Heinlein Reader's Discussion Group Thursday 7-20-2000 'Gulf'

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Heinlein Reader’s Discussion Group

Thursday 7-20-2000

‘Gulf’

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From: AGplusone

Topic: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 1 of 121

Sent: 10 Jul 2000 00:32:34 GMT

RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7-20 & 22-2000 The Robert A. Heinlein Reading Group

Please see the following websites:

http://readinggroupsonline.com/group/robertaheinlein.html

http://members.aol.com/agplusone/rahmain.htm and for instructions in using AIM

especially, see: http://www.alltel.net/~dwrighsr/heinlein.html

Topic: The novella “Gulf” — and the several aspects of its implications

Place: On “AIM” software, for which the basic download site is:

http://www.aol.com/aim/home.html/ To attend: Register, download and install it. You need not put anything in the profile they offer you. Notify me please by e-mail of your registered user name so we may know to expect to see you in the room “Heinlein Readers Group chat” and then see the following website for a link to enter the room:

http://readinggroupsonline.com/group/robertaheinlein.html

Dates & times: Thursday, July 20, 2000, from 9 PM to midnight, EDT _and_ Saturday, July 22, 2000, from 5 to 8 PM, EDT

We’ve decided, for variety, to interrupt our chronological review of the Future History stories to discuss another work, the rarely read novella _”Gulf”_. This is one of the lesser known stories, but it has generated some substantially harsh criticism against whatever it is that Heinlein intended to express over the years. _”Gulf”_ was published originally in _Astounding Science Fiction_ in the November and December 1949 issues. It was later collected in _Assignment in Eternity_. Incidentally, another work that you might read to prepare for the meeting is the later-written novel, _Friday_, 1982, for reasons that will become evident, as you read replies to this thread.

[NOTE concerning availability of the work: _Assignment in Eternity_ was recently reprinted and reissued by Baen–within the last few months– and is readily available in paperback stock from the publisher, BUT check your bookstore to see whether it is on the shelves or needs to be ordered for you.]

How it came to be written is interesting: as recounted in James Gifford’s RAH:ARC, before November 1948, the magazine _Astounding_ received a clever letter from reader Richard A. Hoen that pretended to critically appraise the year off and not yet existing November 1949 issue, listing illustrations, stories, and their authors (illustrations and stories that had not yet been drawn or written or even thought of). This so amused editor John W. Campbell, Jr., that he published the letter and then he made an extraordinary effort, offering commissions to the various writers and authors named, to see to it that the year off issue would contain exactly what the reader’s joke ‘prophesied’ including the foretold story “Gulf” by Anson MacDonald, one of Heinlein’s psuedonyms. Campbell was largely successful, and the ‘prophesied issue’ has become a science-fiction legend.

Heinlein took the commission offered and, after a brainstorming session with Virginia, retired to his typewriter, turning out short outlines for *at least* two story ideas that vaguely fit the prophesied concept. One of those outlines became, much later, the blockbuster bestseller _Stranger in a Strange Land_, 1961; but the Heinleins realized that it was far too large an idea to fit into a novella.

Heinlein took the ‘other’ outline and turned it into the novella _”Gulf”_ which Campbell published as Heinlein’s first appearance in his magazine since before the war.

We’ll be having a chat co-host for this discussion, Dehede (Ron Harrison), as Ron has volunteered this subject and agreed to co-host for reasons you’ll see in his lead-off post which will follow in a day or two.

Please post as many of your thoughts as possible about this defined topic before our meeting as a reply to this post to help the co-host make these meetings enjoyable and enlightening to all. Remember, the more posts, the better our discussions.

See you all a week from next Thursday and Saturday.

— David M. Silver

“I expect your names to shine!”

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From: Stephanie Vickers

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 2 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: 10 Jul 2000 00:46:37 GMT

Reading “Gulf” for the first time. I had not even heard of it til Pop asked had I read it when I mentioned I had finally made it through _Friday_. I’m barely into the store, but I can see some key differences already. Of course, I will be re-reading _Friday_ to refresh my memory. Hope to see some enlightening posts as I read, because, with it being a first read, I’ll likely miss the subtext. Of course, Ebon willing to grant me reading time, I’ll read “Gulf” twice in addition to _Friday_.

Filly http://hometown.aol.com/merfilly8/myhomepage “Let us endeavor so to live that when

we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

–Mark Twain

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From: RHarr83176

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 3 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: 10 Jul 2000 01:12:33 GMT

I picked up ASSIGNMENT IN ETERNITY on my way to my father’s funeral in early 1971. For some reason the story stayed on my mind. Then a little later I read A. Panshin’s HEINLEIN IN DIMENSION and found the novel sort of set aside with a few brief comments. Time after time that was my experience with this story. Every in print critic, both pro and anti Heinlein skipped lightly over this story. Finally, Robert Heinlein was asked to select his favorite short story for a special issue of Analog. He chose GULF. So that has been my experience with this story. In many ways I consider GULF to be a very minor Heinlein but then why have I read it 10-15 times? Many people have passed lightly over this story but Heinlein himself chose the story as his favorite. Why?

I think I find myself approaching the story today with two thoughts in mind:

1. Our Sargeant Zim, I believe, once said that if you only see one level in a Heinlein story you can assume you have missed a couple of levels. Has this story been underrated and its point missed?

2. We have a very diverse group of Heinlein readers; I have always wanted to see this group evaluate GULF.

Dehede

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From: Robert A. Woodward

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 4 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: Sun, 09 Jul 2000 18:47:55 -0700

In article <>, (AGplusone) wrote:

….RE: “Gulf” How it came to be written is interesting: as recounted in James Gifford’s RAH:ARC, before November 1948, the magazine _Astounding_ received a clever letter from reader Richard A. Hoen that pretended to critically appraise the year off and not yet existing November 1949 issue, listing illustrations, stories, and their authors (illustrations and stories that had not yet been drawn or written or even thought of). This so amused editor John W. Campbell, Jr., that he published the letter and then he made an extraordinary effort, offering commissions to the various writers and authors named, to see to it that the year off issue would contain exactly what the reader’s joke ‘prophesied’ including the foretold story “Gulf” by Anson MacDonald, one of Heinlein’s psuedonyms. Campbell was largely successful, and the ‘prophesied issue’ has become a science-fiction legend…..

Campbell was unable to get a story out of one of the authors listed by Hoen; some slacker by the name of Stuart

…

IIRC, Asimov was the substitute.

—

http://www.halcyon.com/robertaw/

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From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 5 of 121 (In response to RHarr83176)

Sent: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 13:37:02 -0400 RHarr83176 wrote:

….1. Our Sargeant Zim, I believe, once said that if you only see one level in a Heinlein story you can assume you have missed a couple of levels. Has this story been underrated and its point missed? 2. We have a very diverse group of Heinlein readers; I have always wanted to see this group evaluate GULF. Dehede….

I think I’d start by looking at the title and cheating by referring to Friday as well. The gulf is explicitly referred to by Baldwin in Gulf when he tells Joe,

“The gulf between us and them is narrow, but it is very deep. We cannot close it.”

Here it refers to the differences between homo novis and homo sapiens but I think, in light of Friday, it could also be considered a chasm that presents a danger to homo novis. They fall into it IMO when they decide that they are, ultimately, a different race a, “variation becoming a species” and that they have the right to work in the shadows to control the animal like herds of homo sapiens. There is an interesting twist where Baldwin tells Joe that their assassins are about to wipe out a KKK convention; on the surface it’s possible to see some similarities between the ideas espoused by the KKK and those of the New Men. Good intentions may not be enough to make the New Men morally superior…..

We are told that 85 years earlier the commisars were overthrown and a new republic was created. Despite the fact that Edith and Roger Stone ( Neil Armstrong timeline) emigrate to one of the planets that Friday visits it’s not certain that they share a timeline. Certainly in Gulf the moon is not a prison colony but a home for rich elderly people. Maybe it’s best to see Gulf and Friday as being separate.

I was struck by the many ways in which Heinlein echoes Gulf when he wrote about Joe’s daughter. The stories both begin with a character arriving from off planet and slipping into a washroom to change their appearance and identity. Both are soon after kidnapped by people who appear friendly; policemen and Uncle Jim and are either tortured or forced to watch a torture.

These two scenes are amongst the most graphic in all of Heinlein’s writing; not comfortable reading for a 12 year old finding Gulf in the school library! One bit about the waitress’s death always bothered me; ” She stood, swaying and staring stupidly at her poor hands, forever damaged, even for the futile purposes to which she had been capable of putting them.”

Let’s be just a little more condescending here! “Futile”? She was a waitress; that’s not futile and for all we know she had hobbies that needed dexterity.

Reading Gulf always makes me feel incompetent; I never had any delusions that I was homo novis material 🙂 I wouldn’t be able to stack the cards to make messages ( though I think it was easy to spot what Baldwin was doing with them). I also feel that Speed talk would’ve been way beyond me…I’m not convinced that learning it was the equivalent of an effective lifetime of 1600 years either.

It might also be worth looking at the differences between Gulf and Lost Legacy; in both a small sector of humanity has extraordinary mental powers but in Lost legacy the smaller group don’t become overlords, incapable of breeding with the inferior version of humanity; they implement a programme of education until eventually all of humanity that can shares their powers and, we assume, moves on to a higher plane of existence.

We don’t know what it is that changes Baldwin’s mind in the time between Gulf and Friday; nor do we know how long it is ( I think). Minimum of 20 years at least; maybe Baldwin is a lost Howard? He is still in charge of a secret organisation but they are far from supermen and Speedtalk has vanished. There is a fleeting reference to the “self styled” supermen moving to Olympia which indicates that the rest of humanity was less than enthused by their pet status….

Few questions; is there an asteroid behind the sun; Earth Anti? are there really 21 definitions of the verb “to be” that are “false to fact”? What does this mean?

Jane

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From: James Gifford

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 6 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 12:20:00 -0700

ddavitt wrote: ….We are told that 85 years earlier the commisars were overthrown and a new republic was created. Despite the fact that Edith and Roger Stone (Neil Armstrong timeline) emigrate to one of the planets that Friday visits it’s not certain that they share a timeline. Certainly in Gulf the moon is not a prison colony but a home for rich elderly people. Maybe it’s best to see Gulf and Friday as being separate…..

I’m not sure I follow. “Gulf” and _Friday_ fit together pretty well, but don’t fit with any of Heinlein’s other works. Why are you comparing _Cat_ here, except for one similarity of names (“Fiddler’s Green,” IIRC, which comes from relatively modern folk mythology)?

What inconsistencies do you see between the novella and the novel?

….I was struck by the many ways in which Heinlein echoes Gulf…

Yes. Much deliberate parallelling.

….One bit about the waitress’s death always bothered me; ” She stood, swaying and staring stupidly at her poor hands, forever damaged, even for the futile purposes to which she had been capable of putting them.” Let’s be just a little more condescending here! “Futile”? She was a waitress; that’s not futile and for all we know she had hobbies that needed dexterity….

Uh… I always took this to mean her activities as a b-girl/hooker.

….It might also be worth looking at the differences between Gulf and Lost Legacy; in both a small sector of humanity has extraordinary mental powers but in Lost legacy the smaller group don’t become overlords, incapable of breeding with the inferior version of humanity; they > implement a programme of education until eventually all of humanity that can shares their powers and, we assume, moves on to a higher plane of existence….

The difference, however, is that the “superiors” in LL have no innate superiority over the common run of humanity; they’re simply a minority who have discovered an ability latent in all. “Gulf,” wrightly or rongly, establishes that homo novis is a mutation, a distinct breed with characteristics that cannot be transferred to homo sapiens.

….is there an asteroid behind the sun; Earth Anti?….

No. I think Heinlein was playing on “Gor” and other sfnal “hidden planets” here. With his astronomical bent and training, I think he well knew that no planetoid could remain hidden on the other side of the sun.

….are there really 21 definitions of the verb “to be” that are “false to fact”? What does this mean?….

It means Heinlein was still deeply impressed by Korzybski, Hayakawa and General Semantics in 1949. I don’t know what factual or quasi-factual components might lie behind this statement; perhaps someone more familiar with GS can pinpoint the reference.

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From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 7 of 121 (In response to James Gifford)

Sent: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 16:07:25 -0400

James Gifford wrote:

….I’m not sure I follow. “Gulf” and _Friday_ fit together pretty well, but don’t fit with any of Heinlein’s other works. Why are you comparing _Cat_ here, except for one similarity of names (“Fiddler’s Green,” IIRC, which comes from relatively modern folk mythology)? ….

Just to forestall comments that they’re the same time line; no reason really. This was sort of a stream of consciousness post; Eleanor has come down with chicken pox so I’m busy. 🙂 I think they are stand alone’s too.

….Let’s be just a little more condescending here! “Futile”? She was a waitress; that’s not futile and for all we know she had hobbies that needed dexterity.

Uh… I always took this to mean her activities as a b-girl/hooker…..

Well, that’s not futile either…ask Tamara. In that line of work hands would be fairly important I’d think I just don’t like the idea of anyone being dismissed as so worthless that everything they do with their hands is futile. It seems a strange adjective to use. I never thought of her as a hooker exactly; though she does offer Joe ‘companionship’ it wasn’t stated that she would take it further; more like Dolores in Starman Jones; she’d sit with him and let him buy her over priced coloured water. The guy in the New Age Hotel makes a similar offer; I took it to be indicative of the society rather than the waitress’s or bellhop’s alternate career.

….The difference, however, is that the “superiors” in LL have no innate superiority over the common run of humanity; they’re simply a minority who have discovered an ability latent in all. “Gulf,” wrightly or rongly, establishes that homo novis is a mutation, a distinct breed with characteristics that cannot be transferred to homo sapiens…..

It’s specifically stated that it’s not a special mutation and never really explained how these people came to be spread throughout society. Alien seedlings maybe? I found that a little hard to accept; certain humans with better minds is one thing but to say that they are a different kind of human seems to be taking it too far. Baldwin’s lot haven’t tested enough of humanity to know if, like Lost Legacy, the capabilities are latent or teachable it seems to me. They just dismiss them en masse and recruit anyone whose head is slightly above the rest of the crowd. For all they know the REAL superhumans are lurking even deeper in the shadows and viewing them with pitying condescension. It reminds me a little of Smith’s Lensman universe but there the opportunities to be part of the elite are open to all and the Lens is not the only or highest calling; Neal Cloud being proof of this. That set up was more open; the Lensman are guardians and above reproach but they are still of humanity ( in its largest sense, aliens and all). Apart from the lack of all but one female Lensman of course…..

Jane

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From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 8 of 121 (In response to James Gifford)

Sent: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 18:59:00 -0400

James Gifford wrote:

….I was struck by the many ways in which Heinlein echoes Gulf…

Yes. Much deliberate parallelling.

Just spotted a few more; both Friday and Joe are carrying something secret and vital, both get offers of help from young innocent girls who are subsequently killed by the enemy.

It’s struck me how naive Friday is; she’s working for Boss without knowing anything about him or what she is transporting as a courier.

” A courier never knows what she is carrying. I know nothing about policy. I don’t know my boss’s name. I’m not sure whether we are a government agency or an arm of one of the multinationals.”

In view of the fact that the multinationals wipe out whole cities and the scathing comments on government workers; ” all public employees have larceny in their hearts or they wouldn’t be feeding at the public trough,”

this seems a strange comment. Speaking as an ex civil servant this part always hurts my feelings a little 🙂 Friday is kept in the dark to protect her …..but we see what problems lack of knowledge about one’s employer cause her later on in the book ( her last assignment which ends up with her pregnant and on a better off dead list).

As i read Friday again I’m trying to build up more details on the communist takeover; the Prussian/Russian war seems significant. It’s surprising how much I didn’t spot when I was just reading it … for fun……

Jane

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From: AGplusone

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 9 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 10 Jul 2000 23:33:00 GMT

…Jane: are there really 21 definitions of the verb “to be” that are “false to fact”? What does this mean?…. If I had to guess where to look, I’d start with Alfred himself. Or maybe Hawakawa … —

David M. Silver

“I expect your names to shine!”

===================================================

From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 10 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 11 Jul 2000 00:22:26 GMT

Jane and Dave,

Now that is the level of analysis I was hoping to see. Let’s face it; after reading this story for 30 years I am about out of ideas about it.

One question still persists in my mind. What is there about this story that would cause RAH to consider it his best short story. I do think “short” in this case means “under novel length.” Ron H.

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From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 11 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 20:53:27 -0400

Dehede011 wrote:

…message by Dehede011

I don’t know…I like it but I wouldn’t class it as his best myself. Looked at superficially ( i.e definitely the way I would’ve done at 12 or so) it’s a James Bond type thriller; someone on the Moon with a doomsday weapon, a spy with super powers who belongs to a secret organisation…..standard stuff.

Looked at closer there are differences of course; Joe dies being the most glaring one. James loses his girlfriends but he _never_ dies! Plus of course, Heinlein wasn’t really telling a spy story; he was telling us of a threat to our liberty in the form of a group of “self styled supermen” who have decided to relegate humanity to pet status ( albeit potential cats :-)) and ensure that baby doesn’t get to play with matches and thus leave the supermen without a planet on which to live.

Sorry….I’m getting a bit worked up here…..but I’m backed up by the events of Friday. Realistically Baldwin shouldn’t still be around; there seems to be a large time gap in between the two stories and Joe points out that Baldwin is already older than he appears in Gulf. However it’s clear that at some point the homo novis group were revealed and had to leave Earth; for their own safety as happened for the Howards? Or in a miff because their ideas had been rejected? What changed Baldwin’s mind? Why did the leader of the group desert his followers?

I’m going off track again; I don’t think it ranks as Heinlein’s best short story because it seems to hover between being both too long or not long enough; maybe that’s why he wrote Friday. There is a promising, action packed start, a long period of lull when Joe is being trained and then a very rapid ending with little build up. It seems a bit uneven IMO. Joe and Gail are nice but I never feel I get to know enough about them.

I carried on and read Jerry Was A Man after Gulf; the end always makes me go a bit misty eyed but in a way that fits into another theme of Friday; are beings that have been altered or created in laboratories truly human? This is one area where perhaps Heinlein has gone down a different road than reality; test tube babies are probably viewed with suspicion by the same sort of people who want to ban the Harry Potter books but by and large no one would dream of saying that those children were soulless and not entitled to the rights of citizens ( I hope). I always had a bit of trouble relating to that part of Friday; I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about nor why the prejudice would be so widespread.

Jane

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From: AGplusone

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 12 of 121 (In response to James Gifford)

Sent: 11 Jul 2000 01:34:10 GMT

James Gifford noted that

ddavitt wrote:

I’m not sure the ‘futile’ purposes to which those hands had been put were necessarily her b-girl/hooker inclinations, James. My mother, who ‘slung hash’ for a living for, oh, about 30 years, off and on, never considered waiting tables a particularly noble profession, although she did it quite well, even in later years when she hired and fired food beverage preparers, servers, and associated folk while running some top restaurant and hotel operations. Putting food and drink in front of people to consume isn’t in and of itself, in her opinion, particularly difficult work–doing it correctly is a horse of different hue–as when you provide ‘french service’ for example, however, and doing it without falling susceptible to the ‘menial servant’ mentality that despises the ‘fools’ you wait upon, curries favor solely to garner tips, and results in a mindset of hypocrisy that carries over into the other parts of life can be quite difficult, in her considered opinion.

Also, suffering true fools, as my mother-in-law (not my mother) did once in a restaurant when she inquired, after serving a wife of a future President of the United States who had eaten only a bite of a well-prepared expensive steak, whether there was something wrong with the food, and being told by that august, rich and beloved lady that what she intended was to ensure sufficient food remained on her plate for the waitresses and/or kitchen staff to eat and satisfy themselves when it was removed, can also be a bit stressful when one is not free, if one wishes to continue in that employment, to dump the plate and its contents in the ‘lady’s’ lap for gratituous insult.

Neither of these two elderly ladies, I’m afraid, Jane, would tell you they consider food service a particularly rewarding or more than minimally useful occupation for most employed in the field. Both assured themselves their children would not follow them into occupations in that field. YMMV

— David M. Silver

“I expect your names to shine!”

===================================================

From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 13 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 11 Jul 2000 02:40:09 GMT

….”Gulf,” wrightly or wrongly, establishes that homo novis is a mutation, a distinct breed with characteristics that cannot be transferred to homo sapiens….

Did the story GULF actually say they were a mutation or simply a group of homo sap that by self-segregation, and marrying back to their own kind, would eventually become a breed apart? dehede

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From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 14 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 11 Jul 2000 02:42:32 GMT

….” Let’s be just a little more condescending here! “Futile”? She was a waitress; that’s not futile and for all we know she had hobbies that needed dexterity.”….

Is this just a reflection of stories written about this time which told of supermen that found normal people pitifully inadequate compared to the supermen?

Dehede

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From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 15 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 22:53:12 -0400

AGplusone wrote:

snip

I’ve been a waitress David…..not for long I admit. It was a Saturday job for spending money as a teenager. I wasn’t very good at it. It’s pretty soul destroying sometimes but it’s not “futile”. I’m not going to go another round of dictionary duelling 🙂 but to me “futile” means useless, a waste of time. Bringing food to people, enabling them to enjoy the treat of a night out with someone else doing the cooking and dishes…this is not futile. It’s provision of a service that people want and appreciate.

Jane

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From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 16 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 22:56:26 -0400

Dehede011 wrote:

….Did the story GULF actually say they were a mutation or simply a group of homo sap that by self-segregation, and marrying back to their own kind, would eventually become a breed apart? dehede….

Yes, that was it; up till now the genes had been wasted by inter marrying with homo sap ( more shades of KKK?) but the implication was that Joe would mate with one of his own kind to produce super children. Baldwin says that there was no specific mutation; as homo novis have shown up throughout history, scattered all over the world, it can’t really have been a mutation I suppose.

===================================================

Jane

From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 17 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 22:59:30 -0400

Dehede011 wrote:

….message by Dehede011 ….

It’s the author’s voice at this point; not Joe’s. I don’t know; maybe I’m making too much of it but it just grated a little. Perhaps it’s the narrator giving an over view from Joe’s perspective. Remember Joe is a bit of a Jake Burroughs when it comes to women; thinks they’re all soft and fluffy ( until he meets Gail!).

Jane

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From: Ebontress

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 18 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 11 Jul 2000 03:08:58 GMT

Okay. Finished Gulf. Very abrupt ending. Am now digesting it, and will try to post coherantly tomorrow. The thing that first came to mind is that it follows a pattern seen in later books, of setting the situation smoothly and then hurrying the end along. Maybe that is why it sticks in the minds of some who have read it.

Filly, posting from Ebon’s account

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From: AGplusone

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 19 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: 11 Jul 2000 03:21:39 GMT

Dehede asks:

….” Let’s be just a little more condescending here! “Futile”? She was a waitress; that’s not futile and for all we know she had hobbies that needed dexterity.” Is this just a reflection of stories written about this time which told of supermen that found normal people pitifully inadequate compared to the supermen?….

That point may be valid. Compare, for example, RAH’s portraits of waitresses in two other stories, namely the one who waits on Max Jones and the trucker in _Starman Jones_, the juvenile, and essentially the same character who waits on Steve, Alex and Marguethe (and marries Steve, later) in Job:ACOJ. Each are portraits of the comfortable dinner type waitress who would be very likely, provoked, to dump a plate on your lap but who also would do their best to make your breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even just a cuppa joe in their cafe enjoyable, absent provocation or tired feet.

Marguethe and Alex themselves end up with a sandwich shop/soda fountain establishment at the end of Job:ACOJ; and there’s no reason to consider RAH’s portrait of them or any of the waitresses aside from the one in “Gulf” condescending.

But, contrast the waitress in “Gulf.” Aside from the strong hints that she would have been happy to take Joel Greene into the back room (or, from Jane’s perspective, hints that she ‘merely’ was a b-girl), or provide him with a redhead, the setting itself is a not so subtly corrupt one. Joel Greene is purchasing alcohol in a ‘private room’ in a “soda fountain” [!] not a bar. Doesn’t this sound a little like the world that Alec Graham inhabits, where the lawyer’s secretary offers you a toke while you wait to be attended upon by her always appearing ‘bisier than he was” boss [reference the description immortalized of all lawyers, of the “sergeant of laws” by Chaucer, a lawyer himself, I’d point out, in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.]?

A “soda fountain” in the 1948 Heinlein lived, even in Hollyweird, was a place you took your best girl for a chocolate fudge sundae. Lana Turner was ‘supposedly’ discovered in one named Schwabs (at least that’s what Schwabs claimed) that existed up until the late 1980s. You didn’t order scotch and soda there. Not even in Hollyweird. And if they had private rooms they did it without anyone I ever heard of knowing about it.

Do you know of any superman stories written about that time, Ron, that do reflect a like view of the ‘little people’ by their supermen heros?

— David M. Silver

“I expect your names to shine!”

