on that subject.
TAWN3: Interesting Bpral, about presenting himself as a women. In anthroplogy there are many instances of the “both sexes at once” as a higher evolved level of spirituality. Among the Hindu’s, Anerican Indians, and others.
Major oz: …..or a literary level….
Merfilly8: May I be guarded from the Sisterhood, but I was I could do the same through Male eyes
LucyLou98: Oz, see! that’s what I think he did
LucyLou98: Mer, you are not alone.
Merfilly8:
geeairmoe2: The controllor of relationships is a good point. Man is a social animal.
TAWN3: Merfilly, others, Camille Paglia illustatres those points tremendously well in “Sexual Personae”.
Merfilly8: Thank you
BPRAL22169: But it’s also true these gender roles are cultural baggage; they can easily be otherwise.
Merfilly8: Man is more social than woman from my POV
Major oz: More “proceduraly” social
geeairmoe2: But men mostly learn their socilization skills from women, their mother.
BPRAL22169: We inherited these ideas — See also Deborah Tannen’s books — from a very long line stretching back to the ice ages.
Major oz: ….but not outreaching social
Merfilly8: Gee….men tend to do the social skills their mothers only pretend
BPRAL22169: Boys are taught how to make boy talk.
BPRAL22169: For most men they are forever trapped at the level of “how ’bout them Lakers.”
Major oz: Living in island villages in 64-66, the men ruled and the women told them how to do so.
geeairmoe2: Remember, the hand that rocks the cradle. It isn’t until boys become physically stronger that they “take control”. But a woman with a superior mind can control a physically superior man.
Merfilly8: Safer to be behind the throne, Oz. They miss your head sometimes that way
TAWN3: Women control relationships; men control things. Well said Bpral. You can observe it going on in the US today. Equilibrium, in constant flux. Cosmology calls it Yin-Yang. Women, “Yin”, are full of yang, and men, “yang” are full of Yin. Interesting, isn’t it? 🙂
Major oz: ‘scuse, folks, I was there in NINETY four to 96
BPRAL22169: Very interesting. Deborah Tannen’s two books were VERY illuminating.
LucyLou98: Explain what you mean by “Women control relationships …” ?
Major oz: Men learn them from women
BPRAL22169: Heinlein has a more hermetic “take” on the male-female roles; you can see it in (return to the begining warning) “Lost Legacy” laid out — the males provide motive power, Will; women provide intellect. And then the Wisdom figure is the third part of that — the catalytic “starter” for action in the world.
TAWN3: Tannen, yes. Good example.
BPRAL22169: Man separate from woman is like the heinlein youth — not yet activated
TAWN3: Most “people” are at that level Bpral, it just manifests different in females.
Merfilly8: As in it taking Jill to bring Mike around to a more active state?
BPRAL22169: Lisa — I was trying to come up with some pithy way of illustrating, but my imagination fails. Get You Don’t Understand by Deborah Tannen — any major bookstore will have it.
Major oz: Interesting. I don’t recall a (adult) “me and Joe” story from RAH
BPRAL22169: Jones and Anderson in Starman Jones?
Major oz: adult….
BPRAL22169: You said adult, didn’t you.
Major oz: All his men need women to be valid
BPRAL22169: Libby and Long in Methuselah’s Children?
TAWN3: Lisa, “he said she said”.
BPRAL22169: Kinda sorta.
Major oz: But not all of the women need men to be valid
BPRAL22169: That’s the other good one — she’s got a new one, but I hvaen’t seen it yet.
geeairmoe2: All his men need women to make them COMPLETE.
Merfilly8: I was thinking Libby and Long, implied, TEFL
BPRAL22169: it’s the hermetic hermaphrodism — men and women are two separated parts of the same original complete soul.
Major oz: Libby and Long were a side issue — not the main theme
TAWN3: But not all of the women need men to be valid. Evolutionary biology again.
Major oz: that’s what I meant by “me and Joe” story
BPRAL22169: you’re right, Oz — Heinlein is not big on “buddy stories.”
Merfilly8: Not in the adults
TAWN3: Exactly Bpral, how the same concept is expressed historically in the West, as compared to Chinese based Cosmology.
