On Thursday, 22 July 2021 at 11:55:03 UTC+1, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 10:30:03 PM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> > In article <sdalsv$t42$1...@dont-email.me>,
> > Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > >Doesn't Hal want to sit in the doorway and play with the kitteh cats
> > >while you browse your book stash for a few hours ?
>
> > Nope. He wants to level another of his alts, or to read all the
> > snarky comments on _The Register_, or upgrade the software on yet
> > another Raspberry Pi, or any number of other things, mostly
> > involving the computer. And since he helps me with so many other
> > things, such as making breakfast every day, and helping me walk
> > when my legs are weak, and driving me to doctors' appointments,
> > et multa cetera, I don't like to disturb him any oftener than I
> > have to.
> While I can't blame him for wanting to do such things, no doubt he can
> figure out how to put wheels on his computer desk or some such
> thing so that he can do those things wile still facilitating increased
> access to your SF book collection.
>
> Or something can be worked out involving you scheduling an appointment
> which will least inconvenience him. If you're willing to go halfway and make
> it easier for him to help you, everyone can be happy.

John, are you in a happy marriage? Hal and Dorothy are.
They know how, and I strongly suspect that you don't.

Quadibloc wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 5:38:17 AM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:
>
> > Be careful what you wish for. The Klingons don't have a Prime
> > Directive.
> But as Arthur C. Clarke has clearly explained, aggressive species
> destroy themselves before going into space; any advanced race
> that reaches Earth will be highly benevolent, morally ahead of us
> as well as technologically!

I only have a description to go by, but there was a Russian story, "The Heart of the Serpent." (I can look it up, now, it's title should really be "Cor Serpentis" (in Cyrillic) after the constellation, by Ivan Yefremov, and has had only one English publication.) It was a critique of Leinster's "First Contact," and its assumption that our first First Contact we and the aliens wouldn't be able to trust each other. In this future, it's obvious that only socialist societies can survive and achieve spaceflight, and of course they could trust each other. The story ends with the spaceship crew that had been discussing this making First Contact with another ship, and greeting each other in universal brotherhood.

I don't know if I could detect heavy sarcasm in a translation, hopefully for Yefremov's sake, any wouldn't be detectable in the original Russian.
--
-Jack

On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 5:17:16 AM UTC-6, Robert Carnegie wrote:

> John, are you in a happy marriage? Hal and Dorothy are.
> They know how, and I strongly suspect that you don't.

I wasn't suggesting that Dorothy ask anything unreasonable of Hal.

Just that it _might_ be possible to gently find a way to address this
issue to everyone's satisfaction.

There are other alternatives; The door to the area with the books is in a
room. Perhaps that room can be given doors, or other barriers, so that
all cats can be removed from the room, and cats kept out, before the
area to the books is opened.

Of course, neither Hal nor Dorothy are in a position to engage in
large scale home handyman projects, but possibly something can be
more easily improvised.

How many cats are there in the household? Is it practical to round them
all up, and temporarily put them behind a closed door when sensitive
activities are engaged in? I was just watching a YouTube video the other
day by a Korean uploader about how she had built a "cat prison" from
clear plastic in her new apartment.

John Savard

On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 7:04:05 AM UTC-6, jack....@gmail.com wrote:

> I don't know if I could detect heavy sarcasm in a translation, hopefully
> for Yefremov's sake, any wouldn't be detectable in the original Russian.

Of course, the translator might have added some to the English version
to make the story palatable for American audiences... of course, though,
"translation" would then not be the right term for such activity.

John Savard

In article <73fe655a-26f1-4336-b7c3-ebcdf296abf6n@googlegroups.com>,
Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> wrote:
>On Thursday, 22 July 2021 at 11:55:03 UTC+1, Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 10:30:03 PM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> > In article <sdalsv$t42$1...@dont-email.me>,
>> > Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > >Doesn't Hal want to sit in the doorway and play with the kitteh cats
>> > >while you browse your book stash for a few hours ?
>>
>> > Nope. He wants to level another of his alts, or to read all the
>> > snarky comments on _The Register_, or upgrade the software on yet
>> > another Raspberry Pi, or any number of other things, mostly
>> > involving the computer. And since he helps me with so many other
>> > things, such as making breakfast every day, and helping me walk
>> > when my legs are weak, and driving me to doctors' appointments,
>> > et multa cetera, I don't like to disturb him any oftener than I
>> > have to.
>> While I can't blame him for wanting to do such things, no doubt he can
>> figure out how to put wheels on his computer desk or some such
>> thing so that he can do those things wile still facilitating increased
>> access to your SF book collection.