===================================================

From: Prnzofthvs

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 20 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 22:01:31 -0700

A waitress/waiter can make a meal out an enjoyable experience – or can turn it sour through bad service and a nasty attitude. This is power in a way…..though exercising it negatively might earn you the sack. I think it’s unfair to dismiss anyone on the basis of the job they do; few people are paid for doing something not worthwhile ( at the lower end of the pay scale that is…..). Anyone prepared to work gets my respect no matter what they do. Well, there are some exceptions but waitressing isn’t one of them. Jane Jane, David should be the last person to make negative comments about those who serve in restaurants. Last Friday, the waiter who attended us at our soireee was definitely a very positive part of the experience. He was very attentive, absolutely refused to rush us – even assuring us that there was no need whatsoever to hurry off after we had finished eating, and kept us well-supplied with libations, including some of the best restaurant coffee I’ve ever had. I heartily agree with you about waiters/waitresses. It isn’t exactly intellectually stimulating work, but it allows others to enjoy a time of relaxation and ease, and no washing up after! I don’t think it was RAH who said that any honest work has merit and value, but I’m sure he would have wholeheartedly agreed with the sentiment. Steve

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From: keris

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 21 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 02:46:26 -0700

(AGplusone) wrote:

….Marguethe and Alex themselves end up with a sandwich shop/soda fountain establishment at the end of Job:ACOJ; and there’s no reason to consider RAH’s portrait of them or any of the waitresses aside from the one in “Gulf” condescending. ….

I noticed the similarity to Joe and Estrellita in “The Tale of the Twins Who Weren’t” (in TEfL), ‘Llita starts off as a waitress until they get a large enough place of their own. RAH seemed to regard it as a perfectly good profession (like dishwashing).

…. But, contrast the waitress in “Gulf.” Aside from the strong hints that she would have been happy to take Joel Greene into the back room (or, from Jane’s perspective, hints that she ‘merely’ was a b-girl), or provide him with a redhead, the setting itself is a not so subtly corrupt one. Joel Greene is purchasing alcohol in a ‘private room’ in a “soda fountain” [!] not a bar…..

It didn’t seem much more corrupt to me than many places in the late 20th Century Gregorian. One of the hotels commonly used for UK SF conventions is in Liverpool on the edge of the “red light district” (without any actual red lights apart from at road intersections!), and apparently business conventions there are normally well supplied with girls (they do no trade at SF cons). Admittedly, I haven’t heard of a bar doing that sort of business in Britain, but perhaps I’ve just not been to the ‘right’ places…

(As far as I know we don’t have anything like the American “soda fountain” in Britain, or if we do it’s a deliberate copy of the American ones.)

Chris C

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From: David M. Silver

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 22 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 03:39:09 -0700

ddavitt wrote:

….AGplusone wrote:

….I’m not sure the ‘futile’ purposes to which those hands had been put were necessarily her b-girl/hooker inclinations, James. My mother, who ‘slung hash’ for a living for, oh, about 30 years, off and on, never considered waiting tables a particularly noble profession, snip Neither of these two elderly ladies, I’m afraid, Jane, would tell you they consider food service a particularly rewarding or more than minimally useful occupation for most employed in the field. Both assured themselves their children would not follow them into occupations in that field. YMMV –

….I’ve been a waitress David…..not for long I admit. It was a Saturday job for spending money as a teenager. I wasn’t very good at it. It’s pretty soul destroying sometimes but it’s not “futile”. I’m not going to go another round of dictionary duelling 🙂 but to me “futile” means useless, a waste of time. Bringing food to people, enabling them to enjoy the treat of a night out with someone else doing the cooking and dishes…this is not futile. It’s provision of a service that people want and appreciate. A waitress/waiter can make a meal out an enjoyable experience – or can turn it sour through bad service and a nasty attitude. This is power in a way…..though exercising it negatively might earn you the sack. I think it’s unfair to dismiss anyone on the basis of the job they do; few people are paid for doing something not worthwhile ( at the lower end of the pay scale that is…..). Anyone prepared to work gets my respect no matter what they do. Well, there are some exceptions but waitressing isn’t one of them. Jane….

I agree with much of what you say. But not all. I’m glad to see you agree with my mother it can be a soul destroying occupation “sometimes,” although I think my not quite yet sainted mum would differ with you about how frequently sometimes becomes reality in certain serving places. If you are serving fish and chips or hamburgers in what we used to call a diner over there, or a so-called ‘family restuarant,’ or the ‘soda fountain’ in reality that used to come attached to every Woolworth’s five and ten, mumsy would say that, probably, the worst thing that’s going to occur is eventially the arches of your feet are going to break down, probably about the time you lose your sweet girlish laughter. That’s not, by the way, where a waitress supporting herself and her family is going to earn more than a minimal stipend that will enable her to barely get by, although such work probably will afford a modicum of spending money for a young girl.

There are certain serving places where a woman can earn quite a bit more than a modicum of spending money. Setting aside the few jobs available in the very top-drawer restaurants that in the 1930s when mother dearest started ‘slinging hash’ or the 1940s when Heinlein wrote “Gulf” in a large majority of cases used only male waiters “because only a man can really give good service” or some such twaddle, the serving places where some women earned substantial money then and now were cocktail bars. Cocktail bars come in different flavors, and what we might call the atmosphere in them can change as quickly as the bartender, or the manager, or the owner makes or loses money and leaves or stays or makes ‘changes.’ These ‘changes’ are designed usually to make men buy more booze, be it beer or ‘french’ champagne, dependent on the style of the place. Changes may include floor shows or ‘uniforms.’

Bars of the sort that have strippers doing their floor show (or a “soda fountain’ that has a ‘remarkably shapely ecdysiast…working down toward her last sting of beads”) also do indeed have a tendency to put their waitresses into costumes that “cover without concealing,” that afford “no possibility of concealing” three mailing tubes or anything else. Think fishnet stockings and topless. Think “Hooters,” think Playboy Clubs, or–if you wish–think about some of the clubs in Cicero (where Al Capone dined in the 1930s) or Hollywood or on the “Strip” (where in the 1940s and 50s Jack Dragna, Ben Segal, and denizens of the dark were to be found) where my mother actually worked and observed, whilst garnering rather large tips from that type and those that emulated that type. Those bars make money. Large money, with the largest money going to the owners. Unless the employees are stealing the owner blind. She was a young, attractive auburn haired petite and vivacious woman, married and with children, who earned very large money. But also think how many times she got her arse or dancer’s legs pinched, the tips shoved into her cleaveage instead of on a table or tip tray. Think how many times she seriously considered asking the bouncer to take the customer outside and bounce his head up and down on the cement streetcurb for a while. Think how many places she quit when she found she couldn’t consider doing that, because, after all, the owner *was* using sex to sell booze. Think how many joking and not so joking propositions she received in the twenty or twenty-five years she was still young looking and attractive. How many drunks harboring amorous attentions she had to avoid after work. How many times she asked the bartender to walk her out to her car or the busstop.

In my mother’s opinion, many (and she would probably say ‘most’) young girls faced with that either quit shortly to pursue some other occupation or unemployment or eventually accepted the occasional and not so occasional offer of a ‘date’ from the big-spender. She is of the opinion that the ‘atmosphere’ eventually wore most of them down. From dates to booze to drugs to backrooms to cribs or jails, or from dates to booze to drugs to some sort of “lucky” intervention (“I’m going to take you away from this place, baby!”) that may not have been as lucky as she hoped (“Why are you upset, mom?” “Dorothy called. Jack got drunk and hit her again. She can’t come in tonight. He gave her a black eye. I wish she’d divorce that bastard.”). For many (and she would probably say ‘most’) that spells futility in following that segment of the trade.

There are of course exceptions. My mother would tell you she was one. She wound up working supper clubs, giving french service at fine Beverly Hills type restuarants alongside the men waiters, working the door instead of the usual man you found serving as maitre d’ and running a few restuarants and “inns” as they call them. When she got to the lined face, truly fallen arches, and gray hair stage, she didn’t really have much choice, did she?

Her main point, and Heinlein’s I think, is the occupation, no matter how much money a decent honest and tough woman can make at it–when she is young and handsome, isn’t “much choice,” is it? For a young girl in the late 1940s, there were opening up a few other choices. Rosie the Riveteer had come home from the war, or had she? Did she really have to go back to ‘slinging hash’ with her little sister. Wait a minute: little sis is going to college! “Futility” isn’t always used to describe an absolute for all time. It can be a transitory condition. Some very few prostitutes retire, healthy and rich, or at least healthy and relatively happy. Most die. More waitresses retire, some to pancake houses that have a habit of going out of business, or changing hands to become non-union shops about the time you need the health insurance or pension, but some do retire. If you’re lucky you’re not raising the grandchild your waitress daughter left behind. If not, you find yourself a pancake house or a drugstore soda fountain counter and work alongside those nice young high school and college girls earning spening money.

I think she’d smile brightly at your defense of the poor girl in “Gulf,” but then after a while, if she liked your mind, she’d listen to your stories about waitressing and perhaps tell you a few stories about a few girls she knew over the years. The stories would make us sad. Or angry. Take your pick. YMMV

I also don’t think Heinlein’s observations were condescending, but merely true criticism of a woman who offers you a ‘redhead’ when you turn down her own offer. Do you think that if Joel Greene had said yes to the redhead she’d have thought she was doing my auburn-haired mother a favor offering to switch tables?

David

===================================================

From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 23 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 11 Jul 2000 12:01:05 GMT Jane, You wrote: Heinlein wasn’t really telling a spy story; he was telling us of a threat to our liberty in the form of a group of “self styled supermen” who have decided to relegate humanity to pet status Is this what Heinlein was doing or was he on the side of the “supermen?” Looked at in that light; is that “lull” really a lull or is Heinlein telling us something quite different? Dehede

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From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 24 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 11 Jul 2000 12:11:06 GMT

Jane,

I think you really got to one of the things that give me pause to think. You wrote: Yes, that was it; up till now the genes had been wasted by inter marrying>with

homo sap ( more shades of KKK?) but the implication was that Joe would mate with one of his own kind to produce super children.> That has always bothered me. Intuitively I feel there is a distinction to be made between the KKK or Nazi attempting to purify their “bloodline” and the Homo Novis which presumably cuts across every ethnic division imangineable. Yet I can not make the distinction other than to say it is intuitive. Can anyone help me here; either to prove that it is, or isn’t, the same? Dehede

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From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 25 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: 11 Jul 2000 12:16:45 GMT

Dave,

Do I know of any superman stories about that time that portrayed that relationship between man and superman? Boy Dave, you sure do stretch my memory but why don’t we look at FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON (Title?) or was it CHARLEY? At the height of his intelligence the hero who had been in love with his teacher treated her as practically a pet. Assuming of course that my memory is still good. Then there is the conflict in SLAN.

Dehede

===================================================

From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 26 of 121 (In response to Ebontress)

Sent: 11 Jul 2000 12:24:43 GMT

Filly, you wrote

….The thing that first came to mind is that it follows a pattern seen in later books, of setting the situation smoothly and then hurrying the end along. ….

It seems to me that the ending comes quickly but had the ending been longer would the story have been improved. How do you feel about the long stretch in the middle that Jane (I believe) called a lull while Joe is being trained. Is that truly a lull where Heinlein stuck in some filler to make the story come up to the required length? Or, was he using that “lull” to advance the story? Dehede

===================================================

From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 27 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 08:50:11 -0400

Dehede011 wrote:

…message by Dehede011

The first few times I read Gulf I was convinced that Heinlein was on the side of homo novis. He lets the hero put forward the same objections that we probably would, allows them to be gently brushed aside or explained and eventually we stand, with Joe, on the side of the angels, looking down on the huddled masses.

Now….I’m not so sure. Certainly Heinlein felt few qualms about writing of elites. He knew that some people are better at some things and trying to impose equality in the name of democracy or fairness is at best a cosmetic cover up. But would he, the man who wrote “This I Believe” really approve of humanity being guided and watched over by a secret organisation? One that intended to withdraw from the human race and become a totally separate race? I don’t think so. Friday simply confirmed this for me but I think the clues are there in Gulf now I look at it in more detail.

Jane

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From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 28 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 09:02:28 -0400

Dehede011 wrote:

….That has always bothered me. Intuitively I feel there is a distinction to be made between the KKK or Nazi attempting to purify their “bloodline” and the Homo Novis which presumably cuts across every ethnic division imangineable. Yet I can not make the distinction other than to say it is intuitive. Can anyone help me here; either to prove that it is, or isn’t, the same? Dehede….

I don’t know a lot about the aims of the KKK but I imagine that they want to preserve the “purity” of their whiteness and that intermarriage with non whites would be abhorrent to them. They combine this with a perception that non whites are not only different but inferior and the combination of the two beliefs add up to something totally repellent to me. They are also prepared to use violence and intimidation to enforce their beliefs.

Compare this to homo novis and I think it is fair to say that they share the first attitude to some degree, have the second to a larger degree but would not endorse the violence; not in this area anyway. Had Joe been married to a “normal” and deeply in love they would simply have not recruited him; killing him would have been pointless, killing his wife, then recruiting him is an option I don’t think they would stoop to.

But it’s a fine line and I think that the mention of the KKK is a clue or a hint that homo novis are on dangerous ground. There are so many other targets Heinlein could have used. Although, back in the late 1940’s were the Klan particularly troublesome?

Looking at it from another perspective, it could be argued that homo novis are only doing what the Howards did but their intentions and ultimate aims are different IMO.

Jane

===================================================

From: Stephanie Vickers

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 29 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: 11 Jul 2000 16:14:10 GMT

Breeding for any one trait, be it skin color, mentality, or supposed pschic trait _can_ be extremist. In “Gulf”, Kettle Belly wants to see this happen, to encourage the growth of the supermen race. Yet, it did not come across as extremist, ala Nazism programs, because of the parental feeling he exudes toward us poor norms. But all, MHO.

Filly http://hometown.aol.com/merfilly8/myhomepage “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

–Mark Twain

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From: Stephanie Vickers

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 30 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 11 Jul 2000 16:19:38 GMT

…A waitress/waiter can make a meal out an enjoyable experience – or can turn it sour through bad service and a nasty attitude. This is power in a way…..though exercising it negatively might earn you the sack. I think it’s unfair to dismiss anyone on the basis of the job they do; few people are paid for doing something not worthwhile ( at the lower end of the pay scale that is…..). Anyone prepared to work gets my respect no matter what they do. Well, there are some exceptions but waitressing isn’t one of them. Jane….

Amen, Jane. Used to manage a small restaraunt where all of us, even my manager, pulled buth waitress and bus duty. I hated that we had a common tip policy, because I could see which of my girls honestly earned the large tip left. And I am a heavy tipper myself, when the meal has been added to by the courteous servers. Of course Ebon says I judge looks too, by my tips, but she’s just teasing…I hope.

Filly http://hometown.aol.com/merfilly8/myhomepage “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

–Mark Twain

===================================================

From: Stephanie Vickers

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 31 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: 11 Jul 2000 16:25:11 GMT

….It seems to me that the ending comes quickly but had the ending been longer would the story have been improved. How do you feel about the long stretch in the middle that Jane (I believe) called a lull while Joe is being trained. Is that truly a lull where Heinlein stuck in some filler to make the story come up to the required length? Or, was he using that “lull” to advance the story? Dehede….

Had the ending been longer….no, not necessarily improved. But it could have turned into a very interesting novel (as it was an interesting story). And I did not see Joe’s training as a ‘lull’ (Sorry to disagree with my betters ;->) If the interaction between Gail and Joe as student and teacher (a forbidden relationship/taboo, I might point out) had not existed, the end would not have been so meaningful. Not to mention it showed us exactly what it was supposedly setting these ‘supermen’ apart.

On a sidenote, I got the impression there was a known group out there posing as supermen, hence the ‘shock value’ it should have had on Joe when Kettle Belly uses it. But I sometimes over read small details.

Filly http://hometown.aol.com/merfilly8/myhomepage “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

–Mark Twain

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From: AGplusone

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 32 of 121 (In response to Stephanie Vickers)

Sent: 11 Jul 2000 16:31:41 GMT

Merfilly:

….I hated that we had a common tip policy, because I could see which of my girls honestly earned the large tip left. ….

In California, a common tip policy, referred to as “pooling tips” used to be (and I hope still is) against the law and is against most union contracts because it is one way that a crooked management, maitre d’s, and headwaiters or waitresses “shake down” employees. I’m referring, of course, to “pooling” when head waiters, maitre d’s, etc. share in the pool. There is no law or union prohibition against a waitress’ or waiter’s sharing a portion of tips with the busboy or rarely, busperson, who clears and cleans that waitress’ or waiter’s table so long as it is not a required percentage regardless of the quality of performance.

— David M. Silver

“I expect your names to shine!”

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From: Ebontress

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 33 of 121 (In response to Stephanie Vickers)

Sent: 11 Jul 2000 16:31:50 GMT

Filly wrote:

….Of course Ebon says I judge looks too, by my tips, ….

Don’t make me tell them the story about the long legged, green eyed Amer/Asian woman that works at the Canton Station!

….but she’s just teasing…I hope.

Most of it is teasing! =o)

Ebon

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From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 34 of 121 (In response to Stephanie Vickers)

Sent: 11 Jul 2000 17:32:04 GMT

Filly,

…This is very good but I am wondering. Yet, it did not come across as extremist, ala Nazism programs, because of the parental feeling he exudes toward us poor norms….

Did you happen to notice just where the Homo Novis stacks up on the IQ scale? I think there would be close to three million Homo Novis in the U. S. if all of those qualified by IQ learned to think logically by the standards of GULF. Is that your reading?

Dehede

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From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 35 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 14:25:13 -0400

Dehede011 wrote:

…Did you happen to notice just where the Homo Novis stacks up on the IQ scale? I think there would be close to three million Homo Novis in the U. S. if all of those qualified by IQ learned to think logically by the standards of GULF. Is that your reading? Dehede….

Are we ever actually given an IQ figure? I flicked through and couldn’t spot one, apart from the assumed IQ’s at the end when Joe and Gail are in disguise. An eidetic memory seems a prerequisite plus the ability to divorce physical stimuli from affecting mental activity. I am so not qualified! I get very tetchy when I’m tired or hungry 🙂

Jane

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From: Stephanie Vickers

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 36 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 12 Jul 2000 02:13:50 GMT

Dehede011 wrote:

….Did you happen to notice just where the Homo Novis stacks up on the IQ >scale? I think there would be close to three million Homo Novis in the U. S. if >all of those qualified by IQ learned to think logically by the standards of GULF. >Is that your reading? Dehede….

Then Jane said:

….Are we ever actually given an IQ figure? I flicked through and couldn’t spot one, apart from the assumed IQ’s at the end when Joe and Gail are in disguise. An eidetic memory seems a prerequisite plus the ability to divorce physical stimuli from affecting mental activity. I am so not qualified! I get very tetchy when I’m tired or hungry 🙂 Jane….

I’ll agree with Jane. It takes alot more than the sheer raw number. Otherwise, a good portion of this NG would qualify….and some probably do.

Filly http://hometown.aol.com/merfilly8/myhomepage “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

–Mark Twain

===================================================

From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 37 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 12 Jul 2000 02:41:21 GMT

Jane,

I think it was given as 1/1000. Wasn’t the other stuff was a result of training?

===================================================

From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 38 of 121 (In response to Stephanie Vickers)

Sent: 12 Jul 2000 02:47:38 GMT

Filly,

I had to read very closely several times to seperate intelligence and learning to think logically as well as other training. Where would you put the IQ, in percentages, if you were telling the story.

Dehede

===================================================

From: Libertarian Bill

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 39 of 121 (In response to Stephanie Vickers)

Sent: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 23:05:39 -0500

Stephanie Vickers wrote:

….A waitress/waiter can make a meal out an enjoyable experience – or can turn it sour through bad service and a nasty attitude. This is power in a way…..though exercising it negatively might earn you the sack. I think it’s unfair to dismiss anyone on the basis of the job they do; few people are paid for doing something not worthwhile ( at the lower end of the pay scale that is…..). Anyone prepared to work gets my respect no matter what they do. Well, there are some exceptions but waitressing isn’t one of them. Jane….

My Dad owned a restaurant. My Uncle owned one before he did. I was cleaning tables and washing dishes at age 15 through college. My brother is a much sought after chef in our hometown.

People who don’t leave tips are scum of the Earth, IMHO. The per-hour wage for most wait persons is LESS than minimum wage. Even a mediocre wait person should get something. Women are the WORST when it comes to leaving tips. I have seen women rake a wait person over the coals with this demand and that, then leave nothing for a tip. I have seen women, when their husbands cannot see them, remove money from the table that had been left for the waitress. It is pure jealousy and the sign of a diseased mind.

Bill

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From: Wiz

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 40 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 22:59:21 MDT

RE: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000 BY: (Dehede011)

Boy Dave, you sure do stretch my memory but why don’t we look at FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON (Title?) or was it CHARLEY? At the height of his intelligence the hero who had been in love with his teacher treated her as practically a pet. Assuming of course that my memory is still good.

“Charley” was the movie made from the novel, “Flowers for Algernon.” One of the few instances I can recall where the movie closely approximated the book (and was damn near as good. ) Robertson was quite good, I thought.

—

===================================================

From: Nollaig MacKenzie

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 41 of 121 (In response to Libertarian Bill)

Sent: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 06:09:49 GMT

On 2000.07.12 04:05:39, the estimable

Libertarian Bill wrote:

….Women are the WORST when it comes to leaving tips. I have seen women rake a wait person over the coals with this demand and that, then leave nothing for a tip. I have seen women, when their husbands cannot see them, remove money from the table that had been left for the waitress. It is pure jealousy and the sign of a diseased mind…..

Take heart. I have seen my wife, when someone who has taken us to dinner has tipped inadequately, sneak back and drop a few more bills on the table…..

— Nollaig MacKenzie :: ::

http://www.amhuinnsuidhe.cx/rahfan/

===================================================

From: AGplusone

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 42 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 12 Jul 2000 08:29:37 GMT

Jane asked:

Dehede011 wrote:

….Did you happen to notice just where the Homo Novis stacks up on the IQ >scale? I think there would be close to three million Homo Novis in the U. S. >if all of those qualified by IQ learned to think logically by the standards of GULF. > Is that your reading? Dehede

Nope, no IQ number; and you’re reading too much into what specifically qualified Joe and Gail. Early on, Hartley says “1/10th of 1 percent” qualify, i.e., one in a thousand, without specifying what weight is given to what mental quality: so if the world population is 3 billion (which it isn’t, it’s higher) then 3 x 10^6 is the number that qualify.

—

David M. Silver

“I expect your names to shine!”

===================================================

From: Stephanie Vickers

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 43 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: 12 Jul 2000 17:31:29 GMT

….I had to read very closely several times to seperate intelligence and learning to think logically as well as other training. Where would you put the IQ, in percentages, if you were telling the story. Dehede….

I was going to post my reply based on my own experience with the general populace, an observation, basically on how there might be Homo Novis. But, I’m shy, and I think I’ll just say I am now officially out of my depth.

Filly http://hometown.aol.com/merfilly8/myhomepage “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

–Mark Twain

===================================================

From: Tian Harter

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 44 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: 12 Jul 2000 19:13:47 GMT

AGplusone wrote:

….In California, a common tip policy, referred to as “pooling tips” used to be (and I hope still is) against the law and is against most union contracts because it is one way that a crooked management, maitre d’s, and headwaiters or waitresses “shake down” employees. I’m referring, of course, to “pooling” when head waiters, maitre d’s, etc. share in the pool…..

I can’t comment on the law, but when I was working as a bus boy in Virginia (mumble years ago), I got $2 per hour plus whatever the waitresses gave me in tips at the end of the day. In practice this meant that I had more change and cash than I knew how to spend.

Serving food was a career for the wait staff there. It was enough money to pay the bills, and they all worked from 6AM to 3PM, meaning they had plenty of time for family. They were good people, and the customers were too.

Only the management treated us like low rent commodities, and they usually stayed out of the way. I think the only time I talked to the manager was the day I dropped a bus pan full of dishes, and he yelled at me and then said “usually I deduct the price of such an accident from the bus boys pay and fire him, but you are a good one, so I won’d do either.”

Lately I have been thinking that any form of work that helps your community down the road and doesn’t do any damage is a good thing. Serving food is certainly in that category.

Tian Harter http://members.aol.com/tnharter Everybody needs their own private Idaho.

Nobody needs their own private Vietnam.

My mother has religious objections to eating blue Jell-O.

===================================================

From: Libertarian Bill

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 45 of 121 (In response to Nollaig MacKenzie)

Sent: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 15:36:27 -0500

Nollaig MacKenzie wrote:

….Take heart. I have seen my wife, when someone who has taken us to dinner has tipped inadequately, sneak back and drop a few more bills on the table…..

Good for her Nollaig. Give her a nice big kiss from all us former bus boys.

Bill Dennis

===================================================

From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 46 of 121 (In response to Libertarian Bill)

Sent: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 17:17:32 -0400

It just occurred to me that there is a fatal flaw in homo novis’s plan to;

“skim the cream of the race’s germ plasm and keep it biologically separate until the two races are permanently distinct.”

It may be that the only way it all works is if the yeast of novis enlivens the dough of sapiens; separate them and you no longer have a tasty loaf of bread but an inedible mess. Homo sapiens needs homo novis to furnish the new inventions, the technological and medical breakthroughs, possibly the artistic inspirations ( though it wouldn’t necessarily follow that a genius painter, actor, author automatically qualified for homo novis status would it? Hmm…).

