Typo Boy is right about the Kzin history, and I got my idea from something else in Niven. (Edit: but how do you like the male fantasy of genetically engineering your females to be nonsentient?)
If every vampire who said he was at the crucifixion was actually there, it would have been like Woodstock.
Spike ,'Same Time, Same Place'
All Ogle, No Cash -- It's Not Just Annoying, It's Un-American
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Noumenon - May 12, 2003 11:34:45 pm PDT #4695 of 9843
No other candidate is asking the hard questions, like "Did geophysicists assassinate Jim Henson?" or "Why is there hydrogen in America's water supply?" --defective yeti
Typo Boy - May 12, 2003 11:36:03 pm PDT #4696 of 9843
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.
Oh! I remember. He was saying that humans have already encountered the equivalent of an intelligent, alien species in the opposite sex, and that a species with nonsentient females like the Kzin would be much more patriarchal and xenophobic.
Women as aliens (and only nominally men as aliens) - pretty chauvinist in itself.
Noumenon - May 12, 2003 11:37:51 pm PDT #4697 of 9843
No other candidate is asking the hard questions, like "Did geophysicists assassinate Jim Henson?" or "Why is there hydrogen in America's water supply?" --defective yeti
I think of "brain in a vat" as a philosophical proposition. Are you saying it's a male fantasy because some of us like to imagine ourselves as Supremely Rational Man™?
Burrell - May 12, 2003 11:44:02 pm PDT #4698 of 9843
Why did Darth Vader cross the road? To get to the Dark Side!
I think of "brain in a vat" as a philosophical proposition.
Yeah.
Are you saying it's a male fantasy because some of us like to imagine ourselves as Supremely Rational Man™?
I'm saying that because I couldn't get beyond the idea that the whole proposition of pondering the possibility of sentience without a body. It sounds like psychosis to me, not philosophy.
Typo Boy - May 12, 2003 11:44:29 pm PDT #4699 of 9843
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.
Nah - I don't think its a fantasy in the sense that men want it. It's a fantasy in that it is a nightmare. I don't know that it is more a male nightmare than a female one - but if it is it may (as I said) be because it is the ultimate castration nightmare.
Burrell - May 12, 2003 11:47:32 pm PDT #4700 of 9843
Why did Darth Vader cross the road? To get to the Dark Side!
Dude, it's not worth spending two seconds thinking about. And yet people have written 100s of pages on it trying to rationalize it. You can't tell me that's a nightmare.
Typo Boy - May 12, 2003 11:51:40 pm PDT #4701 of 9843
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.
Burrell - seriously trying to rationalize it? You mean as in "this is a good thing". Or "this is route we should go". Because that is new to me. I've run into as extended premises for stories - but always as pretty horrible (0r in some cases comically horrific) stories.
Noumenon - May 13, 2003 4:04:17 am PDT #4702 of 9843
No other candidate is asking the hard questions, like "Did geophysicists assassinate Jim Henson?" or "Why is there hydrogen in America's water supply?" --defective yeti
Hey, Jim, maybe you ought to add a link to the Zmayhem FAQ in your Press post, because that did its job really well, I thought. No one should miss it.
Theodosia - May 13, 2003 6:12:31 am PDT #4703 of 9843
'we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope the caper doesn't end any time soon"
One thing I like about Futurama is that it follows up on a bunch of really SFnal tropes like "heads in jars" and all that.
Cindy - May 13, 2003 6:49:57 am PDT #4704 of 9843
Nobody
All the head in a jar talk is hard to swallow with coffee. But in a weird (and bizarre and horrifying)way it sounds like the ultimate in asceticism. I wouldn't know how it reads or plays, because I don't think I could read or watch such a story. Despite my body image demons, I'm still glad I have one. But still...