I wasn't going to answer this, but I guess I'd better. My
computer (well, the monitor and keyboard) are attached to a
hospital-style wheeled table. Cables extend therefrom to the
computer tower, which stands on a short chest of drawers next to
the bed. Remember, I've had CFS for years, and along about last
October it got worse. I have to hold on to something in order to
walk, and from time to time I fall anyway.

Hal's computer desk is a real desk, inherited from his father,
with a rolltop that is never rolled down because he keeps things
in all the little compartments.

And neither computer uses WiFi; Hal doesn't trust it and
therefore, electronics being his thing, neither do I. So our
computers are not portable. (He also doesn't trust the cloud.)

And anyway, if he were sitting in the hall with his computer, he
wouldn't be able to keep his attention on the cats.

>> Or something can be worked out involving you scheduling an appointment
>> which will least inconvenience him. If you're willing to go halfway and make
>> it easier for him to help you, everyone can be happy.
>
>John, are you in a happy marriage? Hal and Dorothy are.
>They know how, and I strongly suspect that you don't.

/snerk

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

In article <qwnGFI.qvM@kithrup.com>,
Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@kithrup.com> wrote:
>
>
>And neither computer uses WiFi; Hal doesn't trust it and
>therefore, electronics being his thing, neither do I. So our
>computers are not portable. (He also doesn't trust the cloud.)
>
What's not to trust in the idea of parking my data in someone else's
hard drive, maintained under conditions I cannot check myself?

So, funny work story: a task I am frequently handed is running sound for
dance shows. One might think the worst case scenario for that is being
handed a stack of casettes but although we could handle that, it's never
happened while I was there (although CDs and a stack of iphones has).
The _actual_ worse case scenario is noticing mid-way through a show one
or more of the songs isn't actually on the client's laptop but in the
cloud. Invariably, clients who do this have _not_ arranged to have a
wifi connection at the theatre. There's a work around but you don't want
to be doing it during a show.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

In article <195e8622-6fac-43d3-9928-9bf44af66270n@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 5:17:16 AM UTC-6, Robert Carnegie wrote:
>
>> John, are you in a happy marriage? Hal and Dorothy are.
>> They know how, and I strongly suspect that you don't.
>
>I wasn't suggesting that Dorothy ask anything unreasonable of Hal.
>
>Just that it _might_ be possible to gently find a way to address this
>issue to everyone's satisfaction.
>
>There are other alternatives; The door to the area with the books is in a
>room.

It's in a narrow hallway.

>Perhaps that room can be given doors, or other barriers, so that
>all cats can be removed from the room, and cats kept out, before the
>area to the books is opened.

An airlock effect? Don't I wish. It's open at the near end, and
at the far end it has doors to the fiction room, a linen closet,
and the nonfiction and electronics room*.

Now here's the rub. If *I* open any of those doors, the cats
come racing in, hoping to get inside and explore. If I go into
an actual room (the linen closet is full of shelves), I can get
inside and close the door in their little furry faces. But they
hang around, yowling at the door occasionally (have I ever
mentioned that they are half-Siamese?) and if I open the door to
try to get out, they get in and it takes much maneuvering by both
of us to get them out again, because the rooms are full of
bookshelves and things.

So I need either to ask Hal to stop what he's doing and get up
and stand in the hallway discouraging the cats, or if I forgot to
do that, open the door a fraction of an inch, and call for Hal to
come and discouraging them. And the acoustics of our flat are
such that if you're in the main room you can't hear anything said
in the other rooms, and vice versa.