Homo novis OTOH needs homo sapiens to keep things going at a nut and bolts level; to simply be there and stop large parts of the planet returning to wilderness. If homo sapiens has the special genes withdrawn from the gene pool might they not suffer a corresponding decline, in the same way that selective breeding will improve the superman? Homo novis might wake up one day to find that they are surrounded by idiots, no use to anyone.

And serve them right…..

Jane

===================================================

From: Gaeltach

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 47 of 121 (In response to Tian Harter)

Sent: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 07:39:56 +1000

Tian Harter wrote:

….Lately I have been thinking that any form of work that helps your community down the road and doesn’t do any damage is a good thing. Serving food is certainly in that category…..

Yep, it sure is. But I am having trouble thinking of a form of work that does not necessarily help a community. Apart from criminal activities (if you can call that work) what work would *not* fall into the above catagory? Laywers and journalists perhaps?

🙂

Sean

***************

….. and now for something completely different:

Gattaca – a cat tag. ***************

===================================================

From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 48 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: 12 Jul 2000 22:05:47 GMT

AGplusone writes.

….Hartley says “1/10th of 1 percent” qualify, ….

i.e., one in a thousand, without specifying what weight is given to what mental quality:<

I read this morning the present population of the world is just under 6 billion. Or 6 x 10^9 and therefore 6 x 10^6 qualify for Heinlein’s superman group.

We do not know what weight to give to each quality. However would you agree that everything sounds trainable except IQ? If so is it possible to conclude that the IQ required was more common than 1/1000 of the population?

Dehede

===================================================

From: AGplusone

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 49 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: 13 Jul 2000 01:10:30 GMT

Ron Harrison (Dehede) wrote:

….We do not know what weight to give to each quality. However would you agree that everything sounds trainable except IQ? If so is it possible to conclude that the IQ required was more common than 1/1000 of the population?

I think so. I think Hartley’s interviews of Joe, and mention that one of the applicants had a “riding accident,” make that obvious. I.Q. alone never cuts it.

— David M. Silver

“I expect your names to shine!”

===================================================

From: AGplusone

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 50 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: 13 Jul 2000 01:11:37 GMT

….Other than waitresses, and IQs … … there are some more subjects out here:….

This time around, reading _”Gulf”_, 1948, I’m noticing the usual potpourri of Heinlein references and allusions, but I’m paying particular attention to what he writes about one subject: “mind control.”

Heinlein had been onto that subject before, most notably in his first published novel _”If This Goes On …”_. serialized in the magazine _Astounding Science Fiction_, Febr, Mar, 1940; and he would return to the mind control subject again and again, notably in _Stranger in a Strange Land_, 1961, and other later novels. There’s something that changed significantly in his writing on mind control’ in _”If This Goes On …”_ that’s important that I’ll get to briefly in a bit, but I intend to only briefly allude to it here because we’ll be back reading the Future History, of which _”If This Goes On …”_ is part, in a few weeks.

Let’s get back to basics here in “_Gulf_.” Early on in the story, Joe, employed as courier carrying tapes that contain a secret that can destroy humanity, is captured and about to be interrogated to discover where he’s hidden those tapes. His captor, Mrs. Keithley, tells him if he insists she can “go ahead with Mindszenty technique” to strip the secret from his mind, but tries to seduce him with money and power through an offer of partnership, first. After that she gets down to torturing the late-lamented waitress to death in front of Joe.

A sad thing about our culture is the way it treats contemporary history, shuffling facts of some importance to the dust bin as fast as circumstances seem to change. “Mindszenty” isn’t something directly to do with the “mind,” it’s the name of a person. Now go out to www.britannica.com and type that name in the search machine and see what you get. Nothing, so far as Britannica Online is concerned. I’ll supply some information anyway, because it’s important to discuss what was actually then happening to him in 1948 while it was being written in the context of the novella _”Gulf”_.

Jozsef Cardinal Mindszenty, (1892-1975). Hungarian Roman Catholic prelate. World War II ended with Soviet troops occupying Budapest and most of the rest of Hungary. They never left. A communist government was elected. Mindszenty was Archbishop of Budapest and Prelate of Hungary. Pope Pius XII named him Cardinal in 1946. In 1948 before and while _”Gulf”_ was being written, the Communist government arrested and charged him with treason against it. While in prison he was subjected to the “reeducation” and coercive interrogative techniques that were then also being employed in China by Mao to consolidate power and had been employed for like purposes in the Soviet Union by Stalin since he rose following the death of Lenin. The same techniques would be employed against American and other UN troops taken prisoner during the Korean War a few years later, and there too would result in various ‘confessions’ which led to refusals of repatriation after the arministice by those who ‘confessed.’ And later, against American POWs in Vietnam. And later, against the South Vietnamese populace after Saigon fell, and in the “Killing Fields” of Cambodia, etc., etc. As a result, Mindszenty signed a confession that was published by the communists and achieved international attention, not only because it was demonstratively false, the Church claimed, but because *a* *Roman* *Catholic* *Cardinal* *Archbishop* had succumbed to those techiques.

Peeled of his Will like an orange.

In 1949 the Communist government of Hungary convicted and sentenced Cardinal Mindszenty to life imprisonment on the basis of that ‘confession’ of treason. This created a scandal of international dimension, but nothing successful was done to free Mindszenty until 1956, when during the short-lived Hungarian Revolution against the Soviets, he was ‘temporarily’ released from prison, sought and was granted asylum in the American legation at Budapest were he remained as a voluntary prisoner, after the Hungarian Revolution was crushed by tanks, until 1971, when he was allowed to leave Hungary forever for Rome. There, he criticized the Vatican for its policies toward Hungary and was asked by Pope Paul VI to resign his primacy of Hungary. He retired to an exiled Hungarian religious community in Vienna, from which his memoirs were published during the last years of his life in 1974. And today, no mention of him in Britannica. Sic transit gloria.

Mind control by anyone other than yourself has been achieved by a number of techniques, many of which fall under the rubric “propaganda,” which was ironically comes from the Roman Catholic Commission for the Propagation of the Faith, aka and formerly known as The Inquisition. The techniques range from the rack and thumbscrews to advertising. Orwell’s _1984_ was published in 1945, I believe. At times, an appeal coupled with ‘gentle persuansion’ is sufficient.

Consider what Kettle Belly Baldwin is doing with Joe in his interview on the ranch in which he ‘convinces’ Joe to join “the branch of the organization of superman” of which Baldwin says he is Executive Secretary. Joe is habitually analytical. Heinlein wrote him that way on purpose, logical to the extreme, more so I suspect than Chief Engineer Gaines, whose analytical abilities assessing a problem I so much admired in “The Roads Must Roll.” He continually assesses his circumstances in terms of logic, e.g., “least hypothesis,” etc., etc. So Baldwin employs logic to recruit him. Even logic can be employed as a tool of propaganda. I’d like to see someone try to analyse that conversation closely, including the arguments Baldwin purports to rely upon. Cf. _Friday_.

[A by-the-way comment: I happen to agree with Jane that all is not what it seems in that interview and in the one that follows on horseback while Joe is in ‘training.’ Heinlein has a habit, in my view, of employing a very deceptive technique whenever a character in his stories is subjected to an interview. See, e.g., the test of beans in a bottle in _Space Cadet_ designed to weed out the dishonest, the “interview” that Bill Lermer leaves early because the “psychologists” never arrive in _Farmer In The Sky_, and the conversation Johnnie Rico has with the “civilian” doctor who implies that anyone who joins the military is an idiot in _Starship Troopers_. I’ve always thought that ‘civilian doctor’ was an MI intelligence officer in mufti, screening out hyocritical volunteers who agreed enthusiastically with him.]

Now back to _”If This Goes On …” briefly. James Gifford’s recently published _Robert A. Heinlein: A Reader’s Companion_ notes something significant there.

James tells us (See, RAH:ARC, at 100) there were substanial changes and revisions in the 1940 magazine version before Heinlein allowed it to be republished in collection in book form, _Revolt In 2100_ in 1953. One such change here significant is that in the magazine form the “bright young men” propose and the Cabel decides that it is right and proper for them to ‘recondition’ the populace to their idea of democracy, just as the priest class of the Prophet employed ‘certain aspects of psychodynamics and psychometrics, mass psychology and social control’ to bend the populace to their will during the religious dictatorship. When rewritten, Heinlein completely reversed his position to the one we now recognize, adding the scene where the Mark Twain-like figure thunders out his opposition to the practise recommended by the “bright young men” and following his speech drops dead. The Cabal concludes they must not tamper with the minds of free men and women, no matter how much more difficult it makes their task of rebuilding America.

Another work where we could compare with what is going on in _”Gulf”_ is _Sixth Column_, serialized Jan through Mar ’41 in ASF, under the name Anson MacDonald, aka _The Day After Tomorrow_, which did not appear in book form until 1949, only one year after _”Gulf”_. Whitey Ardmore worked where did you say before his reserve commission came? Advertising? Publicity? Let’s look at the conditioning and reconditioning of the populace there, shall we?

Finally there is another major aspect of ‘mind control’ to look into in _”Gulf_”, the ‘conditioning’ of one’s own mind employing techniques advanced and advocated by Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski (and General Semantics), Dr. Samuel Renshaw of Ohio State University (and his “tachistoscope”), two individuals referred to as Ogden and Richards (whoever they were), the difference between Aristolean and Boolean logic, and the entire ESP subject, Rhine cards and all.

But those are subject for an entire series of different posts that I’ll leave to others to shove off on (not that I won’t be happy to tose in my own uneducated guesses and always not-so-humble opinions once they are started).

— David M. Silver

“I expect your names to shine!”

===================================================

From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 51 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 21:39:54 -0400

AGplusone wrote:

….This time around, reading _”Gulf”_, 1948, I’m noticing the usual potpourri of Heinlein references and allusions, but I’m paying particular attention to what he writes about one subject: “mind control.” Heinlein had been onto that subject before,

snip

It may also be worth looking at Double Star and Larry’s comments on lobotomies and brainwashing; “I had once read up on the subject; I hate it so much that it fascinates me. To my mind there is something immoral and degrading in an absolute cosmic sense in tampering with a man’s personality. Murder is a clean crime in comparison, a mere peccadillo.”….

I may be wrong but I always read these as Heinlein’s own words.

Jane

===================================================

From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 52 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 21:51:21 -0400

AGplusone wrote:

….Consider what Kettle Belly Baldwin is doing with Joe in his interview on the ranch in which he ‘convinces’ Joe to join “the branch of the organization of superman” of which Baldwin says he is Executive Secretary. snip [A by-the-way comment: I happen to agree with Jane that all is not what it seems in that interview and in the one that follows on horseback while Joe is in ‘training.’ Heinlein has a habit, in my view, of employing a very deceptive technique whenever a character in his stories is subjected to an interview…..

So do you think that if Joe had enthusiastically agreed with all that Baldwin said without confessing to a preference for the common man, an emotional tie to democracy, then he would have been efficiently disposed of? Could be….

What importance do you attach to the spider incident btw? Joe; the ultimate logic machine, decides to trust Baldwin because he gently lowers a spider to the floor rather than casually flicking it away; this _has_ to be a major clue! The spider must represent homo sapiens and we are given an early hint that Baldwin is a protector, not a predator ( because homo novis is probably the ultimate predator as far as homo sapiens is concerned.)

Now I’ve talked myself into this I can only look back at the way I used to see this story and say “duh!”. Not only would I not have made the grade, they’d probably have quietly bumped me off

Jane

===================================================

From: Jon Patton Ogden II

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 53 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 22:20:29 -0400

On the 12 Jul 2000 22:05:47 GMT, (Dehede011) told us all:

AGplusone writes.

Hartley says “1/10th of 1 percent” qualify,

….i.e., one in a thousand, without specifying what weight is given to what mental quality:< I read this morning the present population of the world is just under 6 billion. Or 6 x 10^9 and therefore 6 x 10^6 qualify for Heinlein’s superman group. We do not know what weight to give to each quality. However would you agree that everything sounds trainable except IQ? If so is it possible to conclude that the IQ required was more common than 1/1000 of the population? Dehede….

Just did some looking up. According to the table at: http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/combnorm.html 1/1000 has an IQ above 149

Should be a fair number of novos in this ng…though I fear I miss by a few points :o(

Jon

===================================================

From: Trefor Thomas

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 54 of 121 (In response to Stephanie Vickers)

Sent: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 22:56:43 -0400

On 12 Jul 2000 17:31:29 GMT, (Stephanie Vickers) wrote:

….I was going to post my reply based on my own experience with the general populace, an observation, basically on how there might be Homo Novis. But, I’m shy, and I think I’ll just say I am now officially out of my depth…..

Oh, have no fear! That’s never stopped anyone here from expressing an opinion before, yours truly included! (well, maybe once?) 🙂 Trefor Thomas

To be civilized is to restrain the ability to commit mayhem. To be incapable of committing mayhem is not the mark of the civilized, merely the domesticated.

===================================================

From: AGplusone

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 55 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 13 Jul 2000 05:02:36 GMT

Jane wrote:

….Realistically Baldwin shouldn’t still be around; there seems to be a large time gap in between the two stories and Joe points out that Baldwin is already older than he appears in Gulf. However it’s clear that at some point the homo novis group were revealed and had to leave Earth; for their own safety as happened for the Howards? Or in a miff because their ideas had been rejected? What changed Baldwin’s mind? Why did the leader of the group desert his followers?….

Maybe the ‘leader’ didn’t desert his ‘followers.’ Baldwin says he’s the Executive Secretary of a “branch” of an organization of supermen, that he envisions that it will take, oh, about 1 million years before the two species diverge. Possibly the ‘supermen’ who left Earth decided they wished to become red monkeys sooner … which gets us to the other major group of topics in _”Gulf”_, the ones that grate most and receive the most criticism by experts who claim Heinlein was advocating the sort of eugenics practiced by folk like Mengele, Eichman, Goebbels, Heydrich, and Alois’ boy, Adolph Hitler, who claimed to be putting into practice the ‘social Darwinism’ theories of Oswald Spengler (1880-1936).

Anyone want to take a shot at starting that ball rolling? We’ve only got seven days before the meeting …

—

David M. Silver

“I expect your names to shine!”

===================================================

From: Libertarian Bill

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 56 of 121 (In response to Gaeltach)

Sent: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 01:10:35 -0500

Gaeltach wrote:

Tian Harter wrote:

….Lately I have been thinking that any form of work that helps your community down the road and doesn’t do any damage is a good thing. Serving food is certainly in that category…..

🙂

Need I remind everyone that shameless greed, profiteering and selfishness itself it good for the community because such motivations are the cause of all wealth and therefore allow altruism to exist. A rising tide raises all boats.

Bill Dennis

===================================================

From: keris

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 57 of 121 (In response to Jon Patton Ogden II)

Sent: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 00:38:26 -0700

Jon Patton Ogden II wrote:

….Just did some looking up. According to the table at: http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/combnorm.html 1/1000 has an IQ above 149 Should be a fair number of novos in this ng…though I fear I miss by a few points :o( ….

My highest was 147, I missed the ‘genius’ level by 3 points. However, “I.Q. is what I.Q. tests measure”. It has no objective meaning, it is subjective and depends on the culture of the tester and tested. That “almost genius” score was from a test which was heavy in areas where I am good – vocabulary, reading, mathematical operations, short-term memory – and had few of the areas where I am weak – visual pattern recognition, long-term memory – as so was biased in favour of people like me.

The origin of I.Q. was the “Intelligence Quotient”, a person’s “intellectual age” divided by their physical age. So if I still have an I.Q. of 147 when I get to 60, will it mean that I’m getting senile? What does a “reading age” of 90 really mean?

The trouble is that there is no objective means of determining ‘intelligence’ separately from culture, upbringing and opportunity. How about that list of things a human should be able to do according to LL? All very well, but a person brought up with no access to computers to program or animals to hunt would fail that test.

This is where ‘superman’ ideas fall down, they are based on a particular culture and circumstances.

(Incidentally, it’s also why I don’t like Mensa…)

Chris C

===================================================

From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 58 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 08:35:52 -0400

AGplusone wrote:

….Possibly the ‘supermen’ who left Earth decided they wished to become red monkeys sooner … which gets us to the other major group of topics in _”Gulf”_, the ones that grate most and receive the most criticism by experts who claim Heinlein was advocating the sort of eugenics practiced by folk like Mengele, Eichman, Goebbels, Heydrich, and Alois’ boy, Adolph Hitler, who claimed to be putting into practice the ‘social Darwinism’ theories of Oswald Spengler (1880-1936). Anyone want to take a shot at starting that ball rolling? We’ve only got seven days before the meeting …

Well we’ve touched on it with the KKK references haven’t we? Or are you missing posts too David? 🙂

Jane

===================================================

From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 59 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 13 Jul 2000 15:11:47 GMT

Jane said,

….”Now I’ve talked myself into this I can only look back at the way I used to see this story and say “duh!”. Not only would I not have made the grade, they’d probably have quietly bumped me off Jane”…

Jane, it is like Zim said, “If we only see one level of what Heinlein is saying then we are missing something.” My question is this: Now that you have been analyzing this story for a while what is your big picture view of GULF?

Dehede

===================================================

From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 60 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 11:36:54 -0400

Dehede011 wrote:

….My question is this: Now that you have been analyzing this story for a while what is your big picture view of GULF? Dehede….

It’s a warning story about letting science get ahead of itself perhaps; the nova bomb ( which Baldwin actively researched and discovered remember!) had no real value to humanity but we wanted it because it was there. Maybe, given the time of writing, this was a warning to the emerging nuclear powers to be careful with their fancy new toy?

It could also be a plea for humanity to try a little harder to take part in the caretaking of the planet instead of apathetically leaving it to the small group who enjoy power ( and are therefore suspect guardians). Heinlein was hammering away at the idea that most of us have untapped potential and are walking around with our eyes shut. He wanted us to grow up and take control of ourselves and use our brains. _Any_ of us can be homo novis with effort; they’re not a different race, they’re just people who are trying that little bit more. Remember Joan’s opinion of the Bierce colony in Lost Legacy?

“I know what it is that is so different about these people,” she announced, – “They are so _alive_.”

Jane

===================================================

From: Major oz

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 61 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: 13 Jul 2000 16:51:34 GMT

….I.Q. alone never cuts it…..

Agreed……but, without it, nothing else matters.

cheers

===================================================

From: Major oz

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 62 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: 13 Jul 2000 17:04:09 GMT

<: He retired to an exiled Hungarian religious community in Vienna, from which his memoirs were published during the last years of his life in 1974. And today, no mention of him in Britannica. Sic transit gloria.>

The RC church hasn’t forgotten. There are numerous Nindszenty High and Grade Schools world wide (one in Koror, Palau), where his story is told and retold.

cheers

===================================================

From: Major oz

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 63 of 121 (In response to Jon Patton Ogden II)

Sent: 13 Jul 2000 17:11:40 GMT

….At first (and second….perhaps third) blush, I think Joe is horribly naive and terminally trusting of Baldwin. Hitler loved dogs, and indulged children. His major goal was to wipe out Stalin. Anyone want to be a Nazi?

cheers

===================================================

From: Major oz

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 64 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 13 Jul 2000 17:24:56 GMT

….It just occurred to me that there is a fatal flaw in homo novis’s plan to; “skim the cream of the race’s germ plasm and keep it biologically separate until the two races are permanently distinct.” It may be that the only way it all works is if the yeast of novis enlivens the dough of sapiens; separate them and you no longer have a tasty loaf of bread but an inedible mess. Homo sapiens needs homo novis to furnish the new inventions, the technological and medical breakthroughs, possibly the artistic inspirations ( though it wouldn’t necessarily follow that a genius painter, actor, author automatically qualified for homo novis status would it? Hmm…). Homo novis OTOH needs homo sapiens to keep things going at a nut and bolts level; to simply be there and stop large parts of the planet returning to wilderness. If homo sapiens has the special genes withdrawn from the gene pool might they not suffer a corresponding decline, in the same way that selective breeding will improve the superman? Homo novis might wake up one day to find that they are surrounded by idiots, no use to anyone. And serve them right…..

Jane…..

1. Doesn’t that assume there is a physical separation (e.g. no social [as opposed to inter-breeding] contact)?

2. I don’t see that the “special genes” are withdrawn from the gene pool — they linger as recessives (virtually) forever.

3. Aren’t some of us assuming that gene assignment must be a zero-sum game?

cheers

===================================================

From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 65 of 121 (In response to Major oz)

Sent: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 14:34:30 -0400

Major oz wrote:

….I said Homo sapiens needs homo novis to furnish the new inventions, the technological and medical breakthroughs, possibly the artistic inspirations ( though it wouldn’t necessarily follow that a genius painter, actor, author automatically qualified for homo novis status would it? Hmm…). Homo novis OTOH needs homo sapiens to keep things going at a nut and bolts level; to simply be there and stop large parts of the planet returning to wilderness. If homo sapiens has the special genes withdrawn from the gene pool might they not suffer a corresponding decline, in the same way that selective breeding will improve the superman? Homo novis might wake up one day to find that they are surrounded by idiots, no use to anyone. And serve them right.

Jane….

1. Doesn’t that assume there is a physical separation (e.g. no social [as opposed to inter-breeding] contact)?

2. I don’t see that the “special genes” are withdrawn from the gene pool — they linger as recessives (virtually) forever.

3. Aren’t some of us assuming that gene assignment must be a zero-sum game? cheers oz….

Well, if homo novis revealed themselves, I can’t see homo sapiens agreeing to work for them in exchange for a few crumbs from the table…could happen but it would seem to preclude friendly relations. The other alternative is that homo sapiens would be terrorised into their necessary labour. Not a cheery prospect. Either way social contact would be minimal but how would this stop the regression anyway?

In some ways, I’m reminded of that bit in Beyond This Horizon when Monroe bravely accepts that he is in love with someone who is, by his standards, totally socially unacceptable. It turns out she isn’t but he was still prepared to set aside a lifetime of conditioning. Would have been interesting to follow their relationship if it hadn’t had such a happy resolution…but I’m side tracking 🙂

My point was that without the input of homo novis genes, homo sapiens would eventually regress into uselessness but this was just a supposition. I cheerfully confess that I don’t know enough about it to comment on 2; except to say that they would probably monitor the population and grab any youngsters who showed signs of brilliance.

Point 3 I don’t understand at all; sorry.

Jane

===================================================

From: Stephanie Vickers

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 66 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: 13 Jul 2000 19:50:10 GMT

….Maybe the ‘leader’ didn’t desert his ‘followers.’ Baldwin says he’s the Executive Secretary of a “branch” of an organization of supermen, that he envisions that it will take, oh, about 1 million years before the two species diverge. Possibly the ‘supermen’ who left Earth decided they wished to become red monkeys sooner … which gets us to the other major group of topics in _”Gulf”_, the ones that grate most and receive the most criticism by experts who claim Heinlein was advocating the sort of eugenics practiced by folk like Mengele, Eichman, Goebbels, Heydrich, and Alois’ boy, Adolph Hitler, who claimed to be putting into practice the ‘social Darwinism’ theories of Oswald Spengler (1880-1936). Anyone want to take a shot at starting that ball rolling? We’ve only got seven days before the meeting …

—

David M. Silver….

Alright David. I’m going to stir the pot here.

What if Heinlein was pointing to the eugenic practices above? On my initial read of “Gulf”, I found myself seeing it as a conversation within one man’s mind, debating the ethics of a situation. Could it have been that RAH was looking at the theory of genetic differention(sp), and seeing the good that ‘could’ come from such things?

Personal note, to try and make my point. I remember studying genetics and evolution closely in school. Wanted to be a geneticist for the longest time, the only science job I ever considered. I thought, and privately wondered, about the harm being done in allowing people with lethal recessive disorders the better medicine to extend life, and at the same time, increase their chance of producing offspring. I was later informed (being a naïve pup) that such thinking was contrary to accepted mores. That did not stop me from thinking about it though, or about how to derive a better human through selective breeding. Am I a monster, merely because my brain travelled tracks covered by some of the ore notorious villains of history?

Sorry so long and meandering, everyone. I don’t speak well.

By the bye….My own theories would likely condemn me from ever having children, as I am high risk for a disease known to be influenced by genetics. And I have a spouse with another illness that it is unknown as to the genetic risk.

Filly http://hometown.aol.com/merfilly8/myhomepage “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

–Mark Twain

===================================================

From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 67 of 121 (In response to keris)

Sent: 13 Jul 2000 19:50:55 GMT

Chris,

I think you will find that many of the other hi IQ societies, unlike Mensa, have a policy of being inclusive not exclusive.

Dehede.

===================================================

From: AGplusone

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 68 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 14 Jul 2000 00:11:56 GMT

….Well we’ve touched on it with the KKK references haven’t we? Or are you missing posts too David? 🙂

Jane…..

There are deeper points to go into it than a mere mention of those silly folk. —

David M. Silver

“I expect your names to shine!”

===================================================

From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 69 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 21:22:46 -0400

AGplusone wrote:

….Well we’ve touched on it with the KKK references haven’t we? Or are you missing posts too David? 🙂

Jane

There are deeper points to go into it than a mere mention of those silly folk…..

Well I think I did more than mention them David; I pointed out the possible significance/irony of them being a chosen target at the time Joe arrives, drew inferences between their attitudes towards marriage with non whites and the planned policy of homo novis to avoid breeding with homo sapiens….. In 1949 I imagine the KKK were still a force to be reckoned with and as such Heinlein may have felt that they were a better target than the Nazi endorsed eugenics as the Nazis had so recently been defeated.