Major oz: In the ecology classes I used to teach, I posed Asimov’s thesis that women were just an evolutionary advance beyond men. Always got good discussions.
geeairmoe2: I think we are approaching the ‘the need to find immortality’ theme.
BPRAL22169: Tawn, what’s the chinese cosmology take on it?
TAWN3: Oz, I think they are equal.
Major oz: who?
BPRAL22169: If we approach immortality, I say it’s time to kill the chat!
TAWN3: Yin Yang = complete whole.
BPRAL22169: (small joke)
BPRAL22169: Oh — the combination of opposites. That one I knew about.
Major oz: man and woman as evolutionary developments?
LucyLou98: Women aren’t evolved more than men. we are just different in ways.
Major oz: Purely physical.
Merfilly8: equal but in deffernt manners
Major oz: that was my (and Asimov’s) idea
BPRAL22169: I think I have heard an anatomist make a case for the female bauplan being the basic template for which the male is a specialized adaptation — kind of a reverse Adam and Eve.
TAWN3: Yers Oz.
TAWN3: Yes.
TAWN3: Patterns, Process, Period. The “Three Ps”.
TAWN3: Lisa, 3 Ps, I agree.
BPRAL22169: Oh? I only knew about the 7 “p”s — Poor Prior Planning Promotes Piss Poor Performance.
LucyLou98: Because we all start out as female
geeairmoe2: It is necessary to become different in order to be essential to one another.
TAWN3: Proper prior planning preventsPiss Poor Performance.
Major oz: Discussion often got around to parthenogenesis.
BPRAL22169: Aha — the “glass is half full” 7 Ps…!
TAWN3: Shall we have a “pissing contest” over which is the right phrase? 🙂
LucyLou98: gee, i like that sentiment:)
Major oz: …..no hands….
LucyLou98: no pissing contest…it would be sexist!
LucyLou98: lol
geeairmoe2: Then it should be “the SPECIMAN glass is half full.’
BPRAL22169: vertical versus horizontal
TAWN3: lol Lisa!
Merfilly8:
BPRAL22169: Will! I’m shocked! And delighted!
BPRAL22169: A double pun!
LucyLou98: Mer, lol ….
Major oz: Are we having fun yet?
Merfilly8: I’m laughing…puns get me
BPRAL22169: Keyboard.
Merfilly8: Nearly midnight here, and our girls wake early. Need to check out.
Merfilly8: Nite, y’all, and enjoy
LucyLou98: Mer, have a good night.
TAWN3: Bye Merfilly! It was fun!
Major oz: Nite, mer
Merfilly8 has left the room.
LucyLou98: Nice to meet you
BPRAL22169: I was about to say — I’ve got 8:48, 12 minutes to the end of the third hour. Last Call, Gentlemen!
BPRAL22169: (*It’s an idiom, not a sexist remark)
LucyLou98: lol
TAWN3: Ok. I heard a rumor about a TMIAHM movie. Any truth to it?
Major oz: ….Cuervo, straight up….
LucyLou98: Jose there Oz?
BPRAL22169: I haven’t heard anything substantial.
TAWN3: Make mine a cool one.
Major oz: yo
BPRAL22169: I think VH mentioned nothing is active now at all — just the ever present Paramount option for Stranger which she thinks will never materialize.
Major oz: Actually, I use it more as a topping for ice cream now days.
BPRAL22169: Calvados is really great for that.
geeairmoe2: I cringe at the thought of liberal Hollywood destroying something with a strong libertarian message.
TAWN3: Verhoeven!!!!! God no, please say he doesn’t have the option to film. Please!
BPRAL22169: Actually, there is darned little Calvados isn’t great with.
LucyLou98: Calvados……what is it?
BPRAL22169: Apple brandy from northern France — Normandy.
Major oz: Isn’t it ironic that Travolta is in the Elron movie ?????
TAWN3: Oh, VH as in Virginia. (Grab my chest over my heart in relief).
BPRAL22169: No, he’s a Scientologist from way back.
BPRAL22169: The ironic part is, he wanted to play the villain.
TAWN3: I agreeWill.