So it's easier (also considering that I can't stand around unless
I have something to hold onto) just to avoid asking him to guard
the door unless it's really necessary.
>
>Of course, neither Hal nor Dorothy are in a position to engage in
>large scale home handyman projects, but possibly something can be
>more easily improvised.

Nope. Rented house, absentee landlord, Hal and I are old, Meg
and Walkyr work, and Vincent is thirteen. And we're hoping to
move next summer, to someplace where there are no stairs. (I'll
save for another discourse how I have to get up, and down, the
front stairs on the seat of my pants.)
>
>How many cats are there in the household? Is it practical to round them
>all up, and temporarily put them behind a closed door when sensitive
>activities are engaged in? I was just watching a YouTube video the other
>day by a Korean uploader about how she had built a "cat prison" from
>clear plastic in her new apartment.

There are two of them, just over a year old, and lively as
jackrabbits. I suppose I should also point out that they only
follow *me* into the hall; if Hal or Vincent needs to go into
either room, the cats don't follow.

_____
*As some here may remember, Hal and I run registration for a
gaming convention every spring (didn't happen this year,
obviously). I'll also save for another discourse how we started
doing it. So about a quarter of the nonfiction room is filled
with electronics, monitors. tubs of cables, power cords, files,
and other kipple I won't enumerate. And it all has to be loaded
into a van and transported to the con hotel.)

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

On 21 Jul 2021 16:37:17 GMT, ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan
<tednolan>) wrote:

>In article <dshgfgh1qov5ijnt1jjjsf03pbbm3iqbuj@4ax.com>,
>Paul S Person <psperson1@ix.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>>On Wed, 21 Jul 2021 15:24:38 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>>Heydt) wrote:
>>
>>>In article <sd9djv$aou$1@newsreader4.netcologne.de>,
>>>Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> wrote:
>>>>Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@kithrup.com> schrieb:
>>>>> In article <0arffgdgku8ij2hr2i4f4ptcnqsj25skvi@4ax.com>,
>>>>> J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>On Wed, 21 Jul 2021 02:00:57 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
>>>>>><jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 5:38:17 AM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Be careful what you wish for. The Klingons don't have a Prime
>>>>>>>> Directive.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>But as Arthur C. Clarke has clearly explained, aggressive species
>>>>>>>destroy themselves before going into space; any advanced race
>>>>>>>that reaches Earth will be highly benevolent, morally ahead of us
>>>>>>>as well as technologically!
>>>>>>
>>>>>>And he based that on experience with _how_ many ETs?
>>>>>
>>>>> As many as Wells had when he wrote _War of the WOrlds._
>>>>
>>>>That was a bitter satire on European colonianism.
>>>
>>>I know it was. But it did not stem from any experience with ETs.
>>
>>So ... the point of HG Wells' /War of the Worlds/ was ... that the
>>Colonizers were destroyed by native micro-organisms?
>>
>>So, when the Empires were dissolved and the various subjugated nations
>>freed, it was because all the Europeans ... were dead from disease?
>>
>>I'm sorry, but this no-doubt very well established intellectual
>>literary theory doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me.
>
>Well, that's not what destroyed the empires, but that's the reason
>why the African & Indian colonies were never colonies of settlement
>like the Americas, Australia, NZ etc. The "tropical diseases" were
>generally fatal for Europeans.

That would work better if none of the Americas were tropical.

But you are correct. Yellow fever killed a lot of workers when in
Panama, IIRC.

And the difference is population density, which was higher in Africa
and India. Also cultural level, in India and to the east.

Ethiopia was not colonized until the 1930s. Japan never was, although
it was conquered and occupied in 1945. China was bullied and forced to
allow European enclaves, but never defeated, colonized, or occupied.