Jane

===================================================

From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 70 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: 14 Jul 2000 02:02:02 GMT

….There are deeper points to go into it than a mere mention of those silly folk.

David M. Silver<…..

Yes, I believe at one point Kettle Belly clearly differentiates exactly what support the non-Homo Novus and what decisions the HN will reserve to itself. Did anyone else catch that? I don’t believe at any point he had any hint of a “final solution” to existance of Homo Sap. If you think of the progress being made in genetics the final fate of Homo Sap. becomes if not obvious at least likely.

Dehede

===================================================

From: Jon Patton Ogden II

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 71 of 121 (In response to Major oz)

Sent: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 22:48:54 -0400

On the 13 Jul 2000 17:04:09 GMT, (Major oz) told us all:

….He retired to an exiled Hungarian religious community in Vienna, from which his memoirs were published during the last years of his life in 1974. And today, no mention of him in Britannica. Sic transit gloria.> The RC church hasn’t forgotten. There are numerous Nindszenty High and Grade Schools world wide (one in Koror, Palau), where his story is told and retold.

1955 Sir Alec Guiness starred in a movie called ‘The Prisoner’ which was a deliberate parallel of the Mindzenty story. Guiness converted to Catholisicm shortly after the movie completed filming.

===================================================

From: Lucylou98

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 72 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: 14 Jul 2000 02:49:19 GMT

Dehede typed,

…. I don’t believe at any point he had any hint of a “final solution” to existance of Homo Sap. If you think of the progress being made in genetics the final fate of Homo Sap. becomes if not obvious at least likely. Dehede….

Wiping out the Homo Sap with Genetic Engineering? Is this the solution that you see as being the obvious one? Perhaps we should be very careful looking to Genetic Engineering as a tool for perfecting or raising the IQ of the race. Mother nature, when fooled with too much, can be a crafty and vengeful wench.

===================================================

From: Prnzofthvs

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 73 of 121 (In response to Libertarian Bill)

Sent: 14 Jul 2000 06:14:55 GMT

Bill wrote:

…. Need I remind everyone that shameless greed, profiteering and selfishness itself it good for the community because such motivations are the cause of all wealth and therefore allow altruism to exist. A rising tide raises all boats.

Bill Dennis….

Except those boats owned by folks who had them holed by the greedy titans of commerce, and didn’t have the funds to patch the leaks…

Steve “On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.” Craig Franck (I love stealing clever sigs)

===================================================

From: keris

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 74 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 02:19:25 -0700

(Dehede011) wrote:

…. Chris, I think you will find that many of the other hi IQ societies, unlike Mensa, have a policy of being inclusive not exclusive…..

The only one I know of in Britain which selects on IQ is Mensa. What other societies do you know of? Not that I’m interested in joining any societies which select by a single characteristic, but it would be good to know about ones which are not Mensa-like.

Chris C

===================================================

From: Tian Harter

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 75 of 121 (In response to Gaeltach)

Sent: 14 Jul 2000 20:47:57 GMT

Sean wrote:

…. I am having trouble thinking of a form of work that does not necessarily help a community. Apart from criminal activities (if you can call that work) what work would *not* fall into the above catagory? Laywers and journalists perhaps? :-)….

My first thought was that anything that generates a seven or eight figure income is suspect.

My second thought was that lobbying politicians to build gated suburbs does not help a community.

My third thought was that selling addictive drugs is a way of “fixing people while they break.”

I could go on, but this line of reasoning leaves a bad taste in my mind…

Tian Harter http://members.aol.com/tnharter Real vegetarians don’t eat Jell-O or jelly beans. I saw my first South Carolina quarter on 7/12/2000.

===================================================

From: Stephanie Vickers

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 76 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 15 Jul 2000 00:24:02 GMT

…. Well I think I did more than mention them David; I pointed out the possible significance/irony of them being a chosen target at the time Joe arrives, drew inferences between their attitudes towards marriage with non whites and the planned policy of homo novis to avoid breeding with homo sapiens….. In 1949 I imagine the KKK were still a force to be reckoned with and as such Heinlein may have felt that they were a better target than the Nazi endorsed eugenics as the Nazis had so recently been defeated. Jane….

Jane…just noted a possible parallel to the deliberate KKK refs in _Friday_. I am rereading, for the first time :), and I noted more clearly the racial problems in her S-group, just before she gets the boot. Is this another tie back to “Gulf” by bringing up the attitude?

Filly http://hometown.aol.com/merfilly8/myhomepage “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

–Mark Twain

===================================================

From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 77 of 121 (In response to Stephanie Vickers)

Sent: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 22:19:08 -0400

Stephanie Vickers wrote:

…. Jane…just noted a possible parallel to the deliberate KKK refs in _Friday_. I am rereading, for the first time :), and I noted more clearly the racial problems in her S-group, just before she gets the boot. Is this another tie back to “Gulf” by bringing up the attitude?….

Could be; Friday uses people’s reactions to AP’s as a sort of touchstone or acid test. The racism of the NZ group was a giveaway that AP’s wouldn’t be treated as human in that family; I think once she grasped why they were so upset over Ellen’s marriage she knew it just wasn’t going to work out.

Though for the Baldwin group to get all righteous about the KKK with their attitude to humans in general still strikes me as being ironic – either that or the attitude was fake. You pays your money and takes your choice; either they’re hypocrites or they’re misleading Joe. Or they honestly believe there’s a difference between the Klan and them, the scariest thought of all.

Jane

===================================================

From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 78 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 15 Jul 2000 04:00:40 GMT

…. Maybe, given the time of writing, this was a warning to the emerging nuclear powers to be careful with their fancy new toy?….

Jane, This comment brings something else to mind. This story was written in 1948. RAH had spent a lot of time attempting to warn about the atom bomb, having marital problems and remarrying, and inaddition his old friend L. Ron Hubbard, I believe, was coming out with Dianetics. In addition the year before he had read and apparently was impressed by the article about Sam Renshaw’s work. How much of this story was influenced by the times?

===================================================

From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 79 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 08:41:12 -0400

Dehede011 wrote:

…. message by Dehede011 ….

Well, obviously the Renshawing in this and COTG showed that he remained Impressed by the memory techniques; I wonder if he ever tried them on himself?

I’m not sure about the personal problems other than to say the story is a little bleak; the ending is romantic and emotionally charged but it can’t be said to be the conventional happy ending for Joe and Gail, no matter how close they were as they died. In this case I can see no _artistic_ necessity for their deaths, as can be argued for, say, Poddy. Letting them live would not, IMO, have weakened the story; what do others think about this?

I don’t know enough about Dianetics to be able to trace any references I’m afraid.

Jane

===================================================

From: Gaeltach

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 80 of 121 (In response to Libertarian Bill)

Sent: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 23:25:27 +1000

Libertarian Bill wrote:

Bill Dennis….

As long as it does raise all boats, fine. I still think we need a coast-guard though, who are thoughtful, caring, and selfless in helping patch up the leaky boats in our communities.

Sean

***************

….. and now for something completely different:

No trace — not one carton. ***************

===================================================

From: Jon Patton Ogden II

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 81 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 09:45:15 -0400

On the 15 Jul 2000 04:00:40 GMT, (Dehede011) told us all:

…. This comment brings something else to mind. This story was written in 1948. RAH had spent a lot of time attempting to warn about the atom bomb, having marital problems and remarrying, and inaddition his old friend L. Ron Hubbard, I believe, was coming out with Dianetics. In addition the year before he had read and apparently was impressed by the article about Sam Renshaw’s work. How much of this story was influenced by the times? ….

‘Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science’ appeared in the May 1950 edition of Astounding Science Fiction. Although its certainly possible that RAH and ERH traveled in the same intellectual circles in ’47-48, it’s my guess that Heinlein would not have known enough about the choices his friend was making to be concerned about him. Nor, in that first blush of what would become Scientology, was there any sign of the troubles to come. Apparently the first response from the S-F community to Dianetics was overwhelmingly positive. Campbell notes that of the first 2000 letters he received in response to the article (an ‘astounding’ number) only 15 of them were negative.

Jon Information wants to be $6.99 @ ounce.

===================================================

From: Stephanie Vickers

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 82 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 15 Jul 2000 15:56:32 GMT

…. Could be; Friday uses people’s reactions to AP’s as a sort of touchstone or acid test. The racism of the NZ group was a giveaway that AP’s wouldn’t be treated as human in that family; I think once she grasped why they were so upset over Ellen’s marriage she knew it just wasn’t going to work out. Though for the Baldwin group to get all righteous about the KKK with their attitude to humans in general still strikes me as being ironic – either that or the attitude was fake. You pays your money and takes your choice; either they’re hypocrites or they’re misleading Joe. Or they honestly believe there’s a difference between the Klan and them, the scariest thought of all. Jane….

All groups tend to think there _is_ a difference between their ideals and practices, no matter how many times history has said otherwise.

Filly http://hometown.aol.com/merfilly8/myhomepage “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

–Mark Twain

===================================================

From: BPRAL22169

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 83 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: 15 Jul 2000 17:25:52 GMT

…. Did the story GULF actually say they were a mutation or simply a group of homo sap that by self-segregation

Biologically, they could become a “race” by reinforcing the characteristic by inbreeding, over only a few hundred years, whether the characteristic is a mutation or simply part of the normal varaibility of the species. And over a long enough time, a race can speciate.

However, I’d like to look at this question from a slightly different angle: It was fashionable at the time to talk in terms of mutations and the next step of human biological evolution, but Heinlein had been concerned with the issue long before it became fashionable in this way — see, e.g., “Lost Legacy.” The observation is that some people are simply “awake” in a way that most people aren’t. The very most awake become founders of religions. (Actually, the VERY most awake disappear from our ken because we don’t have the equipment to “see” where they’re going or gone).

There is a very long tradition of writing about the “superman” of which Also Sprach Zarathustra is only the tip of the iceberg. Heinlein read Nietzsche and incorporated a lot of his ideas in “Gulf” and Stranger — filtered, I think, through Ouspensky on the subject.

Bill

===================================================

From: AGplusone

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 84 of 121 (In response to Stephanie Vickers)

Sent: 15 Jul 2000 20:55:14 GMT

Stephanie (Filly) wrote Jane wrote:

…. Though for the Baldwin group to get all righteous about the KKK with their attitude to humans in general still strikes me as being ironic – either >that or the attitude was fake. You pays your money and takes your choice; either they’re hypocrites or they’re misleading Joe. Or they honestly believe there’s >a difference between the Klan and them, the scariest thought of all. Jane

All groups tend to think there _is_ a difference between their ideals and practices, no matter how many times history has said otherwise. ….

Or Baldwin is misleading Joe for his own purposes (or Heinlein is writing in a very strongly ironic mode: compare these supermen being selected to run the world from the shadows with the “Samuri class” who run the utopic twin earth in H.G.Wells _A Modern Utopia_) … I’d also go back and try to analyze the two Baldwin-Joe interviews.

… there’s something seriously fishy here in _”Gulf”_, I think, and I’m trying to shrink down book review length thoughts about it to usenet newsgroup posting size before responding to Jane’s original inquiry asking, in effect, what else is there?

— br>David M. Silver

“I expect your names to shine!”

===================================================

From: AGplusone

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 85 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: 16 Jul 2000 01:00:20 GMT

….I wrote:

I’d also go back and try to analyze the two Baldwin-Joe interviews. … there’s something seriously fishy here in _”Gulf”_, I think, and I’m trying to shrink down book review length thoughts about it to usenet newsgroup posting size before responding to Jane’s original inquiry asking, in effect, what else is there? ….

Let me try the Baldwin-Joe interviews for an assessment of what I think is rotten in Denmark. First, look at the setting as pertains to plot line and where the first of two interviews is held. Joe is a “007” type on the run from “M” and, while to “007” that may not be a big thing, to me in such a condition it would be enormous to be being stalked by my own agency. We always get our man, you see, and I don’t particularly want to be around when they get me. This conversation I’m about to have with Baldwin is potentially the most important in my life, it will determine whether I have any remaining. So I’m going to look at everything Baldwin says pretty hard before I decide which way to go.

Very early on, something significant happens: Baldwin gets a telephone call and tells me he has to take me “down below,” because of a raid about to be conducted by the FBS on the farm. Dunno about you, cobber, but my level of apprehension just approached mega magnitude. How many bones are buried down here, I’d be wondering?

But Baldwin attempted to assure me: he “proves” to me that he and his group are on my side–the side of the angels–by displaying and then destroying the tapes that contain plans to produce the ‘nova’ effect saying that he, representative of this branch of ‘nova’ men sees no reason to possess said knowledge because a cure for dandruff by beheading seems useless to him. This is a classic appeal to “ethos” one’s own habits or beliefs or that of one’s own group.

It is also Big Lie # 1 out of Baldwin’s big lying mouth. Izzat so? Well, a little further on he admits he’s read the tape. Joe is going to find out during training that these “homo novo” are selected for potential and trained to develop our old friend, if we’ve read “Misfit” or Starman Jones, an eidetic memory. But there’s more if you miss this: a little further on Baldwin explains that the “novo” effect itself was developed on the back side of the Moon by members of the “novo” group. Baldwin doesn’t need the tape in the first place, his men already know what’s on it. If Joe’s been trained or provided with shiedling by the FBS to be immune to the effects of “hypno” surely Baldwin’s men have that as well, and certainly while they were along the road to development they reported their findings to Baldwin’s group.

Baldwin’s appeal to “ethos” is a fascade. Taken “well underground,” metaphorically a reversal of Satan’s taking Christ to the mountain top to tempt him, Joe seems to buy the deception; and Baldwin lets him live. They return to the surface.

But just before doing so, Baldwin begins with his next temptation, flattery, flattery, and yet more appeals to flattery which continue after they return to culminate in a final challenge to Joe that “You show disturbing symptoms of being _homo novis_ in a sloppy, ignorant, untrained fashion.”

Intermixed with all this are the leading question Socratic technique that Baldwin employs to have Joe express the desired conclusion, that Homo Sap needs a keeper, that the Keeper should be this race of Homo Novis of which Baldwin is developing an increase in numbers in a Thousand Year Plan and that Joe should therefore necessarily join this new underground society.

Which gets me into a discussion of whether Heinlein is advocating a “Social Darwinism” which is the major criticism leveled at _”Gulf”_ as well as other RAH works by some ‘critics.’

I suggest, however, that one sentence bears some weight here.

Shortly after they “destroy” the tapes, Baldwin warns Joe “you realize that if you come in with us, are told what is going on, you’ll be killed deader than a duck at the first suspicious move;” and Joe in his mind confirms that he is “beyond the point of no return,” that his moves have been constrained by Baldwin since he first accepted the offer of a message in a double deck of cards.

So then, what, you may ask, is the point of all this? … I’m still working on the theory, but I suggest a close look and comparison of homo novis with someone we’ve mentioned before in our Heinlein chats, the “Samuri class” of H.G. Wells in _A Modern Utopia_, who we have determined resemble closely certain other ‘keepers’ or guardians of mankind, the Patrol described in the juvenile novel _Space Cadet_ and exemplified by John Ezra Dahlquist in “The Long Watch.”

The thing I’m interested in, for the purposes of this post, is whether it seems to make sense to anyone … and if not, why?

— David M. Silver

“I expect your names to shine!”

===================================================

From: Stephanie Vickers

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 86 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: 16 Jul 2000 02:16:14 GMT

…. Snip

a very good post….

The thing I’m interested in, for the purposes of this post, is whether it seems to make sense to anyone … and if not, why?

—

David M. Silver….

It sounds extremely sensible….now I want to see a devil’s advocate response to you. I’m out of my depths but I am following closely.

Filly http://hometown.aol.com/merfilly8/myhomepage “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

–Mark Twain

===================================================

From: BPRAL22169

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 87 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

I always read the “futile purposes” remark as a bit of characterization, placing exactly where Joe Green was in this. He had a definite scale of values in which he was high on the food chain, and he was running into someone who had a completely different scaleof values and Joe Green’s status was become very uncertain until Kettle Belly forced him to determine his own status in the new scheme of things.

Bill

===================================================

From: AGplusone

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 88 of 121 (In response to Jon Patton Ogden II)

Sent: 16 Jul 2000 07:07:37 GMT

Jon writes:

…. ‘Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science’ appeared in the May 1950 edition of Astounding Science Fiction. Although its certainly possible that RAH and ERH traveled in the same intellectual circles in ’47-48, it’s my guess that Heinlein would not have known enough about the choices his friend was making to be concerned about him. ….

That sounds logical, Jon, but one possibility does stand out. Virginia has told me, and possibly others, that throughout Elron’s association with Robert, Elron mailed Robert copies of his writings, apparently for reading, perhaps in hope he’d review, criticize, or edit them as he once did for something Pournelle and Niven wrote. Robert did whatever Robert did with each one of them and kept them all eventually in a large then larger file cabinet which moved wherever the Heinleins went from his marriage to Virginia until his death in 1988. I cannot comment, of course, on whatever foretaste there was in the first blush of what became Scientology as I haven’t the faintest clue or interest in what the original stirrings were. But Robert may have had some inkling of whatever was going on in Hubbard’s mind for the reasons described above. —

David M. Silver

“I expect your names to shine!”

===================================================

From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 89 of 121 (In response to keris)

Sent: 16 Jul 2000 12:08:54 GMT

…. The only one I know of in Britain which selects on IQ is Mensa. What other societies do you know of? Not that I’m interested in joining any societies which select by a single characteristic, but it would be good to know about ones which are not Mensa-like. Chris C….

I think immediately of two. One in England is CHI (Children, Highly Intelligent) and with a stated policy of being inclusive at the boundaries. The other is GT (gifted and talented) GT as far as I know has no stated policy of inclusiveness; they just operate that way. All of these and many more are available by searching on line.

Ron H.

===================================================

From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 90 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: 16 Jul 2000 12:22:03 GMT

…. … there’s something seriously fishy here in _”Gulf”_, I think, and I’m trying to shrink down book review length thoughts about it to usenet newsgroup posting size before responding to Jane’s original inquiry asking, in effect, what else is there?

David M. Silver….

I agree with the spirit of what you are saying. My original question was why did Heinlein pick this story as his favorite? The response to this story by the critics doesn’t seem to indicate it is that good. Also why did he spend so much time in the middle of the story discussing the nature of this organization and its methods of training its members. Contrast that to Friday.

===================================================

From: Stephanie Vickers

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 91 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: 16 Jul 2000 17:03:37 GMT

Was reading a latter chapter in _Friday_. I came across two “Gulf” key words/phrases. One was about supergeniuses not accepting the “monkey customs of their lessers”. The other is Baldwin saying when he was younger he thought he could change the world. I think, had I read “Gulf” first, these two phrases would have clearly marked _Friday_ as a semi-sequal. Other point of note, what caused Baldwin to become dissillusioned with the Homo Novis? Or are those who settled Olympia supermen of a different sort? Did someone in Boss’s organization jump the gun and push a more open doctrine?

Filly http://hometown.aol.com/merfilly8/myhomepage “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

–Mark Twain

===================================================

From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 92 of 121 (In response to Stephanie Vickers)

Sent: Sun, 16 Jul 2000 14:45:07 -0400

Stephanie Vickers wrote:

…. Other point of note, what caused Baldwin to become dissillusioned with the Homo Novis? Or are those who settled Olympia supermen of a different sort? Did someone in Boss’s organization jump the gun and push a more open doctrine?….

AFAIK Filly, we never get told why Baldwin is no longer using speed talk or saving the world from homo sapiens. His organisation in Friday is still very widespread and influential. It is mentioned that he spent some time in prison when Friday was little; that could be connected with the exposure of the group. I think a reasonable explanation could be that, in a similar fashion to the Howard Families, some of the homo novis people decided to drop their form of Masquerade and the ensuing mayhem led them to move off planet. It’s mentioned that no commercial flights go to Olympia I think; could be a permanent exile for them as a punishment for being different.

I assume Baldwin would have had more sense than to think this could work and may have left the group to avoid the potential crusade against homo novis. Just a supposition though.

Jane

===================================================

From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 93 of 121 (In response to Stephanie Vickers)

Sent: 16 Jul 2000 23:44:19 GMT

…. Other point of note, what caused Baldwin to become dissillusioned with the Homo Novis? Or are those who settled Olympia supermen of a different sort? ….

Is it all explainable by assuming that in the intervening years between 1948 and the early 1980s Heinlein became convinced that genetic surgery provided a better way to go?

Ron H.

===================================================

From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 94 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: Sun, 16 Jul 2000 22:01:04 -0400

AGplusone wrote:

….snip

Good analysis of the interviews David…but I’m getting hopelessly muddled now 🙂 If Baldwin was lying, why let Joe live because he believes the lies? Why lie to him at all? Because they’re still not sure of him? Or, just occurred to me; does he want Joe for one mission only; Mrs Keithley and doesn’t expect him to survive it? Although the flaw here is that Gail dies too of course. I wonder if all will become clear after the chats or if this will remain rather confusing.

Jane

===================================================

From: Jamie Hart

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 95 of 121 (In response to AGplusone)

Sent: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 13:55:46 +0100

Topic: The novella “Gulf” — and the several aspects of its implications

…. Please post as many of your thoughts as possible about this defined topic before our meeting as a reply to this post to help the co-host make these meetings enjoyable and enlightening to all. Remember, the more posts, the better our discussions…..

Going from memory as my copy of gulf isn’t available at the moment, didn’t the hero(?) use both professor(?) Giliad and Joseph Green as alias’s?

Put these together and you get (Captian) Joseph Giliad AKA Lazarus Long/WW Smith. This may just be a coincidence, but I’ve long ago decided that nothing RAH wrote was by coincidence.

So, is my memory correct on the names, and if is it possible that Joe Green was an early prototype of LL which was abandoned much as Homo Novus was when RAH’s attitudes changed.

Something to think about.

Cheers

Jamie —————————–

===================================================

From: ddavitt

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 96 of 121 (In response to Jamie Hart)

Sent: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 13:18:50 -0400

Jamie Hart wrote:

…. Going from memory as my copy of gulf isn’t available at the moment, didn’t the hero(?) use both professor(?) Giliad and Joseph Green as alias’s?

Put these together and you get (Captian) Joseph Giliad AKA Lazarus Long/WW Smith. This may just be a coincidence, but I’ve long ago decided that nothing RAH wrote was by coincidence. So, is my memory correct on the names, and if is it possible that Joe Green was an early prototype of LL which was abandoned much as Homo Novus was when RAH’s attitudes changed…..

I certainly agree that Heinlein often put included elements that related to other stories, both by him and other authors. I’m not so sure you’re on the right track here though.

Joe can’t really be a prototype for Lazarus because Heinlein wrote about LL 8 years before he wrote about Joe. I also see them as being very different characters though I think that Lazarus would have been able to qualify as a homo novis. Not so sure how he would fit into an organisation though; he’s a bit of a lone wolf in many ways.

Looking at the names I can’t remember when LL ever used Gilead. Joe’s aliases are; <=”” p=””>

Captain Joseph Gilead

Joe/Joseph Greene

Agent Joseph Briggs

Lazarus’s various names are Woodrow Wilson Smith

Lazarus Long

Captain Aaron Sheffield ( MC and TEFL)

The Senior

“Happy” Daze

Dr Lafayette Hubert M.D

Ernest Gibbons

Theodore Bronson

I may have missed one or two but i really can’t recall him ever using Gilead. Anyone?

Jane

===================================================

From: BPRAL22169

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 97 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 17 Jul 2000 18:34:56 GMT

…. “Samuri class” of H.G. Wells in _A Modern Utopia_, who we have determined resemble closely certain other ‘keepers’ or guardians of mankind, the Patrol described in >the juvenile novel _Space Cadet_….

Wells’ Samurai were not quite “guardians” in the same sense as the Patrol and other organizations — Kettle Belly Baldwin’s and The Old Man — correspond to White Brotherhoods. I think it would be safe to say the ideas are related to white brotherhoods, but Wells seems to have been thinking more along the lines of giving social responsiblity to people who are psychologically adapted for it, and keeping power away from people who cannot use it responsibly. What Heinlein seems to take directly from A MODERN UTOPIA, in my sense of it, anyway, is the objective, professional, slightly ascetic attitude of a social manager. The people who will take the cosmos for humanity, he seems to say, are those who can act disinterestedly along a plotted strategic course, rather than bending everything to self-serving ends. The U.S. doesn’t seem to have gone that way much, does it?

Bill

===================================================

From: Stephanie Vickers

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 98 of 121 (In response to ddavitt)

Sent: 17 Jul 2000 22:59:53 GMT

…. Good analysis of the interviews David…but I’m getting hopelessly muddled now 🙂 If Baldwin was lying, why let Joe live because he believes the lies? Why lie to him at all? Because they’re still not sure of him? Or, just occurred to me; does he want Joe for one mission only; Mrs Keithley and doesn’t expect him to survive it? Although the flaw here is that Gail dies too of course. I wonder if all will become clear after the chats or if this will remain rather confusing.

Jane….

I am led to believe that Baldwin did not expect Joe and Gail to die, though he had to have known it was a strong possibility. I have to point to _Friday_ for the evidence, namely Baldwin’s letter to her after his death.

Might I add this is one death of a major character I do not grieve? More than any, Baldwin deserved his rest.