Major oz: ….my point
TAWN3: ?
geeairmoe2: I read Dianetics: seemed more psychology than religion.
LucyLou98: Battlefield Earth only book of hubbard I ever liked.
TAWN3: Who’s a scientologist?
Major oz: Now if Kathy Lee Crosby were……..
Major oz: Travolta
BPRAL22169: Travolta
TAWN3: Oh, never mind.
TAWN3: I knew that.
Major oz: ?
LucyLou98: I hear he looks pretty raunchy in the movie
TAWN3: Lisa, did you try the Mission Earth books yet? I read the first. Laughed so hard!!!!!
Major oz: there is always the rumor that Hanks has an option on something.
geeairmoe2: I think for any Heinlein movie to be done right one of us has to produce it with winnings from Power Ball or some other lottery.
TAWN3: That rumor has been around for years.
BPRAL22169: Last I heard, Paramount wanted him to Star in Stranger, but he laughed until they shook more money at him and he said “go away now.” And theyd id.
TAWN3: Probably right Will. Or be a Lucas.
BPRAL22169: Well — RAH himself did a script based on “Gulf.”
LucyLou98: I didn’t win the 350 mill. in Georgia lottery.
Major oz: Judging from Apollo 13, he could do a good Stranger in a ten-part production
BPRAL22169: He was very happy to produce or direct stranger, but they didn’t want that — they wanted him to star.
TAWN3: He’s too old now.
geeairmoe2: A mini series on cable might be the best bet.
dwighsr: My cohorts gave me a ticket for my birthday. I didn’t win either 🙂
TAWN3: God no!
TAWN3: Too adult.
BPRAL22169: Sometimes those things work out — Mapp and Lucia surprised me by being absolutely perfect.
Major oz: I just want a visual on Patty
geeairmoe2: Cable will let you be more cerebral than a network. Networks dummy everything down.
dwighsr: I think Hanks would be a good Ben Caxton
TAWN3: Mapp and Lucia?
TAWN3: Yes, good Caxton.
BPRAL22169: Third book in E.F. Bensons’ Lucia series.
Major oz: I see her as Conchata Ferral with tatoos
TAWN3: Connery as Jubal? I bet he could pull it off.
Major oz: ?
BPRAL22169: Prunella Scales as Mapp
TAWN3: oh
BPRAL22169: Jubal was scheduled for Connery.
dwighsr: How about Wilford Brumley as Jubal?
Major oz: nah — James Earl Jones
LucyLou98: Connery doesn’t strike me as a jubal
Major oz: who said he had to be white?
LucyLou98: dw, that’s more like it.
TAWN3: Really? It would be perfect.
geeairmoe2: Connery is on TBS right now, his Bond comeback film. Movies for Guys who like Movies.
TAWN3: No, he isn’t. That is why I said “I bet he could –pull it off– “.
TAWN3: But it would be “acting”. But Connery –can– act.
geeairmoe2: I would have liked George C Scott as Jubal.
Major oz: agree, gee — too old now
TAWN3: I agree. James Earl Jones would be great.
BPRAL22169: JEJ has the right “vibe” for some of Jubal’s stuff.
Major oz: With Danny de Vito as
BPRAL22169: Duke? Larry?
Major oz: duke
TAWN3: The guy from Paper Chase, Mental block, would have been an interesting Jubal. John Houseman.
LucyLou98: lol Duke was the one with the pics?
BPRAL22169: Yup.
Major oz: da house — great — thirty years ago
TAWN3: Yes Bpral. Jones definitely has the right vibe.
TAWN3: Duke. IIRC.
Major oz: Does anyone remember the angel in Barbarella. I think it was John Phillip Law. Would have been a great Mike.
TAWN3: Antonio Bandereas as Stinky?
LucyLou98: Oz, good one
TAWN3: Haven’t seen Barbarella for years. Ol’ Hanoi Jane.
BPRAL22169: We have now degenerated to the lowest of parlor games. I say it’s time to draw this chat to a close.
Major oz: boo…..
BPRAL22169: “And soooo the convent doors close behind Sooooonia.”
TAWN3: This is fun!