The history of Western expansion is /not/ about every single bit of
the planet ending up belonging to one or another of the European
powers. Just a lot of it -- until the revolts in the Americas, anyway.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Wed, 21 Jul 2021 16:51:10 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
Heydt) wrote:

>In article <dshgfgh1qov5ijnt1jjjsf03pbbm3iqbuj@4ax.com>,
>Paul S Person <psperson1@ix.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>>On Wed, 21 Jul 2021 15:24:38 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>>Heydt) wrote:
>>
>>>In article <sd9djv$aou$1@newsreader4.netcologne.de>,
>>>Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> wrote:
>>>>Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@kithrup.com> schrieb:
>>>>> In article <0arffgdgku8ij2hr2i4f4ptcnqsj25skvi@4ax.com>,
>>>>> J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>On Wed, 21 Jul 2021 02:00:57 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
>>>>>><jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 5:38:17 AM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Be careful what you wish for. The Klingons don't have a Prime
>>>>>>>> Directive.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>But as Arthur C. Clarke has clearly explained, aggressive species
>>>>>>>destroy themselves before going into space; any advanced race
>>>>>>>that reaches Earth will be highly benevolent, morally ahead of us
>>>>>>>as well as technologically!
>>>>>>
>>>>>>And he based that on experience with _how_ many ETs?
>>>>>
>>>>> As many as Wells had when he wrote _War of the WOrlds._
>>>>
>>>>That was a bitter satire on European colonianism.
>>>
>>>I know it was. But it did not stem from any experience with ETs.
>>
>>So ... the point of HG Wells' /War of the Worlds/ was ... that the
>>Colonizers were destroyed by native micro-organisms?
>>
>>So, when the Empires were dissolved and the various subjugated nations
>>freed, it was because all the Europeans ... were dead from disease?
>>
>>I'm sorry, but this no-doubt very well established intellectual
>>literary theory doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me.
>
>I don't think it was intended to be a point-for-point allegory.
>It was an exercise in "How would you feel if it happened to you?"
>
>And the death by microorganisms may have corresponded to nothing
>at all in real-world history, but simply a way of getting out of
>an otherwise ineradicable infestation. Otherwise, there would
>have been no humans left to tell the story.
>
>One of the things I've noticed about early SF is that its authors
>apparently felt the need of a work-around to explain how the
>author got the data. The Time Traveler came back to the present
>to tell his story. I forget which early work of SF began with an
>introduction titled something like "The Man Who Remembered [or
>was it "Dreamed"?] the Future." Was it Williamson's _The Legion
>of Space_? i

They also felt an inescapable urge to explain how their FTL drives
worked. Among other technical issues.

This made SF "educational", and so (together with the complete absence
of sex) allowable by parents.

>Wells's _The Shape of Things to Come_ is written in the form of a
>third volume of his _Outline of History_. But that was published
>in 1933, whereas _The Time Machine came out in 1895; perhaps by
>1933 Wells not longer felt the need to explain how he "learned"
>the story.

I didn't read /Outline of History/ when I reread Wells because, first,
I was focused on fiction and, second, I had read it twice before.

But I must say that, if /The Shape of Things to Come/ is supposed to
be a continuation of /Outline of History/, then his style has greatly
degenerated, because it is not a very interesting read. Rather boring,
actually; like a textbook indifferently written by a hack.

This makes it more like the amazingly large number of "biopic" films I
have been watching because they were done by directors who /in the
past/ have directed movies worth watching [1]: for the most part,
watching paint dry would be more interesting.

>And here's a YASID: What story begins with the sentence "I have
>no intention of explaining how I learned this story"?

[1] Well, how else can I find out /for sure/ if there are any films
worth watching in there? And, indeed, I was eventually rewarded by
/Richard Jewell/, a biopic that is much better than watching grass
grow, in part because of its instructive depiction of Our Federal Tax
Dollars At Work. At work framing a hero, to be sure, but at work
nonetheless.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Thu, 22 Jul 2021 02:21:51 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
Heydt) wrote:

>In article <hjbhfg198qiv25cegkqhaped76pa9t7b83@4ax.com>,
>J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>>On Wed, 21 Jul 2021 15:41:25 -0700 (PDT), Ahasuerus
>><ahasuerus@email.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 6:05:04 PM UTC-4, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>>> In article <ry_JI.21157$7H7....@fx42.iad>,
>>>> Scott Lurndal <sl...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>>> >djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>>>> >
>>>> >>And here's a YASID: What story begins with the sentence "I have
>>>> >>no intention of explaining how I learned this story"?
>>>> >
>>>> >Would that start with "My Dear Wormwood"?
>>>> Maybe. I've already had to get Hal to stand guard at the fiction
>>>> room door once today, don't feel like doing it again (he's in the
>>>> middle of a game). I've already explained about the cats, whose
>>>> greatest ambition is to get into the book rooms where they are
>>>> not supposed to be.
>>>>
>>>> And here's another question: How can I get ISFDB to search for
>>>> the Sturgeon story "The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff"? I
>>>> suspect the square brackets are throwing the software off.
>>>> Ahasuerus, are you around today?
>>>
>>>A "Fiction Titles" search on "The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff" should
>>>do the trick. "wadget" or "and boff" should work too since they are all
>>>sufficiently unique.
>>
>>I was curious about the story, and looked for it on Amazon. Found it
>>in "Selected Stories" and learned something. I did not realize how
>>much Sturgeon I had read and loved.
>
>It hasn't been reprinted much.

It did, however, make it into /A Treasury of Great Science Fiction/,
which the SFBC put out and, IIRC, at one time used as part of their
"introductory offer".

And why not? It lives up to its name!
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Wed, 21 Jul 2021 21:22:48 -0000 (UTC), Christian Weisgerber
<naddy@mips.inka.de> wrote:

>On 2021-07-21, Paul S Person <psperson1@ix.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>
>[Arthur C. Clarke]
>> In his later works, he was quite insistent that the human race would
>> all be vegetarians in the future.
>>
>> Interestingly, for a science fiction author he apparently never
>> thought of the possibility of creating meat products artificially,
>> with no actual animal being involved. Well, except as a cell donor.
>
>I have a vague memory that he did. Not as in tissue cultures, but
>some other pseudo-meat. Weren't they milking whales for this purpose
>in... _Dolphin Island_?

I don't recall it there.

But /The Deep Range/ ends with whaling reduced to milking the whales.

Of course, that would be a "meat product" and so verboten to at least
some vegetarian groups.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Wed, 21 Jul 2021 21:48:58 -0000 (UTC), Christian Weisgerber
<naddy@mips.inka.de> wrote:

>On 2021-07-21, Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
>>> Be careful what you wish for. The Klingons don't have a Prime
>>> Directive.
>>
>> But as Arthur C. Clarke has clearly explained, aggressive species
>> destroy themselves before going into space; any advanced race
>> that reaches Earth will be highly benevolent, morally ahead of us
>> as well as technologically!
>
>People keep making such claims as if it were a self-evident truth.
>I have no idea what "morally ahead" is even supposed to mean. It
>presupposes that there is an ordering or a metric to ethics. That
>is a giant assumption, based on... nothing? An article of faith?

I would interpret it as meaning that a culture that indulges in
capital punishment is /morally behind/ a culture that does not.

Or, in ST terms, they would have Prime Directive -- and follow it.

>If you think that "evolutionarily more advanced" is an iffy concept,
>then "morally ahead" should really trigger your objection.
>
>Charles Pellegrino offers a less naive view of what we can reasonably
>assume about alien species, based on evolutionary thinking:
>
> 1. Their survival will be more important than our survival.
> If an alien species has to choose between them and us, they
> won't choose us. It is difficult to imagine a contrary case;
> species don't survive by being self-sacrificing.
>
> 2. Wimps don't become top dogs.
> No species makes it to the top by being passive. The species
> in charge of any given planet will be highly intelligent,
> alert, aggressive, and ruthless when necessary.
>
> 3. They will assume that the first two laws apply to us.
>
>(Quoted from _The Killing Star_.)
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Thu, 22 Jul 2021 06:04:02 -0700 (PDT), Jack Bohn
<jack.bohn64@gmail.com> wrote:

>Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 5:38:17 AM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:
>>
>> > Be careful what you wish for. The Klingons don't have a Prime
>> > Directive.
>> But as Arthur C. Clarke has clearly explained, aggressive species
>> destroy themselves before going into space; any advanced race
>> that reaches Earth will be highly benevolent, morally ahead of us
>> as well as technologically!
>
>I only have a description to go by, but there was a Russian story, "The Heart of the Serpent." (I can look it up, now, it's title should really be "Cor Serpentis" (in Cyrillic) after the constellation, by Ivan Yefremov, and has had only one English publication.) It was a critique of Leinster's "First Contact," and its assumption that our first First Contact we and the aliens wouldn't be able to trust each other. In this future, it's obvious that only socialist societies can survive and achieve spaceflight, and of course they could trust each other. The story ends with the spaceship crew that had been discussing this making First Contact with another ship, and greeting each other in universal brotherhood.
>
>I don't know if I could detect heavy sarcasm in a translation, hopefully for Yefremov's sake, any wouldn't be detectable in the original Russian.

I was once cozened into reading a novel by Stanisla Lem that I found
so ... vague ... that I had /no/ idea what it was about. I read it, of
course, in translation.

I supposed that it was written that way so that it would be equally
vague to whatever State Organs might read it and react badly if they
were better able to figure out what it was about than I was.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

In article <hn4jfgdg8qrev5co4md9ilt40jkapmetmh@4ax.com>,
Paul S Person <psperson1@ix.netcom.invalid> wrote:
>On Thu, 22 Jul 2021 02:21:51 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>Heydt) wrote:
>
>>In article <hjbhfg198qiv25cegkqhaped76pa9t7b83@4ax.com>,
>>J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>On Wed, 21 Jul 2021 15:41:25 -0700 (PDT), Ahasuerus
>>><ahasuerus@email.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>On Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 6:05:04 PM UTC-4, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>>>> In article <ry_JI.21157$7H7....@fx42.iad>,
>>>>> Scott Lurndal <sl...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>>>> >djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>>>>> >
>>>>> >>And here's a YASID: What story begins with the sentence "I have
>>>>> >>no intention of explaining how I learned this story"?
>>>>> >
>>>>> >Would that start with "My Dear Wormwood"?
>>>>> Maybe. I've already had to get Hal to stand guard at the fiction
>>>>> room door once today, don't feel like doing it again (he's in the
>>>>> middle of a game). I've already explained about the cats, whose
>>>>> greatest ambition is to get into the book rooms where they are
>>>>> not supposed to be.
>>>>>
>>>>> And here's another question: How can I get ISFDB to search for
>>>>> the Sturgeon story "The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff"? I
>>>>> suspect the square brackets are throwing the software off.
>>>>> Ahasuerus, are you around today?
>>>>
>>>>A "Fiction Titles" search on "The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff" should
>>>>do the trick. "wadget" or "and boff" should work too since they are all
>>>>sufficiently unique.
>>>
>>>I was curious about the story, and looked for it on Amazon. Found it
>>>in "Selected Stories" and learned something. I did not realize how
>>>much Sturgeon I had read and loved.
>>
>>It hasn't been reprinted much.
>
>It did, however, make it into /A Treasury of Great Science Fiction/,
>which the SFBC put out and, IIRC, at one time used as part of their
>"introductory offer".
>
>And why not? It lives up to its name!

Yes, indeed. SFBC, I seem to remember, is how I got my copy.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

On 2021-07-22, Jack Bohn <jack.bohn64@gmail.com> wrote:

> In this future, it's obvious that only socialist societies can
> survive and achieve spaceflight, and of course they could trust
> each other.

As exemplified by, say, the mistrust between the Soviet Union and
China, between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, or the full-blown
war between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> writes:
>On 2021-07-22, Jack Bohn <jack.bohn64@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> In this future, it's obvious that only socialist societies can
>> survive and achieve spaceflight, and of course they could trust
>> each other.
>
>As exemplified by, say, the mistrust between the Soviet Union and
>China, between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, or the full-blown
>war between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam.

I don't believe any of them qualify as 'socialist societies', as
they were all dicatorships.