Filly http://hometown.aol.com/merfilly8/myhomepage “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

–Mark Twain

===================================================

From: Dehede011

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 99 of 121 (In response to Stephanie Vickers)

Sent: 18 Jul 2000 17:04:21 GMT I have another question about this story, GULF In what other stories, if any, did an author lay out a training program for a Homo Novis type segment of humanity or state explicitly what characteristics Homo Novis would possess. A quiz will be held at the chat Thursday night?

===================================================

From: Stephanie Vickers

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 100 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: 18 Jul 2000 18:41:09 GMT

From:

message by Dehede011

…. Anne McCaffrey’s Talent series, both the Pegasus and the Rowan segments. Many times was stated what made a Prime, including the mindset they must take. And the training was shown quite well over the series. ….

Recalling vaguely, a comment or two in the Lens cycle, where the qualities of those who wore the Lens were discussed.

The latter books of Peirs Anthony’s Adept series (As adepts represented a tiny fraction, and would be the equivalent of the Novis) dealt with training up the young Adepts, and what set them apart.

Filly http://hometown.aol.com/merfilly8/myhomepage “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

–Mark Twain

===================================================

From: TAWN3

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 101 of 121 (In response to Dehede011)

Sent: 18 Jul 2000 22:34:02 GMT

…. In what other stories, if any, did an author lay out a training program for a Homo Novis type segment of humanity or state explicitly what characteristics Homo Novis would possess. A quiz will be held at the chat Thursday night? ….

Van Vogt, Null-A. Another book based on Korzybski’s works.

Jeesh, Bester, The Demolished Man, just a bit? Remember how they recruit, scene where the black guy is drawn in.

Van Vogt, Slan, just a tad. Just.

Lucas, Jedi Training.

A great short story/novella I have not been able to find, neither the author nor the title, but remember well and have wanted to reread for years. It fits your question exactly. Exactly. Training program is laid out. I hope this is what you are referring to and will divulge in chat. (Unfortunately I can’t be at the Saturday one or first half of the Thursday one, which bothers me greatly since now we are getting into Korzybski (big interest) and Renshaw (tried to research once with little luck, hopefully others have data). Being a Van Vogt fanatic I almost cried when as I was reading this story I knew I would have to miss most of the chats. ARGHHHHH!!!!!!!

There are other examples too of course. Numerous. Starship Troopers shouldn’t count, they are drawing from the general population, with a lot of prescreening of course.

And of course Van Vogt again in Voyage of the Space Beagle with Nexialism as what Homis Novis should possess, but agin, that’s stretching it. Van Vogt writes about ubermensch so of course his name will keep coming up.

Dune? Fremen (Free Men) and Harkonnen (sp), although Herbert doesn’t go into it much. Not as a laid out training program anyway.

Oh! DUHHHH !!!!! Kipling. Kim. Matchers your criteria exactly. RAH stole some of Kim for the story (excuse me, I meant “borrowed from”).

OK. That’s my answer off the top of my head. Kipling: Kim, Van Vogt: Null-A, Lucas: Jedi selection and training.

There are many others.

Going to be thinking about this all night now, Tawn

===================================================

From: Major oz

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 102 of 121 (In response to TAWN3)

Sent: 19 Jul 2000 00:36:08 GMT

…. In what other stories, if any, did an author lay out a training program for >a Homo Novis type segment of humanity or state explicitly what characteristics Homo Novis would possess…..

Probably the most Heinlein(esque) story not written by Him: _Ballroom of the Skies_ by John D. McDonald (of T McGee fame).

See ya Thursday

cheers

===================================================

From: BPRAL22169

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 103 of 121 (In response to TAWN3)

Sent: 19 Jul 2000 06:38:48 GMT

Re: Training Program for Supermen:

Let me toss in one of my favorites: Children of the Atom by Wilmar Shiras. Bill

===================================================

From: Steve

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 104 of 121 (In response to BPRAL22169)

Sent: 19 Jul 2000 06:42:27 GMT

message by BPRAL22169

Mr Patterson, you anger me; or, that is, I anger me! I just saw this book, in HB, at the used book store today. I didn’t know anything about it, and passed it up. the real bummer is that we went to 4 different stores, and i don’t recall which one had the damn book!

Steve

===================================================

From: BPRAL22169

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 105 of 121 (In response to Steve)

Sent: 19 Jul 2000 14:34:16 GMT

Re: Children of the Atom: If you see a hardback of this book, snap it up. It had only one hardback impression from I believe Shasta, and one paperback edition, both quite rare and valuable. I bought my hardback at a con last year for $75.00 — but I paid the price because I have been trying to get a copy of that book for 25 years. And then ran across a paperback for $4. Life’s like that.

Bill Bill

===================================================

From: Ogden Johnson III

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 106 of 121 (In response to Steve)

Sent: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 15:56:28 GMT

On 19 Jul 2000 06:42:27 GMT, (Steve) wrote:

…. Re: Training Program for Supermen: Let me toss in one of my favorites: Children of the Atom by Wilmar Shiras. Bill

So? You go back to all four. Never a problem for a book person.

OJ III [The problem is always getting *out* of a book store with wallet, credit card, and budget in survivable shape. At least for me.]

===================================================

From: Lucylou98

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 107 of 121 (In response to BPRAL22169)

Sent: 19 Jul 2000 18:49:47 GMT

…. Re: Children of the Atom: If you see a hardback of this book, snap it up. It had only one hardback impression from I believe Shasta, and one paperback edition, both quite rare and valuable.

Bill, ….

Wasn’t it a Gnome press title? I would sure like to have that one.

This reminds me of the novel “Mutant” by Lewis Padgett. Another tale of mutants with telepathic abilities. The “baldies” were forced to conceal their abilities from the “Normals” in order to survive. More up to date titles might include Julian May’s Galactic Milieu Trilogy. These superhuman types were more subdued in my opinion, and didn’t feel they had to “keep baby from playing with matches”. A storyline that included superabilities and the need to hide them has always appealed to me for some reason.

===================================================

From: Jon Patton Ogden II

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 108 of 121 (In response to BPRAL22169)

Sent: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 19:17:40 -0400

On the 19 Jul 2000 06:38:48 GMT, (BPRAL22169) told us all:

…. message by BPRAL22169 ….

Absolutely — and from the same era, although on a different note: “They’d Rather Be Right” by Mark Clifton.

===================================================

From: Jon Patton Ogden II

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 109 of 121 (In response to BPRAL22169)

Sent: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 19:22:39 -0400

On the 19 Jul 2000 14:34:16 GMT, (BPRAL22169) told us all:

…. Re: Children of the Atom: If you see a hardback of this book, snap it up. It had only one hardback impression from I believe Shasta, and one paperback edition, both quite rare and valuable. I bought my hardback at a con last year for $75.00 — but I paid the price because I have been trying to get a copy of that book for 25 years. And then ran across a paperback for $4. Life’s like that…..

Gnome was the hb publisher. Don’t get the book confused with the X-Men series of the same name.

===================================================

From: Libertarian Bill

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 110 of 121 (In response to Jon Patton Ogden II)

Sent: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 19:08:17 -0500

Jon Patton Ogden II wrote:

…. message by Jon Patton Ogden II ….

Speaking of the X-Men … see the movie! Especially if you have ever been a fan of the comics!

Bill Dennis

===================================================

From: Steve

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 111 of 121 (In response to BPRAL22169)

Sent: 20 Jul 2000 01:42:04 GMT

Thanks for the info, Bill; I’m going back to all four of the stores tomorrow. No, I won’t tell you which ones they are, so don’t even ask! :o)

Steve

===================================================

From: Steve

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 112 of 121 (In response to Ogden Johnson III)

Sent: 20 Jul 2000 07:15:56 GMT

…. So? You go back to all four. Never a problem for a book person. OJ III….

Doing just that tomorrow, as a matter of fact. Steve

===================================================

From: Freebootrr

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 113 of 121 (In response to Stephanie Vickers)

Sent: 20 Jul 2000 07:48:25 GMT

Some thoughts on “Gulf,” in which I discover more questions than answers.

“Gulf” is, in most outward respects, thoroughly pulpish. Secret agents with secret hideouts, hairbreadth escapes, cartoon villains. It is redeemed by its quick, surefooted pace and philosophical backdrop, as well as some technical devices that still hold up pretty well.

Technically, the most notable thing in the novella is the opening section. The reader doesn’t know that Joe Green/Gilead is a “superman,” nor does Joe himself. This fact is not made explicit until further into the story — and Joe is skeptical even then. But Heinlein tries to convey Joe’s extraordinary abilities by describing (in third-person) his mental processes.

Cumulatively, as Joe careens along, it is established not only that he is amazingly quick-witted and perceptive (what pulp hero is not?), but that his mental processes are qualitatively different from those of most people.

He is for instance, often seen to be computing and recomputing probabilities in an explicit, methodical, Bayesian fashion, rather than relying on just experience or intuition.

To convincingly convey a “genius” in a narrative is notoriously hard. Think of all the bad movies about Mozart or Beethoven, or whomever, that only succeed in making them seem eccentric. I don’t think Heinlein is completely successful here, but it’s not a total failure either. He tries to do it honestly, from the inside out, Instead of just saying, “here is a genius,” he tries to show instead of tell, through an accumulation of concrete incidents. He tries to do the same thing again in _Friday_, and gets it done a bit more smoothly using first-person narrative.

The trait that marks Joe as particularly unusual, even for a pulp hero, is a degree of emotional self-control that is simply inhuman. Cornered at the New Age Hotel, he concludes that his chances of survival are very slim. But instead of rage, anxiety, fear, the emotions any of us would feel, he reacts very strangely. He enjoys his bath and massage-chair:

“His bath had been wonderful; this chair was superb. Both the recent austerities of Moon Colony and the probability that this would be his last massage added to his pleasure.”

This isn’t the usual bravado or sang-froid of action heroes; it is more like the serene self-possession of someone schooled in a spiritual discipline — a Buddhist adept perhaps, or a Stoic of the late Roman Empire.

The description of Joe’s mental processes is made transparent to the reader by using not just ordinary references to his thoughts, but descriptions couched in neuro-physiological jargon: he is “immune to thalamic disturbance,” etc, thereby making them seem still more alien.

This section climaxes when Joe is compelled to witness the pathetic torture and murder of an innocent young waitress. Having been prepared by previous glimpses of Joe’s emotional control, it’s not completely unexpected, but it still carries some punch sixty years after it was written, even now now that graphic violence is routine in all media. This is a compliment to the precision and economy of Heinlein’s writing. It’s still shocking when we are told that:

“…the problem of the girl, as a problem, did not even arise. It disturbed a deep and very ancient part of his brain, but almost automatically he cut that part off and lived for a time in his forebrain.”

While she is dying Joe is gazing out a window and computing his spatial co-ordinates.

It is this aspect of Joe’s super-ness that seems to me particularly interesting and significant because I think that, as Heinlein develops it, it has moral implications that lead to the central argument of the story’s philosophical passages. Joe and his fellow supermen are defined in large measure by ability to achieve an effective mind-body split: they can relish fleshly pleasures, like Joe’s massage, but can also ignore pain (their own or another’s), and even cheerfully carry on in the face of imminent and unavoidable death as Joe and Gail do in the last scene.

As Dr. Baldwin puts it, the average man:

“If he is hungry, hurt, or personally interested in the answer, he can’t use any sort of logic and will sicard an observed fact as blithely as he will stake his life on a piece of wishful thinking thinking. ”

Whereas the New Man:

“…reason(s) at all times quickly, accurately, inclusively, despite hope or fear or bodily distress, without egocentric bias…”

Heinlein has, I think, smuggled in a super-attribute that is distinct from just super-high IQ: the superman is capable of an attitude that goes beyond just rational objectivity; it amounts to a sort of egoless-ness. Heinlein seems to imply that this capacity for ignoring merely personal concerns will point the New Men to a sort of global altruism, a willingness to take up the superman’s burden, to spend their lives guarding humanity (both flavors) from self-destruction.

All of the identified supermen embrace this ethic and there are no dissenters in sight. But this doesn’t follow just from their super-ness. Those with all the other super-attributes, but lacking what Baldwin calls “good will and humane intentions” are infallibly detected and murdered.

There seems to be some ambiguity here regarding the moral justification offered by Baldwin for the dictatorship of the supermen. And dictatorship it certainly is, however benevolent. Democracy is expressly rejected and the unter-men apparently are not even going to be informed that their destinies are now going to be directed by Dr. Baldwin & company operating in secrecy.

The long-term goal of the supermen is racial separation. As Joe says:

“The idea is to skim the cream of the race’s germ plasm and keep it biologically separate until the two races are permanently distinct….the new race would necessarily run things.”

Here he is arguing against Baldwin, but Baldwin doesn’t contradict him. Baldwin later says essentially the same thing:

“As for keeping ourselves separate, we are about like the U-235 in U-238, not effective unless separated out.”

This is notable because, in every other case I can think of, when Heinlein uses the word “race,” it is clear that he he means the human race — humanity. (To underline that the supermen aren’t racialists in theconventional sense, we hear Baldwin planning, and plainly relishing, the mass assasinationof the leadership of the Ku Klux Klan.) In this instance he seems to contemplate a plurality of human races, a speciation from within homo sapiens.

Heinlein does try to soften this by having Baldwin say:

“And don’t imply that my heart is not with them. We are not like them, but we are tied to them by the strongest bond of all, for we are all, each and every one, sickening with the same certainly fatal disease — we are alive.”

But, taken literally, this is just inane. By this standard the same “bond” of sympathy would extend to dogs and molluscs — all of their days are numbered too. But we eat the latter and sometimes the former. Elsewhere Baldwin says that New Man will be to the rest of us what men are to monkeys.

The obvious question then is: when separation has been achieved, what obligation will New Men have to the remnant? What moral constraints will they acknowledge for themselves?

Baldwin says:

“Geniuses…are emotionally indifferent to accepted codes of morals — they make their own rules.”

And, later:

“Each shape of society develops its own ethic. We are shaping this the way we are inexorably forced to, by the logic of events. We *think* we are shaping it toward survival.”

These two statements don’t easily comport with each other. On the one hand geniuses are free of herd-thinking and make their own rules. On the other hand they are compelled by events to adopt certain values willy-nilly, and the ultimate criterion, in any case, must be survival. But survival for whom? For the separate and distinct race of supermen, or for the left-behind unter-men who are a threat to their existence?

I will say at this point that the whole superman-theme, although it is interesting in itself, seems to be a bit of a red-herring. The real problem set up by “Gulf,” I think, is political-philosophical: it is really the ancient argument about aristocracy vs democracy.

Dr. Baldwin’s position is essentially the same as Plato’s in The Republic: rule by the wisest and best is just and morally defensible, and “the best” are morally obligated to take power into their own hands for the survival of the community as a whole. It is, to say the least, no longer thought to be a respectable position, but it has been around for a long time and, in the hands of a someone like Plato it can be made to seem very plausible.

The most charitable way to account for these contradictions and ambiguities is to assume that Heinlein was well aware of them, and that he was just posing a philosophical problem without any real resolution (the world gets saved several times in the course of the plot, but this has nothing to do with the real problem).

The closest Heinlein comes to saying that the problem really is a problem is when Joe is:

“…confronted with the sharpest of all tragedy [sic]; two equally noble and valid rights, utterly opposed.”

The opposed rights, presumably, are the right of ordinary men to run their own affairs versus the right of the supermen to secure their own survival (and all of humanity’s), by over-ruling the rights of the ordinary men.

Heinlein cheats a bit, however, by preceding that last quote with:

“…his [Joe’s] brain followed Baldwin’s argument and assured him that it was true; his inclinations fought it.”

So the conflict really amounts to reason versus mere sentiment, and in this context that is hardly a real conflict at all. This cancels the following line about two “equally noble and valid rights;” in reason they are not equally valid. And head vs heart doesn’t amount to tragedy by anyone’s definition.

A little later in the same story, in Heinlein’s gloss of Korzybski, he points out that reality doesn’t contain paradoxes. Such things are merely verbal, artefacts of primitive “natural” languages. Korzybski famously derided Aristotle’s “two-valued” logic (which requires that contradictory statements, although they may both be false, cannot both be true), so his notion of what is contradictory must be un-Aristotelian, a position I don’t pretend to understand. But in any case, talk of rights that are both opposed and also equally valid seems to be tantamount to the kind of merely verbal puzzle that wouldn’t be tolerated by any properly Korzybskian superman.

A question that seems hard to avoid is why Heinlein chose to write on this particular theme, with all this talk about separating out the germ-plasm for a superior branch of the human race, at the time he did. This was 1949, just four years after the collapse of Nazi Germany after so much blood and pain, and just three years after the Nuremburg trials, when references, however veiled, to Nietzschean supermen taking over the world would seem to be unwelcome and in poor taste.

One answer might be as simple as that Heinlein sees no moral equvalence between REAL supermen possessing “good will and humane intentions,” with the purely fictitious Nazi supermen with their manifestly un-good will and inhumane intentions. Supermen (at least metaphorically, if not literally super) we must have, but they must be good, Platonic supermen, not evil Hitlerian ones.

This seems more than a trifle simplistic, especially given that Dr. Baldwin’s outfit seems to spend much of their time murdering undesirables (some super, some not), but it makes a certain amount of sense. Rule by the certifiably superior few — “aristocracy” — is desirable said Aristotle; it is only its degenerate form, rule by the corrupt and selfish few that is to be avoided.

Another, perhaps complementary, justification for going out on the Nietzschean limb pertains to the McGuffin of the story — the nova bomb. In part this is just the traditional melodramatic plot-driver, like the queen’s necklace or the lost will, that keeps everything in motion. But 1949 was the year when the USSR tested its first nuclear bomb (on August 29). This was too late to influence the writing of “Gulf,” but Heinlein was too well-informed to suppose that the U.S. bomb monopoly could be more than temporary (see “The Slopes of Vesuvius,” 1947)

In 1946, when the US presented the so-called Baruch plan (for international control of atomic energy) to the United Nations, it was summarily rejected by the Soviets, who objected to the US insistence on a verification regime (so-called “open skies), and who were, of course, working night and day to build their own nukes. Heinlein had strongly supported (and propagandized for) international control, but says that he gave up “world-saving” in 1946 when it was clear that Russia would not buy in. Still, the spectre of nuclear war colored all his writing in the late forties, and the nova bomb in “Gulf” is still another attempt to deal with the problem of weaponry so lethal that it could potentially destroy the world.

The general argument for the rule of the supermen is the ancient one, but the specific historical triggering event is the birth of super-weapons (and other sorts of technology) that ordinary men just aren’t smart enough to cope with.

Baldwin says:

“…political decisions [now] depend on real knowledge of such things as nuclear physics …they aren’t up to it, Joe…we must take over and make sure that baby never plays with matches.”

From this angle the rule of the supermen need not be taken as a literal proposal, but rather just antother attempt to graple with the insoluble problem of nuclear weapons. In a sense, it parallels the unsatisfactory solution proposed in “Solution Unsatisfactory” (in which an American politician reluctantly sets himself up as a world dictator to control nukes).

— J. C. LeGere

===================================================

From: TAWN3

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 114 of 121 (In response to Lucylou98)

Sent: 20 Jul 2000 09:44:31 GMT

….A storyline that included superabilities and the need to hide them has always appealed to me for some reason. ….

Cause your a blonde? (Seen your website.)

Tawn

===================================================

From: keris

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 115 of 121 (In response to Libertarian Bill)

Sent: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 03:34:34 -0700

Libertarian Bill wrote:

…. Speaking of the X-Men … see the movie! Especially if you have ever been a fan of the comics!….

You reckon? Reports I’ve heard have implied the opposite, but I want to see it anyway, I’m glad you liked it enough to recommend it because I was starting to wonder. Thanks for the recommendation…

Chris C

===================================================

From: Lucylou98

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 116 of 121 (In response to TAWN3)

Sent: 20 Jul 2000 13:22:35 GMT

….Cause your a blonde? (Seen your website.)

Tawn….

Tawn,

Being blonde automatically hides any superabilities, don’t ya know?

===================================================

From: Nollaig MacKenzie

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 117 of 121 (In response to keris)

Sent: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 14:39:58 GMT

On 2000.07.20 10:34:34, the estimable

keris wrote:

…. Libertarian Bill wrote: Speaking of the X-Men … see the movie! Especially if you have ever been a fan of the comics!

Just don’t go to the 5 o’clock show and sit next to a bunch of wit-challenged ten-year-old boys….

Cheers, N.

— Nollaig MacKenzie :: ::

http://www.amhuinnsuidhe.cx/rahfan/

===================================================

From: Libertarian Bill

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 118 of 121 (In response to keris)

Sent: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 12:05:50 -0500

keris wrote:

…. Libertarian Bill wrote:

Speaking of the X-Men … see the movie! Especially if you have ever been a fan of the comics!

You can take those anti-X-Men reviews and jump toss them in the circular file. Those I have read seem to be “Oh, it’s just another comic book movie.” Sloppy thinking on their part. The same sort of rubbish was printed about Star Wars when it FIRST came out. Of course, now that history has rendered the first Star Wars movie one of the greatest films of all time, you don’t hear those reviewers repeating those comments.

X-Men is one of those rare genre movies that puts character development ahead of special effects. Any long-time reader of the comic book would say the same thing about the comics.

===================================================

From: Andrew Foley

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 119 of 121 (In response to BPRAL22169)

Sent: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 21:20:25 +0100

BPRAL22169 wrote in message <>…

My Avon Publications, Inc. paperback of CotA claims on its copyright notice that it was published by arrangement with Gnome Press. Who were, presumably, the hardcover publishers…..

The original story, “In Hiding”, had haunted me for years after I read it in a British sf anthology for children (one of the old Worlds Apart series, edited by the strangely-named Amabel Williams-Ellis and Mably Owen [all spellings correct there]). For many years I was unable to recall the title or author, but the story of the superintelligent boy hiding his abilities had stayed vividly in my mind (as I’m sure it had with many precocious sf readers since its first appearance in Astounding Science Fiction in 1948). It was Clute and Nicholls’ Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, in its entry on “Children in SF”, which restored my memory of author and title, and gave me my first knowledge that the story had been incorporated into Children of the Atom, of which I’d never heard (it’s certainly never been published in Britain).

Within three days of first going online, not much over a year ago, a search found a copy with a seller of “antique” paperbacks in the state of Maine. Cost $3.00. Overseas postage, $3.00. Wow, an extremely rare book, for a total cost of less than £4.00. And it’s all mine….

===================================================

From: Jon Patton Ogden II

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 120 of 121 (In response to Lucylou98)

Sent: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 19:45:35 -0400

On the 20 Jul 2000 13:22:35 GMT, (Lucylou98) told us all:

…. message by Lucylou98 ….

Not if you’re Superman’s cousin

===================================================

From: Jon Patton Ogden II

Topic: Re: RAH-AIM Meeting Notice, 7/20 & 22/2000

Message: 121 of 121 (In response to Nollaig MacKenzie)

Sent: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 19:46:45 -0400

On the Thu, 20 Jul 2000 14:39:58 GMT, (Nollaig MacKenzie) told us all:

…. Just don’t go to the 5 o’clock show and sit next to a bunch of wit-challenged ten-year-old boys….

<=”” a=””>Nollaig, wit-challenged ten-year-old boys is redundant, isn’t it?

End of Pre-discussion Postings

You have just entered room “Heinlein Readers Group chat.”

dwrighsr has entered the room.

NitroPress has entered the room.

PashaMor has entered the room.

dwrighsr: That’s the way it works. Welcome to the HRG

PashaMor: oh my… i made it

dwrighsr: As I said nobody here yet, but should be starting up in 1/2 hour or so. You can stay in or come back later. Doesn’t hurt to leave it open. I’ve been in for a couple of hours

PashaMor: i’ll stay, if u don’t mind me hanging around

dwrighsr: No problem. I’ll be away for a few minutes.

PashaMor: oh, ok

dwrighsr: By the way. If you are on a PC and not a MAC, you can create a shortcut to the room that you can use without having an invitate. Click on File then Create Shortcut and save it

dwrighsr: …invite…

PashaMor: ok. i’ll try

dwrighsr: Then after you have AIM started, simply double click on the shortcut and it should get you into the room.

PashaMor: ok, got it

PashaMor: i’ll brb

PashaMor has left the room.

PashaMor has entered the room.

geeairmoe2 has entered the room.

geeairmoe2 has left the room.

PashaMor has entered the room.

NitroPress has entered the room.

PashaMor has left the room.

PashaMor has entered the room.

geeairmoe2 has entered the room.

AGplusone has entered the room.

ddavitt has entered the room.

AGplusone: Hi, everyone … just checking in early?

ddavitt: Beating the rush 🙂

NitroPress: Just can’t wait, y’know.

PashaMor: trying to see how it works

AGplusone: Good … lemme start fishing ’em in … Aviv, introduce yourself while I employ my rod and line on them.

PashaMor: what – now??

NitroPress: Sure.

ddavitt: Why not?

PashaMor: ok, here we go..

SAcademy has entered the room.

PashaMor: first of all, let me say – i am sorry for any mistakes – i am not an english speaker

SAcademy: Good evening, all.

stephenveiss has entered the room.

Major oz has entered the room.