TAWN3: Wait!
Major oz: yes?
TAWN3: Interesting news.
Major oz: yes?
LucyLou98: GA, Tawn
Major oz: yes, yes?
TAWN3: Yesterday, on The Newshour with Lehrer……
Major oz: and what ever happened to
Major oz: robin
BPRAL22169: Tom Lehrer? That IS news…
Major oz: McNeil
Major oz: ?
dwighsr: The suspense is killing me
LucyLou98: Tawn??
BPRAL22169: (I bet she’s typing)
geeairmoe2: He.
TAWN3: There was an interview with with Dr. Bill Joy, the chief scientist at Sun Micro systems. He just wrote an article on Nanotech, genetics and Robotics.
LucyLou98: lol
BPRAL22169: A very terrible article.
TAWN3: He has become a big dooms dayer.
BPRAL22169: He’s become a big idiot is what he’s become.
LucyLou98: Tawn….I’m reading about that stuff now.
Major oz: Can you say…….Forbin ?
BPRAL22169: ERic Braeden survived Colossus and became a soap opera star! So there.
geeairmoe2: And the Rat Patrol.
Major oz: how tragic…..
TAWN3: Is anyone familiar with this article? He went into his reasoning in deoth for about twenty minutes. Fascinating that a person with as much prestige as he has should go from the “it will never, and can’t happen” camp to the “Oh my God, I was wrong and we need to protect ourselves” camp
BPRAL22169: There is a man who thinks his paradigms are laws of nature.
LucyLou98: The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil is great
BPRAL22169: “Forgive him, sire, he is a barbarian. . .”
Major oz: No, mine are……
dwighsr: “I love you” must have scared him.
Major oz: ……he thinks the taboos of his tribe and island are……
Major oz: etc.
geeairmoe2: No, MINE are.
Major oz: Some islands really believe that…..
Major oz: …as does my daughter’s church
TAWN3: but he had a sound thesis. I disagree with his predicted outcome but it was a fascinating premise. I need to look up the article. What journal or magazine was it in?
dwighsr: Some non-islanders do too
LucyLou98: Age of Spiritual machines?
TAWN3: Exactly my thought. Those paradigms are not laws of Nature. I disagree with his conclusions. But the premise was surprising I thought. The time line has shrunk so much.
Major oz: Didn’t see Joy (was cooking). I do think that, if ever a machine becomes self-aware (a la Mike), it’s first act will be to destroy man.
Major oz: And I used to be of the totally opposite persuasion.
TAWN3: Oz, why?
BPRAL22169: I think that if a machine becomes sentient, man will rapidly become completely irrelevant to it.
LucyLou98: Kurzweil seems to think machines with consciousness are the next step in evolution.
Major oz: I guess it’s my Jesuit-Ecologist outlook: species survival at whatever cost.
LucyLou98: some scary thoughts.
geeairmoe2: If the machine preceives man as a threat to its existence, it will do the logical thing and try to destroy man.
TAWN3: Perhaps we’ll reach immortality via machines. wet ware.
LucyLou98: he says that also Tawn
TAWN3: Of course.
BPRAL22169: Why? What is the value that underlies that logic, and why should a machine have that value built into whatever value system it has.
Major oz: nah…..they won’t allow it
TAWN3: HAL, 2001.
LucyLou98: nanoengineered organs and such
BPRAL22169: Ther eis no “logic” without a standard of valuation.
Major oz: Didn’t the Wonderkind on STTNG have nano-surgeons.
TAWN3: Perhaps a machine won’t think like you, or I , or Lt. Commander Data.
BPRAL22169: If self-determination is the highest of all possible values, then it would be illogical to destroy man.
LucyLou98: there are poems computers have written after studying certain poets.
Major oz: Ack der liber, Bill. Logic requires no valuation.
geeairmoe2: If Man threatens your existence, it would be illogical to let him live.
dwighsr: Did anyone read Hogan’s ‘Two Faces of Tomorrow’ ?
TAWN3: A machine may have an “alien” thought process, despite being designed by man.
BPRAL22169: My point — “logic” cannot give you a value-judgment. it can only give you the next implication.