In article <FjhKI.52360$h8.4772@fx47.iad>,
Scott Lurndal <slp53@pacbell.net> wrote:
>Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> writes:
>>On 2021-07-22, Jack Bohn <jack.bohn64@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> In this future, it's obvious that only socialist societies can
>>> survive and achieve spaceflight, and of course they could trust
>>> each other.
>>
>>As exemplified by, say, the mistrust between the Soviet Union and
>>China, between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, or the full-blown
>>war between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam.
>
>
>I don't believe any of them qualify as 'socialist societies', as
>they were all dicatorships.

Except that socialism is an economic system, and dictatorship is
a political system. You could have one and not the other.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

In article <slrnsfj5pr.2tgv.naddy@lorvorc.mips.inka.de>,
Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> wrote:
>On 2021-07-22, Jack Bohn <jack.bohn64@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> In this future, it's obvious that only socialist societies can
>> survive and achieve spaceflight, and of course they could trust
>> each other.
>
>As exemplified by, say, the mistrust between the Soviet Union and
>China, between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, or the full-blown
>war between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam.

Well, the story under discussion is *fiction.*

Whether the author really believed the assumption Jack describes
above, or merely thought it wise to write as though he believed
it, is like discussing what song the Sirens sang,* or what name
Achilles used when he hid among women.

_____
*Although we do have a transcription of sorts, in the Odyssey, of
what song the two sirens sang to Odysseus: they told him they
knew everything, and would tell all of it to him. In other
words, they'd sing to every victim whatever he most wanted. I
got a story out of that once.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 9:04:05 AM UTC-4, jack....@gmail.com wrote:
> Quadibloc wrote:
> > On Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 5:38:17 AM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:
> >
> > > Be careful what you wish for. The Klingons don't have a Prime
> > > Directive.
> > But as Arthur C. Clarke has clearly explained, aggressive species
> > destroy themselves before going into space; any advanced race
> > that reaches Earth will be highly benevolent, morally ahead of us
> > as well as technologically!
> I only have a description to go by, but there was a Russian story,
> "The Heart of the Serpent." (I can look it up, now, it's title should really
> be "Cor Serpentis" (in Cyrillic)

The original title was "Cor Serpentis (Сердце Змеи)", i.e. it used a mix
of Latin and Russian -- see https://fantlab.ru/work13724

> after the constellation, by Ivan Yefremov, and has had only one
> English publication.) [snip]

There were two English translations, one by R. Prokofieva (1961) and
the other one by Doris Johnson (1963). Each one appeared in multiple
publications -- see http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?925930 for
details.

On 7/22/2021 10:12 AM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <FjhKI.52360$h8.4772@fx47.iad>,
> Scott Lurndal <slp53@pacbell.net> wrote:
>> Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> writes:
>>> On 2021-07-22, Jack Bohn <jack.bohn64@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> In this future, it's obvious that only socialist societies can
>>>> survive and achieve spaceflight, and of course they could trust
>>>> each other.
>>>
>>> As exemplified by, say, the mistrust between the Soviet Union and
>>> China, between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, or the full-blown
>>> war between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam.
>>
>>
>> I don't believe any of them qualify as 'socialist societies', as
>> they were all dicatorships.
>
> Except that socialism is an economic system, and dictatorship is
> a political system. You could have one and not the other.
>
Only if the dictatorship allows it. And since doing so would require
reducing their own wealth, power and comfort....

In theory it may be possible to separate economic system from political
system but in practice I don't think it is.

--
Troll, troll, troll your post gently down the thread
Angrily, angrily, angrily, the net's a nut's scream.

In article <sdcbn4$8bl$2@dont-email.me>,
Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
>On 7/22/2021 10:12 AM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article <FjhKI.52360$h8.4772@fx47.iad>,
>> Scott Lurndal <slp53@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>> Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> writes:
>>>> On 2021-07-22, Jack Bohn <jack.bohn64@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> In this future, it's obvious that only socialist societies can
>>>>> survive and achieve spaceflight, and of course they could trust
>>>>> each other.
>>>>
>>>> As exemplified by, say, the mistrust between the Soviet Union and
>>>> China, between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, or the full-blown
>>>> war between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam.
>>>
>>>
>>> I don't believe any of them qualify as 'socialist societies', as
>>> they were all dicatorships.
>>
>> Except that socialism is an economic system, and dictatorship is
>> a political system. You could have one and not the other.
>>
>Only if the dictatorship allows it. And since doing so would require
>reducing their own wealth, power and comfort....