NitroPress: Good evening, SA

ddavitt: Hello SA

Major oz: yo, all…..

ddavitt: And everyone else who just appeared

PashaMor: yeah, good evening everyone

stephenveiss: Hullo – not stopping – havent done my homework (not got the books :() and I’m in the middle of IRC Oper training…

ddavitt: Don’t worry Aviv; when we type fast we all get pretty hard to follow 🙂

NitroPress: Someone opened all the genie bottles at once.

AGplusone: Evening, everyone, Aviv (PashaMor) was introducing himself … first meeting

PashaMor: ok, so i’m a student

Dehede011 has entered the room.

ddavitt: Welcome Aviv; I’m Jane btw

PashaMor: hi, jane

NitroPress: I’m Jim, Aviv… where are you a student?

PashaMor: a local collage

ddavitt: What are you studying?

PashaMor: graphic design

NitroPress: Any particular area?

AGplusone: Tell ’em where, specifically (or what country or hour it is …. <:grin>)

dwrighsr has entered the room.

PashaMor: no, we just study everything… from maks to sketches

dwrighsr: Hi everyone. Got chopped off by t’storms. May have to leave again.

AGplusone: Hi, Dave … Aviv is introducing himself while we get settled in …

ddavitt: Another mew face? MaikoshT?

ddavitt: New face i mean..

Major oz: …cat person…..

Major oz: 🙂

dwrighsr: MaikoshT is an alternate ego of mine from my office. I’ve had it running to keep full log.

ddavitt: We have rain here; but not as hot as you have it down in the US by all accounts

ddavitt: Ah! Thanks David; good idea.

ddavitt: Funny Oz 🙂

geeairmoe2: Send some of that rain down to Texas, Dave. We hit 104 today.

Dehede011: It is only in the low eighties I would think; in Chicago

PashaMor: and i just thought he did’nt like to talk

NitroPress: The strong, silent, shorthand-taking type.

dwrighsr has left the room.

ddavitt: Wow! Never been anywhere that hot…pretty deadly too

PashaMor: lol

dwrighsr has entered the room.

NitroPress: It’s routinely 100+ here in the central California valley. Can hit 110-ish for a couple of days at a time.

Dehede011: Gee, what was the highest you have experienced?

Major oz: I recall once sitting on a lifeguard stand in 114 degrees

Dehede011: 114 is my personal high.

geeairmoe2: Hit 107 the other day.

ddavitt: My British constitution couldn’t cope with that 🙂

Dehede011: I was chopping cotton

NitroPress: 114 for me, too. But it’s a dry heat.

geeairmoe2: Not counting ‘heat index’. What sadist thought up telling us how hot it feels?

Merfilly8 has entered the room.

Major oz: For those breathlessly following the growth of my lake: found crawdads in it yesterday.

ddavitt: Humixex adds on a lot to the thermometer temp

NitroPress: I didn’t know the British had a constitution.

Merfilly8: evening all

ddavitt: 🙂

stephenveiss: OK, from now on I’m not here – IRC Oper lessons – cya 🙂

ddavitt: Hi Filly

Merfilly8: Ebon says hello

Dehede011: Our 114 with the wind chill index was actually only 112.

ddavitt: Bye Stephen

Major oz: yo, filly

stephenveiss: cya 🙂

NitroPress: Hey, it’s five minutes after the hour, and no one’s started the topic. 🙂

stephenveiss: I’ll come back and lurk as and when I can…

Major oz: …a belated yuk, Dehede…..

ddavitt: Is anyone going to answer my Pinero question on afh btw? <:hopeful look>

Major oz: ….what was it?

NitroPress: It’s a fascinating connection, Jane.

ddavitt: ( Before we start the topical stuff)

geeairmoe2: Haven’t been to afh for a while.

ddavitt: I was rather struck by it I must say

NitroPress: Date is about right.

dwrighsr: I have a question to pose about Gulf vs an earlier story.

ddavitt: Yes…and the name

NitroPress: (Of Pinero’s death, that is.)

Major oz: ga

NitroPress: goo?

NitroPress: G’head, David.

AGplusone: Welcome, everyone to the Robert A. Heinlein Reading Group. Tonight’s meeting is a discussion of “Gulf.” I’m going to have to leave for a few minutes shortly, but we’ve got a cohost tonight, Dehede who is ready to go …. any questions anyone before we begin.

ddavitt: Lost Legacy maybe David?

ddavitt: Ohter David that is

AGplusone: GA, Dave …

dwrighsr: In Gulf. Baldwin was talking about separating out homo novis from the rest of humanity. Yet in Beyond This Horizon he [Claude Mordan] talked just the opposite. He spoke of spreading and conserving favorable mutations so that everyone would eventually have them.

NitroPress: Okay…

Major oz: …..and the question is……..?

dwrighsr: What do you think would be the main cause of such a difference between the two?

NitroPress: I’m not sure there’s that much difference.

Dehede011: That fits with what is going on in Friday.

ddavitt: That seems reasonable; but Baldwin talked as if that would dilute the good stuff rather than increase it.

Major oz: Degree of mutation

ddavitt: I don’t know enough genetics…

AGplusone: Sounds like a great place to start, Ron (Dehede) … and it’s all yours until I return … Have fun … Oz, you’ve got the conn ….

Dehede011: But the diff. is that in Gulf we didn’t have genetic engineering

ddavitt: See you later AG

NitroPress: The favorable qualities in BTH could only be passed to descendants. Ditto for homo novis. Difference is only that Baldwin recognized that the traits couldn’t be magically given to the existing population.

Major oz: In Gulf, the HN is so greatly superior, but in BTH, they are just a “little’ better

ddavitt: Good teeth, eyesight…more physical than mental maybe?

dwrighsr: My own take on it was due to the time element.

NitroPress: How’s that?

ddavitt: CAN brains be passed down? Is that genetic?

NitroPress: Yes.

Major oz: of course

Merfilly8: I’ve a question.

ddavitt: But not infallible…what would a homo novis parent do with a stupid child? <:shiver>

Dehede011: In gulf there was no knowledge of genetic engineering

dwrighsr: Baldwin saw that something had to be done immediately. Whereas in BTH, they had already passed through the ‘genetic wars’ and had all the time in the world to put such a program through or at least, so they thought

ddavitt: But there was by friday…

Major oz: but similar to physical characteristics — Kareem’s son has the basics that he must develop to be a basketball player….Danny Di

Major oz: Vito’s kid doesn’t

Major oz: similarly for “intelligence”

ddavitt: But can the ability to learn speedtalk be passed on?

Dehede011: BRB

Dehede011: Yes, if you can pass on intelligence.

ddavitt: What about throwbacks? De Vito may have had a tall ancestor?

NitroPress: Anyone mind if I interject a side discussion about a Space Cadet topic a little later?

Major oz: That is a “good” — but Kareem would kull a little offspring (speaking non-emotionally, here)

ddavitt: I don’t mind Jim….

Merfilly8: How did Homo Novis come to think the way he did? Joe, for instance, and his ability to surpress ‘instictual’ behavior in favor of well thought out behavior? To me, that does not speak of genetics at all, but some form of training.

dwrighsr: We are still getting storms, so I may get chopped at any moment. Hopefully, my alter ego will continue to function and record. If not, I’ll have to rely on David or someone to keep a record of the log.

ddavitt: Spy training maybe?

Major oz: Virtually all our abilities arise from predispositions

Dehede011: Yes, Merfilly wasn’t he taking off from Korzybski?

ddavitt: It helped to heep Joe alive so it was a survival characteristic

Major oz: It is whether we develop them that counts.

Dehede011: Did you notice the phrase “Thalamic Pause?”

ddavitt: We all probably have a lot of latent abilities that we don’t use to the max; or even know we have until circumstances push them to the surface

Merfilly8: His way of thought was so alien…hard to imagine being born by and raised by one culture and developing thought processes so different

Major oz: If I did, I don’t remember — what is it?

Merfilly8: I did

dwrighsr: The description of Homo Novis seemed very similar to Van Vogt’s Null-A people. I assumed that the link was Korzybski.

ddavitt: Glandular something or other?

Dehede011: Yes, D

Merfilly8: Thalamus controls the adrenal actions, yes?

Dehede011: Thalamic pause is a concept from Korzybski.

ddavitt: What does it mean?

Major oz: hokay <:slaps forehead>

Dehede011: No, it comes down to making a habit of stopping for a second and thinking before responding.

Major oz: <:but doesn’t hurt the thalmus>

ddavitt: Being able to control the fear response?

Dehede011: After a while we train ourselves to do that dd

Major oz: ….as every combat GI does

ddavitt: So Joe wouldn’t jump and grab someone the way I do when there’s a loud noise ? 🙂

Major oz: correct

Major oz: but he would still be albe to grab a glass you dropped, before you realized you dropped it.

ddavitt: My husband would like it if I learned that….<:g>

ddavitt: I’m feeling inferior again…

Merfilly8: I always feel inferior

Major oz: His thought process (and evaluations) happen in a time contunuum different from ours.

Dehede011: We know that RAH had fantastic reflexes. He was being a little autobiographical.

ddavitt: Really?

ddavitt: That’s interesting….

Dehede011: He was a saber champion

Major oz: I can do the glass trick today at 61 — never figured out why……..

SAcademy: No, it was epee

ddavitt: Yes, I imagine that needs quick reflexes and judgement combined

Dehede011: Okay SA

NitroPress: Did he ever fence sabre?

ddavitt: Which did Oscar do?

SAcademy: A little

Dehede011: I believe he fenced Saber; SAcademy believes Epee.

ddavitt: Joel Rosenberg’s new series has a lot about fencing; he’s a big Heinlein fan of course

dwrighsr: I believe Oscar was saber, but David Lamb was foils

Lucylou98 has entered the room.

Dehede011: hi LL

Major oz: In the Tale of the man to Lazy to fail, he ridiculed the epee, didn’t he?

Lucylou98: Evening everyone

ddavitt: I tried fencing for a while due to GR; but pregnancy halted it and I never started again..

ddavitt: Hi Lucy

Major oz: Bold better, now?

Merfilly8: I would have loved to study fencing

Lucylou98: Hi, ddavitt

Major oz: yo. loose

SAcademy: Thanks

Lucylou98: Hi, oz

Dehede011: I fenced foil. as an ex converted southpaw boxer it was fun.

Major oz: For those of us who are using a reader, bold works MUCH better, folks.

Major oz: I forget sometimes

Merfilly8: So do I

ddavitt: Mine just disappeared for a bit bit it’s back on now

Lucylou98: this is better?

SAcademy: Much better/ Thank you

BPRAL22169 has entered the room.

geeairmoe2: You can also increase your font size.

NitroPress: Not by much, though.

Lucylou98: I don’t see a button for font increase

NitroPress: 12pt Tahoma seems to be the easiest to read. … right-click on the typing window.

Merfilly8: check your view menu for chat preferences, under general

ddavitt: Is this too big?

dwrighsr: If you use ‘Edit Chat Preferences’ you can set your font and appearances permanently, but it sometimes doesn’t take affect right away

Major oz: …..so….where are we ? The last Q seemed to be: why does HN want to break from Homo Sap and BTH spread “it” around?

ddavitt: I went up to 18 but it looks the same to me…

geeairmoe2: Sometimes when I change font I get kicked out of IM.

NitroPress: Well, don’t choose ugly fonts.

Major oz: I saw it as two sides of the same arguement.

Major oz: Two stories for one, as it were

ddavitt: Both are interfering; is this a Good Thing or not?

NitroPress: In BH, it couldn’t be really spread around except by eliminating from the gene pool all non-superiors.

dwrighsr: I’m using 14 point Tahoma bold.

NitroPress: So I see.

ddavitt: Ended up with a two tier system similar to Friday and the AP’s

BPRAL22169: Not so — even a slight differential in breeding accumulates very rapidly in a gene pool.

Merfilly8: If the gene proves Dominant

Major oz: Agree, Jane, but He presents one view as preferred and lets the reader ask: “now wait a minute……..”

ddavitt: But our gene pool is so big….

Merfilly8: still traceable to one woman, or so they claim, Jane

ddavitt: In Gulf I’m still not sure which was preferred…despite all our discussion of it

ddavitt: Hmm…..

ddavitt: Not sure about that Filly

ddavitt: PPOR 🙂

Major oz: Can you imagine the kinds of things He would be wrtiting with the modern DNA knowledge?

Merfilly8: Nor do I, but I’m not a Piled Higher and Deeper in anything

ddavitt: Nope; lowly BA

Merfilly8: more’n me

ddavitt: Misspent youth <:g> ( me that is)

dwrighsr: B’ass A’ckward

Merfilly8: I think the discussion may have muddled some people’s clear views of the subjects

ddavitt: Smile when you say that ! 🙂

Major oz: That is big momma Lucy, yes Filly?

Dehede011: Why was Gulf RAH’s favorite story written by him?

ddavitt: Well have we decided if Baldwin was serious or egging Joe on to reveal undesirable traits?

Major oz: Now that is a real puzzler.

Lucylou98: Say what, Oz?

Merfilly8: From last I read, back to the genotype in the rift valley woman, if that was Lucy

dwrighsr: I’m confused on that’ I thought that RAH’s favorite was ‘The Man..Elephants’ and not ‘Gulf’

Major oz: Filly has it, Loose

Lucylou98: oh Lucy the monkey

ddavitt: Damifino Ron….

SAcademy: It was the best ending he ever wrote.

NitroPress: Merfilly, the “Eve” hypothesis has been disproven– faulty assumptions.

geeairmoe2: The latest mitochondrial DNA studies give us a common female no more than 50,000 years.

Merfilly8: I agree, but still widely accepted when I check into the subject…recent essays even

Major oz: the sacrifice, SA……is that why he saw it as he did?

Dehede011: When Analog published a series of Authors Favorite stories RAH put up Gulf

NitroPress: I believe that’s been disproven, Will.

ddavitt: Best ending? It was very sad and heroic….trying to think of my favourite ending….

Merfilly8: I’ll have to research again 🙂

NitroPress: Perhaps RAH nominated “Gulf” because it was already an Analog story…?

SAcademy: Yes, I think so,. Oz

ddavitt: Requiem maybe…

dwrighsr: ‘Greater love hath no kitten…..’

Merfilly8: Favorite ending….Had TEFL ended with Dora’s Story….

Major oz: And I understand He had similar feelings about The Long Watch, yes?

Dehede011: I think that was one qualification obviously.

Major oz: Duty, Honor, Humanity……

BPRAL22169: I believe the “resolution” in the mitochondrial DNA studies isn’t good enough to give a single person — but it does imply a population bottleneck about 200,000 years ago — a very small gene pool.

BPRAL22169: That “mitochondrial Eve” bit was journalistic poetic license.

Major oz: I have a special fondness for “corney” values like that.

ddavitt: Poor hardworked women, that’s all I can say….

NitroPress: Yes, I swoon every time I hear the term “mitochondiral

NitroPress: “mitochondrial.”

Major oz: ….yeah, what he said…..

ddavitt: First time I heard it was a childrens story bt L’Engle ironmike12345 has entered the room. ironmike12345: yo everyone ironmike12345: sup?

ddavitt: Hi there.

Major oz: Am I alone is tying Gulf and Lost Legacy together?

ddavitt: I see a connection Oz

Major oz: Not in lyrical or prosiac value, but in tone.

dwrighsr: In what way? I’m reading LL now

Dehede011: I don’t see the connection but what is it? 🙂

ddavitt: But they share in LL

Merfilly8: Lost Legacy is not familiar to me for some reason

ddavitt: Both have humans with super powers that are still just part of being human

dwrighsr: A big difference was that ‘everybody’ had the potential, just had to be trained.

PashaMor: not just both

ddavitt: It’s in Assignemnt In Eternity

Major oz: YES !!!!!!!!

Major oz: that is my meaning

Merfilly8: I haven’t read past Gulf yet

ddavitt: Jerry Is a man is great!

NitroPress: When was “Gulf” nominated as the favorite story?

Major oz: …predisposition….

Merfilly8: I read it three times, though

ddavitt: Wonderful heroine

NitroPress: “Jerry” is our own future history, close to happening.

Dehede011: Oh, that must be twenty years ago.

Major oz: there are lots of stories out there based on the “unknown” areas of the brain

ddavitt: Yes….

PashaMor: maybe becouse there r so many of them

Major oz: Most share the “…it must be there for some reason…” attitude

ddavitt: But maybe we can all be homo novis too; i don’t think the LL changeover would have been fast or that everyone could utilise their brain effectively

NitroPress: I don’t believe there are any “unknown” areas of the brain. It was believed so through the 1950’s though.

ddavitt: It was telescoped to fit the story and be more dramatic

Dehede011: Jane, I thought that was the essential difference between Gulf and Friday. We discovered Genetic Engineering

Major oz: I don’t think it is like laying your thumb along your wrist or rolling your tongue — they are abilities that can be taught

ddavitt: Could be.

Dehede011: BRB

ddavitt: I never understood WHY Friday was thought of as not human though

BPRAL22169: They had a different interpretive ideas — they thought the neurons were amorphous rather than in structured patterns, so the laminar layers and multiply repeated maps couldn’t be “seen” by the neuroscientists of the day.

NitroPress: Also the myth that “humans only use 10% of their brains,” which has likewise been debunked.

ddavitt: As i said, that’s not the way that people have reacted to test tube babies.

Merfilly8: Jane, pay attention to the scandals concerning current Gen Engineering?

ddavitt: Dolly the sheep?

PashaMor: you have a lit of faith in the human brain

geeairmoe2: Gulf talks about a scientist proving people are only about one-fifth efficient in seeing, hearing, etc.

Merfilly8: Yep. I’ve actually heard ministers say it was ‘unnatural’ and such things are outside of ‘God’s Way’

Major oz: Similar, I think, Jane, to having the “correct” idea for the “wrong” reasons.

Dehede011: Geeair, was that Sam Renshaw?

dwrighsr: Renshaw. Also talked about in COTG.

geeairmoe2: Yeah, Renshaw.

Major oz: As in believing that law “X” is wrong on its face, whereas the majority says it is wrong because some god says it is.

Dehede011: He is a real person described pretty much dead on.

dwrighsr: The fascinating thing to me is that we still don’t have any idea of how some people, ‘autistic savants’ , for example can do some of the amazing things that they do. Do we?

Major oz: No

Major oz: And that is probably the most fascinating thing in neuroscience, to me.

ddavitt: The flip side was the baby in MC that got left behind; the “improved” human I suppose.

dwrighsr: I think that was one of the major inspirations to ‘Gulf’ by extrapolating such capabilities to ‘all’ people if we can just figure out how.

Major oz: MC?

Dehede011: back

NitroPress: Merf: I think most ministers etc. are unnatural and outside of “god’s way.” 🙂

Major oz: having a age moment

dwrighsr: Methusaleh’s Children ironmike12345: does anyone know anything about hypnotism?

Major oz: donkey shanks

Dehede011: a little ironmike12345: what do u know? ironmike12345: do u know how to?

Merfilly8: According to them, Goad made man, so how can man’s makings be unnatural….but that is not fit for here

Merfilly8: god

Dehede011: It is easy, just get a book and go ahead.

Major oz: Refresh my memory on the baby that got left behind ironmike12345: haha

PashaMor: no, he’s right ironmike12345: know any web sites?

ddavitt: The aliens improved her; hooves for feet, extra fingers..

Major oz: ah, yes…..

ddavitt: Turned out pretty yucky

Major oz: the horror, the horror……

ddavitt: Baby Schmidt I think

Dehede011: sounds right

dwrighsr: Marion Schmidt

Major oz: Improvements are not always cute and cuddly

ddavitt: No…

Merfilly8: Look at the Living Artifacts of Friday….her reaction to Georges’ descrip of a pilot LA

Major oz: …..always thought her mother should have been named Rosemary…….

ddavitt: !:-)

NitroPress: Meal break; have to shove rice cereal and gooey fruit into the twins. Back in a while.

ddavitt: OK Jim

Merfilly8: have fun

Dehede011: See you

Nitro

Major oz: yum, yum

Merfilly8: been there…

ddavitt: Oh yes; blackberry and raspberry fool was quite nice I recall.

Merfilly8: Both girls prefer finger foods, except at breakfast

PashaMor: finger foods?

Major oz: So if I had hoofs and a knee that bent the other way, I could run faster.

Merfilly8: then we do the gooey cereal fruit blobs

ddavitt: Going back to Baldwin and Joe; what did Joe do to pass the test?

Defend the common man?

Merfilly8: I’d say so

ddavitt: Not leap at the chance to become an overlord

Dehede011: Baldwin said Joe had been under observation for some time.

Merfilly8: (Gerber graduates, veggies that are soft, bread, crackers)

Major oz: I’d say he was skeptical

ddavitt: But was that still the end goal? Or was it all a cunning plan?

Major oz: If he was a “true believer” he would have had a riding accident

Dehede011: The ability to think clearly at all times was given as the criteria

BPRAL22169: Maybe it’s not somethign overt — maybe he just exhibited the correct amount of “Semantic pause” and did a lot of realtime processing.

Merfilly8: The whole spider thing in the cell was as much a test for Joe as it was his deciding point to trust Kettle Belly

ddavitt: What would they do with someone nice ( like me!) who just couldn’t master speed talk etc?

BPRAL22169: Rule wisely, Jane.

Major oz: You would never be considered (nor would I)

Merfilly8: You’d be the records clerk from Friday

Dehede011: Don’t go riding Jane

ddavitt: But if they had tried to recruit me and I jsut couldn;t cut it?

Major oz: Joe met the criteria — he had to be tested for temperment

Dehede011: How high was the cutoff mark for HN?

Merfilly8: I echo Ron

BPRAL22169: I gather no extermination was planned — us “ordinaries” would be permitted to live out our “futile purposes.”

Major oz: whatever KB said it was

ddavitt: Would they kill people for being mid way between; homo nearly novis?

Dehede011: 1/1000

BPRAL22169: I think it was if you can master speedtalk, you’re above the limit.

Major oz: I don’t see a continuum

Merfilly8: They earnestly tried to weed them out before reaching the stage of training

Major oz: I see quantafied states

Dehede011: after being tested for temperament

ddavitt: Yes but they would have been in blissful ignorance Bill; were all failed recruits killed, even those who were nice people?

Major oz: no

geeairmoe2: It struck me odd that a story debating the role of “supermen” would be published (1949) so soon after WWII. Pretty brave.

Merfilly8: I’d see places in the organization for those not quite there

Major oz: Staffers

BPRAL22169: That doesn’t mean extermination; just not passing — like in the CAW. You were in the highest circle you could attain to at any given time. Very stnadard organizational concept.

Major oz: etc

Dehede011: But doesn’t speedtalk imply a musical qualification?

ddavitt: How much could observation really tell them? seems a bit dodgy.

Major oz: Remember, he was just a Branch Chief

BPRAL22169: Some things you can tell.

Merfilly8: Music = Math

ddavitt: Musical? Like perfect pitcxh you mean?

Major oz: And I think it was the Operations Branch

Dehede011: To be able to properly hear speedtalk

ddavitt: Do you think there was someone above Baldwin then?

Major oz: there must have been a logistics branch, a supply branch, a planning…….etc

ddavitt: I always assumed he was in charge of it all

Merfilly8: Maybe the one who decided to take Supermen to Olympia

ddavitt: Maybe.

Dehede011: Ys

Dehede011: Yes

Major oz: Like the “gods” in Job

ddavitt: At some point there must have been a revelation and disclosure to the public; wonder how many died? Shades of the Howards again.

Merfilly8: that played on another of my childhood psychoses

ddavitt: What?

Major oz: Jane, do you mean in the past of the story

Major oz: ?

Merfilly8: The levels of Gods in Job

ddavitt: Between Gulf and Friday I mean Oz

Major oz: HN was never revealed anywhere

Merfilly8: Something happened. I did not think in Gulf the States were fractured like in Friday

Major oz: Friday was not a HN

ddavitt: In Friday, there is a reference to the self styled superman who end up on a planet no one visits; exile

BPRAL22169: The US fell apart after the time of “Gulf.”

geeairmoe2: It was the one planet Kettle Belly wouldn’t subsidize Friday’s immigration.

ddavitt: Besides, we don’t get told much of the society in Gulf

Merfilly8: Could be linked to an exposure of HN is what I am implying

Major oz: I don’t see that

ddavitt: Commisars took over and were overthrown 85 years before Gulf started

Merfilly8: That’s my read, based on very scanty phrases

ddavitt: Friday _is _ HN in a way; has Joe and gail as part parents

Merfilly8: and Baldwin

Major oz: Then why the stigma

ddavitt: Yes; he is very old as well; possible lost Howard? maybe longevity goes with HN?

Merfilly8: because she was de-humanized in the creche

ddavitt: Stigma for whom Oz?

Major oz: Friday

geeairmoe2: In Gulf it mentions that geniuses tend to live longer.

dwrighsr: Stigma for all ‘AP’ s

Major oz: If she is just a HN, then why is she ALSO a test-tube AP?

Merfilly8: If she had been raised how Baldwin intended, she would not have been so stigmatized, I think

ddavitt: Because she was created in a lab; my mother was a test tube, my father was a knife or whatever the saying is

Major oz: I see HN’s and AP’s as Distinct

ddavitt: I don’t understand Oz

Merfilly8: because Joe And Gail were incompatible, so they had to scramble the genes with some others to make her

ddavitt: Yes; she had lots of parents; like Minerva in TEFL

Merfilly8: but APs could be made from HN DNA

ddavitt: So she was both HN and AP

Merfilly8: tada!