BPRAL22169: There can be no “logical” reasons — outside a value system — for a sentient computer to want to destroy humans.
BPRAL22169: The value has to be built into the system. Or not. or some other value.
TAWN3: The machines will take over has a long history behind it. Came way before Terminator.
TAWN3: Or Forbin.
LucyLou98: The day the maching stopped
TAWN3: Why Bpral?
Major oz: In a logical system, a value system is a null concept. It isn’t just dumb, it doesn’t exist at all, and cannot affect logic.
geeairmoe2: Logic recognizes no value system.
BPRAL22169: A chain of logical induction “conserves” its operators — you cannot get a “should” statement out of a chain of logical inference unless you put a “should” statement into the chain. Otherwise you’ve got only “is” statements to work with.
LucyLou98: wait wait!
LucyLou98: ooo how to say this?!
geeairmoe2: If a machine is programmed with the command: You must continue operating — and man threatens that command, the computer must destroy Man.
Major oz: precisely….that’s why value is a non sequitor
TAWN3: The best treatment I have ever seen of the concept is an old stage play style movie called “Invasion of the Humanoids” IIRC. Andy Warhol “loved it”. I understood Warhol after I saw it. Suddenly his Campbell soup can made sense. It is a little known film. We progress to a point where people are afraid the androids will take over. They even have their own religion
BPRAL22169: But then you are not taliing about a sentient computer — you are talking about a tool of a human mind.
geeairmoe2: Define “sentient”.
BPRAL22169: The definition of sentience is “able to transcend its programming.”
Major oz: with self-awareness, “command” is null
BPRAL22169: Free will, if we were to transpose it to human terms.
geeairmoe2: Then it must be programmed to become sentient. How is that possible?
Major oz: nope, gee.
BPRAL22169: Not precisely, Oz — one can always “assent” to a command — the theoretical basis of the Nuremberg principles.
TAWN3: They do however, end up obeying their basic program in the end. But, what is the logical conclusion of that program?……… Great little low budget gem. I highly recommend it for it’s concept. Also, look at the date it was made. Sixties or so. Someone was far thinking.
BPRAL22169: Also the basis of the doctrine of the “magistracy of the church” among Catholics.
Major oz: ….and Nuremburg (regarsless of feeling) was illegal.
BPRAL22169: Hard to say yea or nay on that proposition: it was an innovation.
geeairmoe2: By sentient do we mean ‘able to act in a manner other than programmed’?
BPRAL22169: I would say that is a necessary consequence of the idea — a collateral concept.
geeairmoe2: Should we be discussing something like “expanded level of awareness”.
TAWN3: Logic —> value system. Nazi’s took the logic of social evolution to it’s extreme. They took the current globally accepted ethical doctrine of “what benefits the most, the most”, to an extreme. We have since rethought that ethical concept because of what they did. Logic without values can have bad results.
Major oz: agree, Bill. Not the definition, but a consequence.
BPRAL22169: I don’t see how whatever it has can be “sentience” if it cannot act outside its programming. It might be — but you could never tell, could you?
TAWN3: But, logic has no value system unless it is included as a _must include- assumption/prerequisite.
Major oz: Logic without values doesn’t care……
BPRAL22169: “logic” is a set of rules for rearranging the terms of propositions into equally true propositions. It can work on value-propositions as well as identity-propositions, but you cannot generate a normative by inductive operations. it’s not mathematically possible.
Major oz: say, what ??????
BPRAL22169: Put another way, “logic” is to propositions as topology is to geometric forms.
Major oz: Logic requires no explanation
Major oz: ….like checkmate….
Major oz: Logic simply is
TAWN3: I agree Bpral.
BPRAL22169: People have had to work nigh onto 3000 years to figure out what logic is.
Major oz: If you want values — “good” or ‘bad’ — shop elsewhere.
TAWN3: You must factor in the value statement before hand or it will not be part of the equation.
Major oz: ….don”t need no stinkin’ equations…..
Major oz: Why make something so simple so hard?
TAWN3: Badges, don’t need no stinkin badges.
Major oz: hokay
LucyLou98: keep talking…..keep talking
Major oz: the Jebs got it right.