But if the political system is, say, a constitutional monarchy,
neither the parliament nor the monarch has any inevitable reason
to object to a socialist economy.

>In theory it may be possible to separate economic system from political
>system but in practice I don't think it is.

I don't consider it impossible.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

On Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 5:01:02 AM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 5:38:17 AM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:
>
> > Be careful what you wish for. The Klingons don't have a Prime
> > Directive.
> But as Arthur C. Clarke has clearly explained, aggressive species
> destroy themselves before going into space; any advanced race
> that reaches Earth will be highly benevolent, morally ahead of us
> as well as technologically!

Where did he say this? I recall something of the kind as a speculation,
or something that was likely. I do not recall his propounding it as
a law.

It is, of course, possible we're not remembering the same passage. He
wrote a lot and his ideas evolved over time.

William Hyde

On 7/22/2021 1:28 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <sdcbn4$8bl$2@dont-email.me>,
> Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
>> On 7/22/2021 10:12 AM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>> In article <FjhKI.52360$h8.4772@fx47.iad>,
>>> Scott Lurndal <slp53@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>>> Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de> writes:
>>>>> On 2021-07-22, Jack Bohn <jack.bohn64@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> In this future, it's obvious that only socialist societies can
>>>>>> survive and achieve spaceflight, and of course they could trust
>>>>>> each other.
>>>>>
>>>>> As exemplified by, say, the mistrust between the Soviet Union and
>>>>> China, between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, or the full-blown
>>>>> war between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I don't believe any of them qualify as 'socialist societies', as
>>>> they were all dicatorships.
>>>
>>> Except that socialism is an economic system, and dictatorship is
>>> a political system. You could have one and not the other.
>>>
>> Only if the dictatorship allows it. And since doing so would require
>> reducing their own wealth, power and comfort....
>
> But if the political system is, say, a constitutional monarchy,
> neither the parliament nor the monarch has any inevitable reason
> to object to a socialist economy.
>
....beyond being forced to live in the same conditions as the people they
rule, without the perks, privileges and benefits that they have as the
rulers.

>> In theory it may be possible to separate economic system from political
>> system but in practice I don't think it is.
>
> I don't consider it impossible.
>
No one has yet made actual "socialism" work yet. Even the countries
that come closest such as Sweden are tacking a lot of socialist features
on top of a capitalist economy. And its not even certain if _that_
would work in isolation.

--
Troll, troll, troll your post gently down the thread
Angrily, angrily, angrily, the net's a nut's scream.

On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 8:45:16 AM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:

> An airlock effect? Don't I wish. It's open at the near end, and
> at the far end it has doors to the fiction room, a linen closet,
> and the nonfiction and electronics room*.

Well, if there were some way to close the narrow hallway at
the near end, the problem would be solved. All you would have to do
is add a door of some kind. Of course, that may be highly impractical
for any number of reasons.

The biggest problem is that you can't just, say, slide a big box in
front of the entrance to the hallway, since cats are good at jumping and
climbing. Putting in something like a shower curtain would clearly
be totally ineffective.

But a shower curtain, unlike certain other types of barriers, would be a
simple thing to put in; so is there any way to modify a shower curtain to
make it an effective barrier to cats?

John Savard

On Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 10:22:44 AM UTC-6, Paul S Person wrote:

> In his later works, he was quite insistent that the human race would
> all be vegetarians in the future.

> Interestingly, for a science fiction author he apparently never
> thought of the possibility of creating meat products artificially,
> with no actual animal being involved. Well, except as a cell donor.

That is odd, given that his rival Isaac Asimov actually made that
the chief plot point of one of his short stories.

But perhaps he thought that the human race would switch to
being vegetarians for _health_ reasons, not just _ethical_ reasons.

John Savard