Major oz: An HN just “is” what she is. An AP is “created” bu diddling the genes in a petri dish.

Dehede011: I didn’t realise Joe and Gail were incompatible.

Merfilly8: :-)~

Major oz: by

ddavitt: Look at how she extrapolates onset of plague; genius

Merfilly8: says so in Baldwin’s letter to Friday

ddavitt: Says they are in Friday in the letter when Baldwin dies

Dehede011: But the end product is totally human in both cases.

ddavitt: Definitely human.

Dehede011: Ah, thanks

Major oz: then she isn’t an AP after all — my point…….

dwrighsr: Certainly ‘human’ , but that doesn’t stop predjudice !!!

AGplusone: Has anyone considered that Friday is probably trained to use ‘speedtalk’ … it’s just not mentioned in Friday the novel?

Merfilly8: That letter convinced me Gulf and Friday were intended to be in the same universe

ddavitt: No, she is ; what do you think AP’s are made of?

Merfilly8: I thought that David

Dehede011: No AP is just a layman’s term

Lucylou98: AP’s are just clones aren’t they?

ddavitt: I think speedtalk just got quietly dropped David; too chancy

Dehede011: Interesting idea, Dave

dwrighsr: Just because she was paranoid didn’t meant that everyone wasn’t out to get her 🙂

AGplusone: “speedtalk” is a misnomer, really it’s “speedier thinking” ….

ddavitt: On rasfw they were talking about it; said what if you have a cold 🙂

Major oz: …snips and snails, and puppy dog’s tails…..

Merfilly8: Because they are not the product of one man, one woman is why I think they were not accepted like Test-Tube babies

Major oz: 🙂

ddavitt: Could lose all the meaning with a blocked up nose…

AGplusone: By an astronomical factor … anyone try working out that math, Gee?

Major oz: We have a crisis of words here. ironmike12345 has left the room.

Major oz: AP’s are created from…….what?

ddavitt: Equivalent to living 1600 years you mean?

Major oz: Normal genes

Major oz: or HN genes

Merfilly8: yes

AGplusone: Quite … subjective time.

Major oz: hokay

ddavitt: Donated sperm and ova; Georges job remember

Major oz: the they aren’t HN’s

ddavitt: He wants Friday to donate eggs

Merfilly8: Georges was created solely for giving us a look at how LA and Ap came to be, I think

Major oz: They are AP’s….derivitaves of a bunch of things

AGplusone: Yes, they aren’t HNs!

ddavitt: Whyever not?

dwrighsr: To be workable, ‘speedtalk’ would still have to have enough redundancy to get around problems of poor hearing, poor articulation and so forth.

BPRAL22169: not ipso facto

ddavitt: ( getting dizzy her as the circles decrease)

AGplusone: Just normal homo sap working at optimum speed ….

Merfilly8: Sit down, Jane….the baby needs you steady 🙂

ddavitt: Not every AP is HN, agreed, but Friday is.

Merfilly8: exactly!

ddavitt: <:deep breaths>

AGplusone: ‘speed talk’ is ‘speed think’

Dehede011: Right

Major oz: SOME of her bits may have been HN, but not all

BPRAL22169: HN is a total package, not a sum of bits.

AGplusone: No, I think no AP is HN … no HN exist, HN is simply a dream.

Merfilly8: If Baldwin had the work done, I’d think a lot more than three bits were HN

Major oz: and, as we don’t know, we CAN be certain she is an AP

TAWN3 has entered the room.

ddavitt: We can’t know that; but I imagine Baldwin would’ve made sure they were; he was in there too remember

geeairmoe2: Welcome, Tawn.

TAWN3: Hello everybody!

Dehede011: Hi Tawn

BPRAL22169: But the thing is, directed evolution — creation of APs is a better solution in KBB’s opinion than the HN breeding program.

ddavitt: He would have had access to all the gene material of the group ( Hi Tawn) if he had Joe and Gail’s

TAWN3: Hope I didn’t miss too much.

Merfilly8: She’s certainly AP…but thinks better than the other two? APs we meet

Lucylou98: Evening Tawn

TAWN3: Hi everybody again.

Fldax has entered the room.

Dehede011: Hi, Fldax

Major oz: Gradations of AP’s……?

ddavitt: Evening!

Fldax: Evening everyone.

SAcademy: Hi, Laurie

Major oz: I’m ever so happy I’m not an Epsilon……..

TAWN3: Hi Laurie

ddavitt: Most AP’s would’ve just been extra strong I suppose

AGplusone: KBB says it would take “One Thousand Years” (shades of the Third Reich) to breed enough and One Million Years before speciation is separated.

ddavitt: Still don’t see why they wouldn’t be cross fertile though…

Major oz: oh, they would

BPRAL22169: Darwinian pre Punctuated Equilibrium

ddavitt: But a million years is a long time

AGplusone: … so, of course, creating genetic APs is better … out of homo sap latent genes

Major oz: not for a species

ddavitt: Baldwin says they wouldn’t

ddavitt: But what does he know? 🙂

Dehede011: Helps speed up the process

AGplusone: No, just improving the breed … for selected traits, as in horses.

BPRAL22169: Speciation can happen in a lot less than 1 ma. Angelfish and Discus diverged about 50,000 years ago.

ddavitt: But could we still breed with a Clan of the Cave Bear human? ( Anyone read that series?)

Major oz: But I agree, Jane — if indeed it would take a million years for species separation, there are a lot of things that can happen in that time: principally among them the non-separation.

Merfilly8: (yes)

AGplusone: (certainly read it) (what makes you so sure they aren’t around still … notice some football players, Jane?)

Major oz: With Ayla…..every chance I got……..

Major oz: 🙂

Dehede011: With our increasingly high tech society couldn’t we see the bottom 5% disappear more quickly

Merfilly8: (still waiting in vain for book 5)

ddavitt: Don’t! practically given up on it; like the next Chttorr one

Lucylou98: G’night, have a good chat.

Lucylou98 has left the room.

Merfilly8: nite

ddavitt: Gerrold has a new hard cover out; I was furious 🙂

Dehede011: nite

ddavitt: Bye!

AGplusone: Five minute break everyone ??? Back at 15 past the hour?

Major oz: Chttorr: Elron revisited

Major oz: hokay

Dehede011: okay

SAcademy: Nite, all

ddavitt: ‘Kay

Major oz: nite SA

ddavitt: Night SA

SAcademy has left the room.

TAWN3: Can someone send me the first part of the log please?

Fldax: Nite SA

AGplusone: Nite SA

TAWN3: Night SA

ddavitt: Why elron/

Major oz: It goes on and on and on and……..with nothing really new happening.

ddavitt: The training bit you mean?

ddavitt: Oh….

ddavitt: I really like them but I hate big gaps in a series.

ddavitt: Don’t know what’s holding up the Ayla story though…

Merfilly8: I just searched…and her old pages no longer respond

BPRAL22169: Messy divorce, I understand — if she published it the ex- gets half.

Major oz: Anyone beside David and I read Ballroom of the Skies by J.D. McDonald?

ddavitt: I hope she hasn’t died…..

Merfilly8: Her son was handling publicity

Merfilly8: she lives

dwrighsr: I read Ballroom many many years ago.

ddavitt: Oh that’s sad Bill…

ddavitt: Not read it

Merfilly8: but the book has been held up by her divorce, more research, etc.

Major oz: I maintain it is the most RAH novel never written by Him.

BPRAL22169: I would like the series better without the sloppy romance aspects.

ddavitt: The sex got incredibly tedious.

Merfilly8: seconded

BPRAL22169: The research is good.

ddavitt: First book was excellent

Merfilly8: second and third have good bits

ddavitt: But I would hate Ayla; too damn good at evertything!

Major oz: The research came from the Time/Life book series — she admitted that publicly

BPRAL22169: Remember when people thought the sex was the ‘good parts’ of a book?

Merfilly8: She’s a McCaffrey heroine! 🙂

BPRAL22169: I know — I’m dating myself.

Major oz: In fact, the carvings and other artifacts were taken from the series.

ddavitt: What hasn’t that girl invented? Needles, horseback riding…

Major oz: I have no quarrel with that

AGplusone: Have all Auel’s novels but haven’t reread them in years.

ddavitt: No, nor me…

AGplusone: Keeping cats as pets!

Merfilly8: I moved on to more recent historical fiction

Dehede011: What series are we discussing.

AGplusone: <:VEG>

ddavitt: But I’d read a new one if it would appear.

Major oz: Earthchildren

ddavitt: Earth’s Children by jean M Auel

Merfilly8: McCollough’s Rome has me hooked

Dehede011: Thank you

ddavitt: ( How do you pronounce that btw/)

ddavitt: Owl?

AGplusone: October Horse should be out soon, Filly.

BPRAL22169: Ah, well.

ddavitt: LOL

Major oz: She has taken Frank Herbert’s place in the Pacific NW

Merfilly8: YES!

BPRAL22169: Did he rent her his house?

Major oz: ……as an object of worship

AGplusone: Ah, well … next hour starts. Start us off on a question, please, Ron?

Merfilly8: <:all ears>

Merfilly8: (actually eye)

Major oz: Like H Ross…….?

Fldax: 🙂

Dehede011: Was the romance between Joe and Gail convincing?

Major oz: no

Merfilly8: Nope

Fldax: Nope

AGplusone: <:I actually like the little bat-eared guy! Oz>

geeairmoe2: nope

Major oz: An artifice to impliment the ending

Dehede011: Then why wasn’t it?

Major oz: Why wasn’t it? Is that the Q?

Merfilly8: Even the ‘wedding’ seems false, like a ploy between them to keep their minds off their impending dooms

AGplusone: They say RAH proposed to Leslyn within 24 hours of meeting him … what’s not realistic about it?

Major oz: It just wasn’t

ddavitt: Because it was too quick? Can’t go from start to finish in a short story/

dwrighsr: Why not?

Dehede011: Or do you mean you just weren’t interested?

ddavitt: Need to see the relationship develop.

Major oz: You needed a COUPLE to die — I thought that was beneath His talents.

Major oz: ….contrived…..

Merfilly8: Gwen and Richard were not convincing either

Merfilly8: equally contrived

ddavitt: It was as if he would’ve fallen for whoever taught him if she were female and pretty

AGplusone: Why? Don’t you believe is “matches made in heaven,” Jane?

Dehede011: Then was their volunteering to die convincing?

ddavitt: I’m in one David !:-)

AGplusone: Or Zeb and Deety?

Merfilly8: I’ll make my own matches and sell them on the corner!

ddavitt: Zeb and Deety; no way!

Major oz: No problem with Z&D

Major oz: Very different perspective

dwrighsr: I guess I’m just old-fashioned. I thought that both J&G and R&G were convincing

ddavitt: Huh? I’ll be careful dancing with you then Oz 🙂

Merfilly8: Zeb and Deety started on contrivance and became real…still not convinced on Gwen/Richard

dwrighsr: De Gustibus Non Disputandum

AGplusone: If they communicated in speed talk, at “1060” isn’t the more than six months they had enough time to develop all the relationship they needed?

ddavitt: I maintain you need to know someone before falling in love; or else what are you basing it on? Appearance/

Major oz: …..time continuum……again……..

Merfilly8: She didn’t even seem to like him, or she him

BPRAL22169: Your computer downloads much faster than speedtalk. How intense are your internet relationships?

Major oz: That is what love at first SIGHT is: appearance

ddavitt: Oh, I’m sure they did have time but we don’t get to see it or know what they are thinking

ddavitt: Well that’s not love IMO

AGplusone: Don’t communicate with OS 8.6 when I download it, just install it.

ddavitt: That’s a crush, infatuation whatever.

Major oz: But “marriage” was different in that setting

BPRAL22169: Care to estimate the baud rate of speedtalk?

Major oz: more the contract thing……..

Dehede011: An arrangement, Jane?

Major oz: easier to get into and out of

Fldax: LOL, Bill

ddavitt: In waht way Ron?

Major oz: LUST

Major oz: 🙂

Dehede011: Just a cold blooded business arrangement?

AGplusone: If one byte is one word, then 1.8 Mb/sec is how many words in six months?

Major oz: ….I barely remember that…….

Dehede011: To achieve an end

Merfilly8: improving HN by breeding together

ddavitt: I’m not knocking lust <:g.> but it isn’y love

TAWN3: Well, consider this. He has never married because he could not find an equal. Likewise, neither has she, and men are in short supply in the world of Homo Novis. So, as soon as she see’s a potential candidate, she lets it be known she is interested in marrying “someone”, since she who hesitates loses. After time goes by, they fall in love. Equals. Was believable to me.

ddavitt: I still think Gulf was either too long or too short

PashaMor: it has nothing to do with words, D

Merfilly8: It felt rushed to me

TAWN3: The dying at the end seemed tedious though. Usually self sacrifice RAH stories are good, in this case I did not like it.

ddavitt: Well, how many HN’s are there tawn?

AGplusone: How many ways do I love you//Let me count the ways//1.8 mb x 60 x 24 x 180 = ?

TAWN3: Of course, if they hadn’t died, people may have written demanding more stories with them.

ddavitt: You’re such a poet david 🙂

Major oz: 1,2,3,……

PashaMor: lol, but ..

ddavitt: I didn’t like them dying; not like Poddy, they didn’t _need_ to die

AGplusone: I think Joe suicided …

Merfilly8: I’ll buy that

Dehede011: If we have close to 8 billion people on earth what is that divided by 1000?

Major oz: …well <:sitting hands crossed, grumping>, I still think it was contrived.

ddavitt: Really? That wouldn’t have been in the Heinlein tradition though would it?

Merfilly8: Joe did not take his Thalamic pause and had to be gallant

ddavitt: Lots of people.

Merfilly8: as futile as the man at the tracks

Major oz: No it wouldn’t …….that’s my point…….he is BETTER than that

TAWN3: Not many HN’s, so, limited pool of mates.

AGplusone: My wife just died … let’s finish the mission! NOW!

ddavitt: But only just his wife….

AGplusone: And he dies for ALL mankind …

ddavitt: Wouldn’t a superman rise above her death?

AGplusone: I think so, Jane.

Fldax: Yes

Merfilly8: then could Joe’s dying for her be seen as the counter to the interview between Baldwin and Joe?

TAWN3: Thalamic pause, did you guys discuss similarities to Van Vogt yet?

ddavitt: In what way Filly?

AGplusone: Joe’s final answer …

ddavitt: Yes Tawn i think we did

AGplusone: his surrebuttal …

Dehede011: VV and RAH were both students of Korzybski.

TAWN3: Damn! Missed it!

ddavitt: Read the log! 🙂

Merfilly8: What Joe did would be considered beneath supermen, but it was very human…illustrative of the ambiguity in the interview, or else I’m cock-eyed and confused

ddavitt: I still don’t think it’s certain he suicided

AGplusone: Anyone read J.C. Legere’s post between last night and today? Agree, Filly, and Freebootrr would agree I think too.

ddavitt: He was trying every wire in the box; it exploded

ddavitt: bad luck…

Major oz has left the room.

Merfilly8: yes, I did

Dehede011: Dave I couldn’t find that post.

ddavitt: I read it; wish it had come earlier to give time to respond to it

ddavitt: before this chat.

AGplusone: No reason why we cannot respond between today and Saturday, is there?

ddavitt: true

AGplusone: A lot in there!

ddavitt: Been quite a bit of posting on this; nice to see.

Merfilly8: Well, friends…I need to go…domestic ease is not easy tonight…hope to see you Saturday!

Merfilly8 has left the room.

ddavitt: I am at a BBQ I’m afraid

AGplusone: See you, and before that I hope Filly on the post.

AGplusone: Ron, did you think the romances was contrived or too short?

AGplusone: And what kind of story in RAH’s list is this one?

ddavitt: Ask ourselves why they had to fall in love? Would it have worked if his mission was a solo one in the context of the story?

ddavitt: Why bring in the love interest at all?

Dehede011 has left the room.

ddavitt: James Bond type thing?

PashaMor: i guess it is a froidian thing

AGplusone: No, it makes the end fit …

ddavitt: In what way Arvi?

ddavitt: Why david? What does it add?

PashaMor: sorry for the miss spelling – dut, thats the main attraction

PashaMor: love and violence

PashaMor: you have to have love

BPRAL22169: Interjection: I just pulled out the 1950 issues of ASF to find out what contemporary fans’ reactions were — everybody rated “Gulf” tops but there was only one bit of substantive comment in 6 months worth of magazines (2 months no lettercol; the comments were still being published in June).

ddavitt: More tragic to die as you discover a soul mate but was that just needless tragedy?

ddavitt: What was it Bill? ( wish i had those old magazines! <:envy>)

AGplusone: Joe was complete … made his sacrifice fit the mission requirements … they really didn’t know how to disarm it and couldn’t wait around for it to reset …

geeairmoe2: He had to fall on the grenade.

ddavitt: A superman couldn’t disarm a homo sap device? Come on!

AGplusone: Too easy to simply gas Joe … a la Dalquist in “Long Watch”

AGplusone: What makes you believe Joe was a ‘superman’?

ddavitt: Bad planning if you ask me.

AGplusone: Baldwin’s say-so … ?

geeairmoe2: “Luck is a bonus that follows careful planning.” — Kettle Belly Baldwin

ddavitt: ooh, tricky david!

BPRAL22169: Nothing too startling, Jane — just a comment that nobody could portray a true HN

AGplusone: Baldwin’s an admitted liar.

ddavitt: Don’t you? Or was he a fall guy?

AGplusone: I considered that …

ddavitt: Maybe this was there way of weeding out Joe?

ddavitt: Their way

AGplusone: Why does KBB really want to recruit Joe?

ddavitt: To get the tapes

AGplusone: He’s got the tapes

ddavitt: Doesn’t want them floating around

ddavitt: To kill Mrs K

geeairmoe2: Because he knows Joe is the type who will fall on the grenade.

ddavitt: Joe is second rate HN; good enough for the mission, saves wasting a real superman

ddavitt: ( I’m so cynical)

AGplusone: He could simply wack Joe if the thought Joe had read and understood them … that’s what I think too Gee and Oz … always useful to have a hero around.

AGplusone: if “he” thought

ddavitt: Joe has seen Mrs K in action; that helps convince him that HN is goos; they hate her

ddavitt: Enemy of my enemy touch

ddavitt: But if he wasn’t a superman…were any of them?

geeairmoe2: The thing about supermen is that define what a superman is, and make sure the definition includes themselves.

AGplusone: All we really know about Joe is he tries hard enough to learn speed talk … i.e., the equivalent of a very hard language …

ddavitt: And can cope with pain, hunger etc

ddavitt: Slightly telepathic

ddavitt: Not someone you want to play cards with…

Dehede011 has entered the room.

ddavitt: He is pretty special, let’s face it

Dehede011: I got booted

AGplusone: He’s also done well with ‘mind control’ training … i.e., thalamic detachment … a good guru!

ddavitt: WB

ddavitt: If he isn’t a superman then I don’t know what is…..

ddavitt: Maybe we’re reading too much into it?

AGplusone: Friday keeps talking about her mind control training btw ….

Dehede011: jane, I was gone for a while. Are you meaning RAH?

ddavitt: With a lot of healthy scorn…

ddavitt: I think we could be over analysing it Ron

Dehede011: Yes, and no.

Fldax: Night everyone. Gotta make it an early one.

Fldax has left the room.

Major oz has entered the room.

ddavitt: Being too suspicious of ulterior motives on Baldwin’s part

Major oz: ……whew….

Major oz: changing propane bottles again….

ddavitt: Night.

AGplusone: I think Heinlein’s what I call ‘irony’ is there ain’t no such think as a homo novis …

Dehede011: I think we are trying to find meaning in Baldwin’s part that probably isn’t there. IMHO

Major oz: hear, hear

dwrighsr: I really hate to say this, but all of the analysis that has been going almost spoiled my enjoyment of re-reading the story. But I got over it 🙂

ddavitt: maybe it’s more straightforward; they are special, they are benign, they do recruit Joe , he dies by accident.

Major oz: Papa said: ” if you want messages, go to Western Union ”

PashaMor: you can say that about aeary work of art that is being studied

PashaMor: every

AGplusone: Why does Baldwin make the comments Filly pointed out … about used to think I could save the world to Friday, etc. ?

ddavitt: Something goes wrong in between the two stories for sure\

Dehede011: That is much later in RAH’s life Dave

ddavitt: Yes; don’t forget the authorial input

Dehede011: Remember in Gulf he had just finished a period of world saving to little avail

AGplusone: Maybe it’s more straightforward, they think they are special, they are deluded, they recruit Joe by making him think he’s special too … he dies trying and succeeding.

dwrighsr: Recall from Grumbles, that RAH had his own try at ‘world saving’, but gave it up

Dehede011: A lot had gone on in RAH’s life just before Gulf

BPRAL22169: The idea that being a superman sometimes isn’t enough is intriguing.

ddavitt: But I still think they told the world in the gap between the stories; do we agree that the Olympia people are the same as Baldwin’s group? Or not?

AGplusone: Remember in Farmer In the Sky, coming up next, he has a character tell the kids that he don’t think the Patrol will succeed in keeping mankind from destroying the Earth … i.e., no Utopia on Earth this timeline, folks.

Major oz: Do we see the Wizard of Oz entering the background thinking?

Dehede011: world saving, divorce and remarriage, becoming a hardback author, seeing L. Ron’s dianetics.

geeairmoe2: Why try to make the world a better place when part of the process of making it better requires the death of good people?

BPRAL22169: too early for Dianetics.

BPRAL22169: 1st essay published may 50

Dehede011: Sorry

BPRAL22169: He sold DM but hadn’t made the film yet.

AGplusone: Baldwin’s group is merely a part of the entire bunch that consider themselves homo novis …

Dehede011: The superman story was dictated by commercial necessity

ddavitt: How do we know that?

Major oz: what?

AGplusone: “that”?

Dehede011: Maybe that didn’t fit comfortably in RAH’s mind

geeairmoe2: A person can call themselves superior; that doesn’t mean the inferior have to accept it.

Dehede011: Jane, from the background given several places

BPRAL22169: Please explain, Ron — we know he toyed with several different ideas to fit that title.

ddavitt: Just because a lot of the population could be HN doesn’t mean they’d been recruited; could still have been quite small

PashaMor: thanks for a great time, but it’s 5:40 a.m here so i’ll be going back to bed now. nighty night , everybody

Major oz: do you mean KBB’s group

BPRAL22169: (Scuba diving in the Gulf of Mexico being one of them)

ddavitt: Goodnight!

Dehede011: I think I read that the superman thing was mentioned in the original letter by the fan to John Campbell

Major oz: nite, come back next time

geeairmoe2: Happy to have you aborad.

AGplusone: No, Baldwin says I’m executive sec of a ‘group’ of homo novis (glad you enjoyed it, Aviv!)

BPRAL22169: no — no info about it at all.

PashaMor: bye!

AGplusone: or branch rather!

PashaMor has left the room.

ddavitt: Still not proven though…

BPRAL22169: So I’m curious what “commercial necessity” you meant.

AGplusone: A ‘branch’ implies stongly there are other branches …

Major oz: I’m confused………..

ddavitt: Yes, i suppose so…

Major oz: what is the Q?

Dehede011: The fan’s letter to John Campbell. And the two deciding to do the special issue

ddavitt: I forget 🙂

Dehede011: The origins of Gulf

AGplusone: Says there was just a ‘title’ … no details … given

Major oz: Too right, Jane — forgetting the Q has never kept me from responding.

ddavitt: Heinlein had to write to the title; what else could he have done I wonder?

Dehede011: There was a fan letter to John Campbell. The November issue was to contain a story by RAH

geeairmoe2: I think Baldwin came to understand the negative psychological affect supermen cause non-supermen. “I’m better, so listen to me, I know best.” That turns off people when God is claimed as the source; people aren’t going to be any more receptive when other men are the source.

Dehede011: I had thought it was decided between he and Campbell that it was to be a superman story

AGplusone: Or rather Anson MacDonald merely with a title “Gulf” no details given as I uderstand.

ddavitt: I’m surprised any HN survived to go to Olympia; again, look at the Howards in MC

BPRAL22169: “For second place I nominate Anson macDonald’s stanza. “Gulf” was not as good as “Beyond This Horizon” but it was darn good, even for R.A. Mac H. I hope thatyou hang on to him now that you’ve got him back again. Let’s get on with the history.”

BPRAL22169: Richard Hoen ASF 11/48, p. 111

AGplusone: Good!

Major oz: Is this a story about “Ubernenchen” and what they think / do, etc; or is it a philosophical point that only superior people can sacrifice themselves for ALL humanity?

ddavitt: “Gulf”….could have meant….what?

geeairmoe2: Since the “logic of superiority” won’t work, force would be the only way for HN to achieve power.

Dehede011: The gap between HN and non-HN

ddavitt: Geographical hazard on the Moon maybe?

BPRAL22169: He started off wanting to do scuba diving and write about an undersea colony — which ARt Clarke later did.

AGplusone: Or is it a story that ironically debunks the notion of ‘supermen’ … there are no supermen, just men who act super.