BPRAL22169: badgers don’t stink . . . them’s skunks.
Major oz: they differentiate between logic and values
TAWN3: I think a computer may some day “wake up”.
Major oz: Don’t confuse one with the other.
Major oz: But…………..value them both
TAWN3: By sentient, I use the definition–self aware–. The fact that it has no free will, or must obey it’s progranmming is no different from operant conditioninfg in humans.
LucyLou98: you think computers will evolve? chaos theory and all that?
TAWN3: Yes.
Major oz: Actually, I don’t think it will happen. But, as RAH says: “…stipulate that…..what happens next?”
dwighsr: That was the them of Hogan’s book I mentioned earlier.
dwighsr: theme
TAWN3: The hand of God and all that. Chaos theory is simply the mechanism of the creator.
TAWN3: Or, the way God creates.
geeairmoe2: I just keep running into that roadblock: How can a machine do anything it is not programmed to do?
LucyLou98: “consciousness is just a machine reflecting on itself”
Major oz: …because it WANTS to…..
TAWN3: How can I do anything I am not programmed to do? Or you for that matter.
TAWN3: B. F. Skinner.
BPRAL22169: Will, have you read anything about complexity theory? Emergent properties of complex interactive systems?
geeairmoe2: But I can choose to refuse to follow my programming.
BPRAL22169: Waldrop
Major oz: …..was an idiot
Major oz: Skinner
Major oz: in hindsight
BPRAL22169: book, Complexity is a very good place to start.
TAWN3: Lisa, how about, “I think, therefore I am”, regardless of that fact that others programmed you.
Major oz: We had a good translation of the BF in B. F. Skinner.
BPRAL22169: TOS warning! TOS Warning!
TAWN3: Ah, that is “free will”. Not the same as sentience.
Major oz: Any military types should be able to come up with it.
Major oz: the former requires the latter.
BPRAL22169: (BTW, that was a joke — there is no TOS in AIM)
Major oz: but not the other way around
TAWN3: And are you really free? It is like Patrick McGoohan in the 16th and 17th episode of “The Prisoner” tv series from the 60s. Who is Number 1?
BPRAL22169: You are, number 6
Major oz: I never cared
Major oz: I watchec it a few times and refused to continue
Major oz: Don’t like authors playing games with me.
BPRAL22169: I watched it in Prague summer.
BPRAL22169: It was beaucoup appropriate.
Major oz: ’56
Major oz: ?
LucyLou98: to speak of consciousness as anything other than pattern of neural firings is to wander off into mystical realm beyond any hope of verificcation….says this Kerzweil.
TAWN3: I disagree with Skinner’s tunnel vision and extremeism. I don’t disagree with the premise of operant conditioning as a force that molds us. I just think we have a soul too.
dwighsr: Personally, I think that we can’t escape our ‘programming’. However, I believe that our ‘programming’ is far more complex and continuous due to outside influences.
Major oz: No, that was Hungary
Major oz: sorry
BPRAL22169: 1968 — Russian tanks rolling into Prague.
TAWN3: BF= ?
BPRAL22169: I don’t know from soul — but I know people can transcend their progrmaming.
TAWN3: What I first thought of for BF doesn’t make sense from your later statements.
TAWN3: I am Number Six. And very proud of it. I want to go to the Village someday. It is a real resort.
Major oz: I know…one of the Channel islands, isn’t it?
BPRAL22169: Yes, but it’s in Wales.
LucyLou98: What do you mean no.6 and no.1?
BPRAL22169: That was more than 30 years ago . . . they might have changed the decor by now.
TAWN3: Spoiler
TAWN3: Number 1 is …….
LucyLou98: No. 1 is Riker on Star trek next generation….lol
Major oz: Richard Nixon
TAWN3: Oh, watch the show. It is only 17 fifty minute episode and I wouldn’t want to spoil it for anybody.
Major oz: Bertrand Russell
LucyLou98: my hero
Major oz: dull, dull, dull
BPRAL22169: The Prisoner — patrick McGoohan — was #6 in The Village, where he was being “depropgrammed” after quitting his Secret Agent job. The head of the Village was always #2, including wonder ful performances by Leo McKern. The question was, who is #1. The answer is always (as the leadin for every episode but the last: You are No.6. The answer in the last episode was slightly changed by one character.