BPRAL22169: Then he kicked around the story idea that became SIASL.

ddavitt: Tantalising..stories never written

BPRAL22169: Jubal Harshaw was built up from Kettle Belly Baldwin.

ddavitt: Wasn’t that one of the Scout proposed stories? Ocean Rancher?

Dehede011: If it is ironic Dave, Why did he keep going back to that theme?

Major oz: …….preeeeeeeeecisely

Major oz: there are no heros

AGplusone: SiaSL was a satire … the Mowgli stories are all ironic … why not an ironic look at supermen?

ddavitt: Could be…

Major oz: just ordinary people that do extraordinary things

AGplusone: yep

Dehede011: BRB

ddavitt: What about the definition; do we agree with that? Super men think better?

ddavitt: Or is that too simple?

Major oz: But to get them to do those things you must convince them that they are super

ddavitt: Flattery

Major oz: How else do you think they hatch fighter pilots?

BPRAL22169: There was a story in the early 50’s — supermen who have offmigrated come back to find that they are blocked at customs: technological advance has far exceeded their superpowers.

ddavitt: How else do you think we women….no, I’d have to kill you all if I revealed that….

AGplusone: wasn’t better … just subjectively more thoughts in time … a faster processor in a language without ambiguity

ddavitt: That sounds fun Bill

AGplusone: just objectively more thoughts in the same time rather

ddavitt: i think most of us would be rooting for the normal man rather than the superman; at least when they’re en masse

BPRAL22169: You may be on to something there, Dave — In the Renshaw article, I think, there’s the datum that the difference in voicing “b” and “p” is something like 5 microseconds — which we all do every day.

Major oz: Compare the syllables used to express a thought in Olde English with today’s “English”

AGplusone: And we’re back to the long-lived Howards, aren’t we?

Major oz: Not really supertalk

ddavitt: But by TEFL they seem to have slowed down, not speeded up their lives.

AGplusone: Their subjective time surely is close to Laz, isn’t it?

ddavitt: Very leisurely pace to it all

BPRAL22169: Renshaw’s point is that “superpowers” of some sorts are within everybody’s abilities — and in SIASL many of Mike’s Martian “powers” are the demonstrationsof Yoga. Very human. Just takes study.

AGplusone: No, I’m simply equating the Baldwin line to the Howard line … different means, same result.

ddavitt: That is more palatable than a race within

Dehede011: I think that is Csikzsentmihalyi point Bill

TAWN3: Creativity?

Major oz: ?

BPRAL22169: We don’t know the absolute rate of info exchange in TEFL — it could be “slowed down” for our benefit. Tht long after dinner talk may have taken about 1.2 miinutes!

ddavitt: Double ??

AGplusone: speed talk is simply speed think!

ddavitt: They certainly have plenty of time to sit and chat!

ddavitt: We are told they’re all genuis plus whatever that means

Dehede011: That many things are within our abilities but developing all those abilities simultaneously isn’t within our ability

Dehede011: I comes down to an IQ of about 150

Major oz: Postulate twins growing up together. Are there any people on earth that either of them could communicate with as fast as with each other.

Dehede011: It comes

Major oz: …words, gestures, expressions…..etc

Major oz: Closeness speeds up communication

BPRAL22169: That’s the basis of Asimov’s 2nd Foundation talk, too, isn’t it?

AGplusone: I think in Friday he left out the speedtalk because it wasn’t necessary to tell us he was translating …. but they used speed think, Friday did it when she interrelated all the plague signs.

Dehede011: Sure, my ex-wife and I used to baffle people in the same fashion

ddavitt: I have to say goodnight now; enjoyed it! See you all next time.

Dehede011: See you Jane

ddavitt has left the room.

Major oz: Slight differ, David. Speed of data integration is a learned talent.

AGplusone: night

Major oz: I speculate that this group spans the spectrum

BPRAL22169: And it’s draining. I can, with practice, read at about 6000 words per minute, but it’s a major effort. So I don’t.

AGplusone: so is speed think … like learning Morse code at 25 wpm …

AGplusone: which I can do … but as a major effort

geeairmoe2: In Gulf, the mission succeeds, not because Joe has enhanced himself; the mission succeeds because of a willingness to die to save others. It was something he was already capable of doing before his superman training. No matter how fast Joe interpreted data, he would have done the same thing.

Major oz: No….I mean observing data of various kinds and reaching a conclusion.

Major oz: Like the way a good mechanic diagnoses a car problem.

Major oz: Some can see social ills the same way

Major oz: Friday did

AGplusone: Yes, problem solving … (I agree, Gee)

BPRAL22169: It’s interesting how Heinlein takes a human dilemma and often makes it turn on a “mission” In “Misfit,” the story doesn’t end with Libby’s success — it ends with the congratuations that the asteroid is in the correct orbit.

BPRAL22169: Max Jones gets the starship home — but maybe that’s the exception that proves the rule, for tht one ends with resolution of the human dilemma of Max’s permanent status.

AGplusone: And Joe’s quandry ends with ‘successful completion’ of the mission …

BPRAL22169: The operation was a success: the patient died.

Major oz: Corectamundo, Dee……just ordinary doing extraordinary things because they 1) think they can 2) are told they can 3) will do it anyway, regardless or risk.

AGplusone: There’s a part in “Gulf” that talks about Armatoe … genius make their own rules …

NitroPress has left the room.

AGplusone: I think I’ll pass on this suicide mission, Harley, if you don’t mind …

Major oz: yo, Im a planner, not a doer

Dehede011: Actually he had asked for it right from the start

AGplusone: I feel no need to hazard my wonderful self on a mission to save humanity … I’m super!

Major oz: …..and too precious to waste

AGplusone: Send in a clown! Or a Sap

Major oz: I have my genes to share…………NEXT !!!!!!!!!

BPRAL22169: not waste: that’s why humanity breeds the occasional superman.

TAWN3: A Boy and His Dog Bill?

Major oz: Don Johnson’s finest hour

TAWN3: Yes, perhaps.

BPRAL22169: I think the telepathic dog was the superman in that story!

Major oz: SA speculated (or so it seemed) that the reason He liked this story best was its sacrifice.

Dehede011: So we have almost 8 million supermen on earth

TAWN3: Was an interesting movie.

AGplusone: I seriously cannot believe Heinlein would seriously write a superman story talking about a One Thousand Year Plan in 1949 and expect anyone to take it as a serious advocation of developing a race of supermen.

Dehede011: In SF others were doing it

BPRAL22169: Well — the superman story was “in the air” at the time.

Major oz: When was The Long Watch written.

Major oz: ?

AGplusone: Heinlein’s Third Reich was a One Thousand Year Plan to increase the numbers of the Master Race!

TAWN3: Van Vogt was with Null-A. His point of course was a long range plan to train everybody to be superhuman.

BPRAL22169: 1947. You know, we haven’t looked at “Gulf” in light of the Swope Park incident in 1911 or so.

Dehede011: I see it as RAH writing that story on two levels

AGplusone: maybe RAH thought ‘in the air’ was a mistake

dwrighsr: Maybe the contrast in the methods of HN versus Nazis was a point to be considered?

Major oz: HN’s goals were “good”

Major oz: As are all self-designed goals

Dehede011: On one level he was considering the idea of an emerging HN species seriously.

TAWN3: Swope Park, is that the two Jewish guys that wanted to be like Neitzche, in their own warped way?

geeairmoe2: I keep linking the publication date and its closeness to WWII and can’t help thinking it was more an attack on the notion of ‘superman’.

Major oz: Don’t know the incident, but Swope Park is in His back yard.

Dehede011: On another he was introducing expected gee whiz into the story to make it entertaining to his audience

TAWN3: Nazi’s were racial based (actually Nationality), HN was species based. A BIG difference.

BPRAL22169: No — a bum tried to rescue a woman whose heel was caught in a train’s path and was killed. Heinlein says: this is not how a MAN dies; this is how a MAN LIVES.

AGplusone: What are the qualifications, IQ-wise, or mentally, for Wells’ Samuri, Bill?

geeairmoe2: We all would like to believe if everyone agreed with us the world would be a better place. The trick is getting everyone to agree without having to “weed out” those who don’t see it our way.

BPRAL22169: Temperament more than intelligence — you had to fit well into a very ascetic lifestyle.

BPRAL22169: But they were intelligent as well.

Major oz: ?

Major oz: who?

BPRAL22169: You “bought” your bureaucratic/admnistrative power by giving up all luxuries.

AGplusone: He eliminates the 10-15% on the very bottom, only! That means an IQ of 90 would probably make it.

Major oz: The Samuri?

BPRAL22169: H.G. Wells, A Modern Utopia 1905

Major oz: hokay

geeairmoe2: Who gets to define what constitutes human superiority?

AGplusone: temperament much more than intelligence …

Major oz: The guy, Gee, that makes it to the top

BPRAL22169: He was interested in “responsible” wielding of power.

AGplusone: Exactly, Duty! ….

geeairmoe2: Who decides when the top is actually the top?

Major oz: the one that gets there

Dehede011: And he was interested in learning to think ala Korzybski

BPRAL22169: It’s not exactly “the top,” it’s just your own thing.

AGplusone: What Starship Troopers is all about … we dunno why it seems to work better, it just do …

Major oz: yes we do

stephenveiss has left the room.

BPRAL22169: That may be why that “futile purposes” remark — to show the value-hierarchy Joe was in at the start of the story.

AGplusone: Yes …

geeairmoe2: Hitle got to the top.

Major oz: Yes, I have my own take on that.

BPRAL22169: /ga

Major oz: and, Gee, he made the definitions…..

Major oz: anyway

Dehede011: I still see the story as RAH exploring his own thoughts about a “thinking man” and adding some commercial gee whiz to entertain.

Major oz: the “futile purposes” was a thought Joe had during his interrogation.

Major oz: I say it as his way to de-humanize the girl

BPRAL22169: self desensitization?

Dehede011: Or to show Joe’s detached attitude

Major oz: So that he wouldn’t have to waste emotion on something he could not control

AGplusone: I think this is a story in which RAH really explored his own thoughts about several things … and came out the other end a changed RAH … see above, the business about the Patrol failing …

Major oz: Someday……….he would get ’em

Major oz: But right now, there are other things to do.

Dehede011: Right Major

Dehede011: Revenge is the key to his going after Mrs??

Dehede011: Keithley??

BPRAL22169: Mel Gibson holds the body of his son Thomas but cannot afford to vent rage because his entire family is in the British hands.

dwrighsr: ‘It touched a very deep and ancient part of his brain…..’

Dehede011: “There have been isolated HN throughout history” Bill or is it Mel? 🙂

BPRAL22169: Someting Martin — I couldn’t remember the character’s name.

AGplusone: immunity to thalamic disorder is merely strong discipline … or a little guru who taught you to do it.

BPRAL22169: Habit — once you develop the habit it comes very naturally.

Major oz: Revenge is WHY he could be talked into going after the witch. He cared NOT that she had the big bomb. But KBB used the revenge to get him to go — in my opinion, the reason for all the supeerman stuff in the story.

Dehede011: Bill have you any data on when RAH was involved in studying K

BPRAL22169: From 1933 by implication: he said he met Hayakawa in 1933.

Dehede011: Okay, but did he have the money for the seminars

AGplusone: In other words, Hartley belonged down in the lower city in Vicksburg, running the ‘long con’ right, Oz <:veg>

BPRAL22169: Apparently — he said he had attended 5 by 1941; I think that’s all there had been.

Major oz: yo

Dehede011: Okay

Major oz: All this superman crap is the same you get in Airborne school.

Dehede011: So General Semantics was a major event in his life

AGplusone: He knew she’d have to be whacked some day … so he kept Joe around …

Major oz: If you believe it, you will do what they want you to do.

AGplusone: Jump out of perfectly good airplanes …

Major oz: yo

TAWN3: Fun!

Dehede011: It is so much more fun to drive them

Dehede011: :))

TAWN3: Fact is some people can’t pass Airborne school, simple as it is.

AGplusone: I think he was reconsidering and rewriting a lot in “Gulf” that he had done before in Methuselah’s Children …

Major oz: And AF and Navy pre-select for the superman syndrome to get pilots

TAWN3: Exactly.

AGplusone: which was his answer to the entire question of ‘supermen’ just breed longer lived people

Major oz: Niavete is a BIG requirement

Major oz: <:sp>

TAWN3: Same with chopper pilots, MI Spy Guys, SF, Force Recon, Seals, etc.

TAWN3: They are preselected.

BPRAL22169: Doctors.

TAWN3: Then you get to the elite levels like Secret Service and Delta.

Major oz: Seals have talent. Pilots simply have 20-20

AGplusone: Here, he just used Korzypski, et al., to give us a way to live a subjectively longer time in our minds … still old Homo Sapiens, just thinking more …

Dehede011: Pilots have brains and 20/20

Major oz: Flatworms have brains

TAWN3: Ohhhhhh, professional rivalry Oz?

Dehede011: Korzybski would make a great pilot

BPRAL22169: not more — better.

Major oz: nah……

Major oz: they just objected to driving the truck for the missions at Edwards.

Dehede011: Flight school teaches the thalamic pause

Major oz: bitch, bitch, bitch

AGplusone: No, and Yes. Crunching more and maybe encountered less GiGO

AGplusone: because of the language …

BPRAL22169: Gentles, I need to leave. Good night.

Dehede011: Bye Bill

Major oz: c ya, bill

AGplusone: Night, Bill.

BPRAL22169 has left the room.

geeairmoe2: It seems that before you can train someone to kill, you have to first convince them (the potential killer) that they are superior to their victim; that their victim is somehow inferior to you and you have the right, perhaps even the duty to kill them, because that inferiority can be a threat to your existence.

TAWN3: Actually, the trick to succeeding in those situations is being able to react –without thinking–. A physically conditioned response.

Major oz: good analysis, Gee

dwrighsr: The language only helped them, they still had to have the ability to correctly observer, store data, evaluate and come to conclusions.

Dehede011: That isn’t flying Tawn

TAWN3: No Geear, just the opposite, for trained killers.

Major oz: Those who do not dislike the enemy will not do the best job.

AGplusone: Funny thing was: I figured if anyone was a genius or supergenius, Mrs. Keithley was ….

TAWN3: Disagree Oz.

Major oz: You can RESPECT him, butr you can’t like him

TAWN3: That works for the masses, not the elites.

Major oz: ?

Major oz: expand, please

TAWN3: Disagree Ron

geeairmoe2: Does a superman have a right to curtail a non-superman’s existence because the non-superman might inadvertantly threaten the superman’s existence?

Major oz: Since you qualify by “inadvertant” of course not.

TAWN3: OK, a pro. Respects his opponent.

Major oz: loose the adjective, and the answwer is yes

TAWN3: Do do less, is to let yourself open to defeat.

Dehede011: TAWN in flying if you start reacting like a cave man you are going to die. You think, think, think but fast

Major oz: that’s why women are better pilots

TAWN3: For the masses, yeah dehumanise the Jerries, whatevr, but not for elites. The work they do is too dangerous to to live stupidly.

Major oz: they take the training seriously

Dehede011: yes, for month after month you learn to outfly a guy that intends to kill you.

Major oz: We don’t disagree, Tawn

TAWN3: For instance, Smiley, Le Carre. He does NOT see his opponenet as inferior. Just the opposite. he knows he is going against the best and the brightest.

Prnzofthvs1 has entered the room.

Prnzofthvs1: Herro

TAWN3: Why kill inferior people? Except in the rare circumstances where it is necessary.

Major oz: Null Q

Dehede011: Funny thing is Gulf contains a strong message against elitism

Major oz: Why swat mosquitoes

Dehede011: Keithley isn’t hated for being non-GT but for being evil

TAWN3: Dehede. Two heat seeking missiles are coming at you. You have practiced a thousandfs times. You better react. Top Gun the movie illustrated that a bit. I’m talking about “the REALLY good ones” here.

AGplusone: Mrs. Keithley is an elite (and a strong supporter of the administration, to boot.)

Major oz: non-GT ?

dwrighsr: They weren’t indiscrimately kill all non-HN , but those who were threat to ‘all’ humanity.

Dehede011: TAWN I didn’t learn to fly from Top Gun

AGplusone: Why isn’t Mrs. K a HN?

AGplusone: Betcha she qualified on the IQ scale …

Major oz: insufficient

Major oz: but necessary

TAWN3: Are you an experienced fighter pilot Ron?

dwrighsr: No evidence one way or the other IMO, she was simply rich, powerful and evil.

AGplusone: Why put Armatoe’s rule in otherwise?

Dehede011: Nope, just another Navy trained airplane driver. Never made naval aviator.

TAWN3: Airline pilots generally have response times. The battlefield may not allow for that.

AGplusone: Geniuses make their own moral code. don’t follow monkey rules

Major oz: But only for use among themselves

Major oz: rarely among others

AGplusone: Sez who?

Dehede011: I agree that the action is darned fast but it isn’t just reaction

TAWN3: Henry VIII

dwrighsr: Doesn’t mean that non-genius can’t make their own moral code either 🙂

Major oz: usually to eliminate them

AGplusone: True …

Major oz: of course they can

Major oz: ….make their own moral code

Major oz: I maintain that most extant moral codes were made by geniuses

Prnzofthvs1 has left the room.

AGplusone: Righto! Jerry Falwell …

Major oz: Moral suggestions

Major oz: the code has yet to be adopted

AGplusone: I think the biological imperative is the code … all else is surplusage.

Major oz: Jesus, Mohammud, Buddha, etc……..all geniuses

Major oz: Jefferson, Lenin

Major oz: didn’t say a moral code had to be GOOD

TAWN3: Ohh, Science vs Fuzzy subkjects!

Major oz: yo

AGplusone: Okay … break a five minute period … then final question, Ron?

Major oz: the BO is the reason a code becomes necessary

Dehede011: Okay,

Major oz: potty time……….

AGplusone: afk & brb

Major oz: BI <:scuse, please>

Dehede011: Dave I think I am out of questions

Dehede011: LOL

AGplusone: Okay, then, I have a question … <:g>

AGplusone: Enjoy cohosting and do you recommend strongly to others that they immediately if not sooner follow your noble lead?

Dehede011: Do I recommend to others that they follow my “noble” example

Major oz: I think Dave did a bang-up job, in spite of his trepidation.

AGplusone: And give us another subject that gets 107 premeeting posts!

AGplusone: I think Ron did wonderfully!

Dehede011: Of course. I have read this story 15-20 times and now finally understand it

AGplusone: And a round of applause is well merited …

Major oz: oops, I had him down as another David.

dwrighsr: Agreed !!!

Dehede011: Sorry Major

AGplusone: :::::::::::::::::::::thunderous applause:::::::::::::::::::::::

Major oz: clap, clap, clap

Dehede011: May I share one observation?

TAWN3: Applause.

AGplusone: GA, Ron

geeairmoe2: ya done good

Dehede011: It is amazing that we have 108 posts and still haven’t plumbed this story in my opinion

AGplusone: Isn’t IT!

TAWN3: I agree.

dwrighsr: What direction would you suggest ?

Dehede011: I even got to cross swords with ginny

AGplusone: Well, we got between now and 5 PM Saturday ….

TAWN3: However, I try catching up on AFH and think I read all the pre posts and then find more.

AGplusone: Tell her it was probably a cutlass!

TAWN3: My newsreader doesn’t follow threafds well.

Dehede011: To plumb the story. I don’t know. I have read this story diligently for thirty years just to get where I am

AGplusone: ‘every time I read a RAH story I see sumthin’ new … ‘

Dehede011: I used your philosophy about RAH throughout this

dwrighsr: That’s because ‘you’ are changing 🙂

Dehede011: If you only see one level you probably missed something

AGplusone: too true

TAWN3: Yes.

AGplusone: Now that we got some ammo, wonder where we’ll go Saturday …

Dehede011: In show biz they say “Don’t let them see you sweat”

Dehede011: In Gulf I could sense what was Heinlein and what was the needs of the author

TAWN3: I won’t be able to be here Saturday. I hope that doesn’t make people –too– happy. <:g>

geeairmoe2: RAH had a way of just not quite being explicit enough on matters to let your mind dwell on the places you could take what he did end up giving you.

Dehede011: That is too bad, TAWN

AGplusone: Think of kindly old Hartley Baldwin (thinking away at 1060 bytes per) just selling heliocopters to the folks …

TAWN3: I know, but you guys didn’t examine vV similaries , I checked. Just mentioned in passing.

AGplusone: We’ll miss you … duty?

Dehede011: That he was seriously playing with the idea of HN and all the while making up a story that would entertain

dwrighsr: My expression for that is ‘that he lets the reader fill in the blanks’

TAWN3: Also, Renshaw, does any body have any references on him. I couldn’t find any.

geeairmoe2: Just got my copy of the Isher stories.

AGplusone: There’s a Life magazine article, Tawn.

Dehede011: VV similarities??

AGplusone: E mail Bill and ask for it … he offered to send out copies

TAWN3: No, promised my Aunt I would come out and do yard work and house maintenance stuff for her. She lives one state over.

Dehede011: Yes tawn, try SEP spring of 47 and then 48. about a 4 part article

dwrighsr: Speaking of Bill. That was a fantastic piece that he did on RAH and Cabell. Too bad I didn’t understand most of it 🙂

geeairmoe2: Have to mosey off here. Cathc y’all whenever.

dwrighsr: So long Will

AGplusone: Catch ya, Gee, good to see ya.

TAWN3: Forget Isher in regards to this, they are just soso anyway. Null-A is VERY similar, as well as a couple of short stories.

TAWN3: Ah

geeairmoe2 has left the room.

Dehede011: SEP = Saturday Evening Post

AGplusone: Thatr’s correct, SEP, not Life

TAWN3: Sep tember (spring?) of 47 and then ointo 48, Life Magazine.

TAWN3: I know he did Psych researech and craft recognition work for the US Navy, ands was given a medal for his work.

TAWN3: I always assumed that was the RAH conection.

Dehede011: No, Saturday evening post, spring of 47 and then try 48

TAWN3: He’s in the Psychology Who’s Who, forget exact name of it, have the link somewhere.

Dehede011: About a four part article, I just can’t remember whether it was 47 or 48

AGplusone: Do we have anyone we know near Ohio State University?

TAWN3: But just a one or two paragraph blurb.

AGplusone: I’d like to see that Who’s Who

TAWN3: I checked academic databases (db) but could find nothing else.

TAWN3: Ahhh, SEP, OK.

AGplusone: He must have had some publication … or papers … taught at OSU for years, didn’t he?

Dehede011: Glad to help, it was a wonderful article

AGplusone: Or studied anyway …

Dehede011: Yes, an experimental psychologist

AGplusone: “publish or perish?”

Dehede011: We used his course on teaching aircraft ID in navy flight school

AGplusone: Must have written something up …

TAWN3: Bye Will.

Dehede011: I found later that our instructors didn’t really understand the course and it was still pretty good

Major oz: Sorry, folks. My niece was IM’ing me with news of my brother’s lung transplant.

TAWN3: Really Ron?!!

Major oz: wasn’t paying attention

TAWN3: How did it go Oz?

AGplusone: Okay … see you all, Saturday if you can make it … Thanks again, Ron. David. Everyone for coming … hopeful news, Oz, I hope.

Dehede011: right, most guys picked up ID rather quickly and I don’t think there were any failures.

TAWN3: Do you have any data or class notes left?

Major oz: He’s in and out with rejection problems — there are zillions of drug combinations — they just need to find the right one. His morale really sucks

Dehede011: Oh, it isn’t that kind of course. Just a tachniscope and pictures.

Major oz: anyway……..

Major oz: is everyone going to bed?

Dehede011: Let’s hope Major

TAWN3: Oh

AGplusone: boy, just hope they find it, Oz. Give him my regards.

TAWN3: Yes Oz, good thoughts go out to you and yours.

Major oz: thanx, folks

Dehede011: Then one picture of a Bikini Darling in the middle of the aircraft pictures

dwrighsr: Same here !

AGplusone: You have a heckofafamily Oz. Best to them all.

Dehede011: Our instructors used it to wake us up instead of making Renshaw’s point

Major oz: we do have “experiences”

TAWN3: And what was Renshaws point Ron?

AGplusone: My wife is now glaring at me and holding a plate saying “Now or the pigs get it.”

Major oz: Think it’s time for me to sign out. Probably won’t make Saturday — die at a fresh catfish fry.

Major oz: due

TAWN3: Night Oz.

Major oz: <:maybe die — depends on how much I eat>

Major oz: c ya

AGplusone: See ya all … do be due Oz …. be do be do be do ….

Dehede011: That we immediately recognized the Bikini Darling by taking in the over all pattern

Major oz has left the room.

Dehede011: That is how you recognize anything

AGplusone: Closing log: July 20, 2000, 9:00:04 PM, PDT

Dehede011: NITE

TAWN3: Bye

TAWN3: Later Ron

TAWN3: David, everyone else.

dwrighsr: Night everyone

TAWN3 has left the room.

Dehede011: Thanks for the chance to do this Dave

AGplusone: Anytime

Dehede011 has left the room.

dwrighsr: I got the entire log tonight. It’ll take a bit, since I have to download the pre-posts and edit them first. Should be on-line by Saturday.

dwrighsr: Good Night David

dwrighsr has left the room.

AGplusone has left the room.

Final End of Discussion Log

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by The Heinlein Society
on February 15, 2013

Heinlein Reader’s Discussion Group Thursday 7-20-2000 ‘Gulf’