BPRAL22169: How’s that for a non-spoiler?
TAWN3: Praque Summer folowed Praque Spring? Or am I remembering the names of my history events wrong? Czech Spring?
Major oz: ’twas Prague Spring
geeairmoe2: Letter to woman from Prague Sperm Back: Your Czech is in the mail.
BPRAL22169: better her accounts should be frozen.
LucyLou98: oh dear
LucyLou98: oh me oh my
Major oz: It wasn’t “spring” but a flowering of freedom
TAWN3: Bertrand Russell? I like Bertrand Russell!
LucyLou98: me too Tawn
BPRAL22169: (i.e., slightly less oppressive than usual)
BPRAL22169: The Czech economy began to take off and the Soviets came in to crush them.
TAWN3: Non spoiler, well, ok, but the ending has other meanings also. Very existentialist. Thanks Bpral. Thesises have been written on the meaning of that series. Incidentally, they never clearly state which side runs the Village. It is implied, by the answer of who is Number 1, but, again, it is getting into the surreal meaning of it in the last two episodes.
TAWN3: Why did he resign?
Major oz: BR was a brilliant mathematitian who suffered from early onset Alzheimers, at which time he became an pacifist philosopher.
BPRAL22169: Yup. That was, of course, the whole point of the series, wasn’t it?
BPRAL22169: no. 1 wanted to know.
TAWN3: It was a good nonspoiler Bpral.
geeairmoe2: I don’t mind pacifists. Easier to shoot.
BPRAL22169: Only the slow-moving ones, Will.
BPRAL22169: There was not another show on TV with that depth until 1990.
geeairmoe2: Full Metal Jacket flashback. How can you shoot women and children. Don’t lead them as much.
Major oz: Depth ??????
Major oz: How bout Green Acres
TAWN3: What was in 1990?
BPRAL22169: Twin Peaks.
TAWN3: ?????
TAWN3: You got to be kiddin!
BPRAL22169: Now go back and read Oz’s remarks, Tawn.
TAWN3: Bill, what did you want to know?
Major oz: Sorry, Bill. I am not being demeaning. Tastes differ. Twin Peaks was a two season teaser in a magnificent frame.
TAWN3: Green Acres?
TAWN3: Regarding Russell?
Major oz: depth
BPRAL22169: I don’t think I asked anything about Russell.
Major oz: Not being a very opinionated person………
TAWN3: Oz’s remarks about The Prisoner.
BPRAL22169: In the Prisoner, each of 15 episodes asked and examined one of the ways in which we are imprisoned in our skulls. Twin Peaks posed the nature of good and evil in what appears to be very conventional ways, and then slowly twists the frame until they merge. Technically brilliant. The owls are not what they appear.
Major oz: Like a lot of newer SF. They spend the entire book using words to describe something (?) which cannot be figured out.
Major oz: they do this as an affectation.
Major oz: So that you will feel like the “in” group
TAWN3: Interesting comparison Bill!
BPRAL22169: I’ve been reading a bunch of tech-tech sf recently — Greg Egan, Ken McLeod.
Major oz: Don’t refer to the gzort unless you are prepared to tell me what it is.
Major oz: RAH never comitted that sin.
BPRAL22169: Theyseem to agree the future of human evolution is uploading into computers.
Major oz: Too many of today’s authors do.
BPRAL22169: yes, he did — stobor!
geeairmoe2: If you’re not happy with reality, twist it until either you are happy, or everyone else is unhappy with you.
BPRAL22169: But the way he did, it wasn’t a sin!
TAWN3: I agree Oz, regarding RAH.
Major oz: that was easy to see
BPRAL22169: It’s 9:47. Do you people not have homes!!??
TAWN3: Dopey joes?
dwighsr: It
dwighsr: It’s 12:47 here.
TAWN3: Stobor are from TitS?
Major oz: anyhoo, it is my complaint about The Prisoner.. Don’t play mind games, tell me a story.
BPRAL22169: You just want everything!
TAWN3: They DO tell you a story!
geeairmoe2: Hint taken. I’ll be wandering off now.
Major oz: If I want messages, I will go to Western Union (thanks Earnest)
BPRAL22169: But that’s what a story is — by definition. A game with the mind.
TAWN3: Bye Will.
geeairmoe2: Bye, all.
BPRAL22169: This is going to be the first four hour chatlog ever posted!
TAWN3: That was Samuel Goldewyn I believe.
dwighsr: Yeah. but one I can understand!
LucyLou98: I’m having a grand time gleaning info. here.
TAWN3: Yes. Great isn’t it?
geeairmoe2 has left the room.
BPRAL22169: Aha! you have reduced it to a matter of your comprehension, now.
Major oz: hokay, folks….rant over..
TAWN3: 🙂
Major oz: What is the subject of next meeting?
BPRAL22169: I don’t believe I have seen the list — what are the next two stories in PTT?
TAWN3: How much fun this chat was.
LucyLou98: just when i was taking notes.
TAWN3: Long Watch, Gentlemen, be Seated.
TAWN3: Oh, that’s from GHoE
dwighsr: It certainly has been wavy, up to the heights, down to the depths of casting and then to the heights of philosophy(theology) etc.
dwighsr: and logic
LucyLou98: I remember why i come here, now.
TAWN3: Yes!
TAWN3: I wish we were meeting in person! What a chat it would make.
BPRAL22169: Those two are not together in PTT, but I believe Dave was using GHOE anyway. So I declare ex cathedra from my bellybutton that the next two topics are “The Long Watch” and “Gentlemen, Be Seated.” From the sublime to the Ridiculous.
LucyLou98: Makes for Great arguing in class!
BPRAL22169: Do I make that the 25th?
Major oz: Night all. David, as you read this log, our thoughts are with you and your mother.
TAWN3: Sit on it 🙂
Major oz: good night
TAWN3: Night All!
BPRAL22169: ROFL!
dwighsr: Night All
TAWN3: This was the best chat yet!
BPRAL22169: Excellent chat. Thanks for coming.
Major oz has left the room.
BPRAL22169: Do I dare to close the chatlog now?
LucyLou98: Ok..see you people next time
TAWN3: Yes David, All our thoughts go out to you and yours.
BPRAL22169: Do I dare to eat a peach?
LucyLou98: Will his mother be ok?
BPRAL22169: Shall I wear clean trowsers and walk upon a beach
BPRAL22169: And hear the mermaids singing, each to each?
LucyLou98: anyone know?
TAWN3: No!
BPRAL22169: Stop that right now.
TAWN3: Let’s continue.
BPRAL22169: *I feel much better*
BPRAL22169: I believe it’s Dave’s mother — it’s always touch and go at her age.
TAWN3: Eat a Peach? Duane Allman reference there Bill?
BPRAL22169: You should have been a pair of ragged claws/scuttlign across some dark sea bottom. Nah. Too sentimental!
LucyLou98: Having lost my Grandmother, I feel for him, and his family.
LucyLou98: 🙁
LucyLou98: But I am going to go see what I can dig up on notes taken during the chat:)
LucyLou98: night
BPRAL22169: Good night one, two three.
LucyLou98: how do i get out of here!
Lucylou98 has left the room.
BPRAL22169: Hit the “x” at the upper — well,, I guess she figured it out.
TAWN3: Yes. I found out after the chat started. I will have to write him a longer note. I shot him off a quick one at the start of the chat.
BPRAL22169: Well, I’m off to put my jacket up — I flang it on the bed in haste because I got here late.
TAWN3: Ok.
BPRAL22169 has left the room.
TAWN3: Good talking to you guys.
dwighsr: Same here. I’m staying to the last so that I can record the entire log
TAWN3: Bill, do you know where I can find the Dr. Joy article on nanotech?
TAWN3: David, do you?
dwighsr: Bill’s gone just you and me. Nope. First I heard of it
TAWN3: OK. I am going to print this out now. See you!
dwighsr: That’s it for me. s’ pokoijnochi
Final End of Discussion Log
