SILICON SOAPWARE wafting your way along the slipstreams of the Info Highway from Bubbles = Tom Digby = bubbles@well.sf.ca.us http://www.well.com/~bubbles/ Issue #80 New Moon of July 20, 2001 Contents copyright 2001 by Thomas G. Digby, with a liberal definition of "fair use". In other words, feel free to quote excerpts elsewhere (with proper attribution), post the entire zine (verbatim, including this notice) on other boards that don't charge specifically for reading the zine, link my Web page, and so on, but if something from here forms a substantial part of something you make money from, it's only fair that I get a cut of the profits. Silicon Soapware is available via email with or without reader feedback. Details of how to sign up are at the end. ********************* The July 17, 2001 issue of Weekly World News had a story about a space- alien skull that talks and sings. It was supposedly found at an archaeological site in Mississippi, and then was seized by government officials. It is now being studied in a secret lab in the Smithsonian. The story ends with "Smithsonian officials insist they know nothing about any talking skull." That somehow makes it more plausible. It tells me I can't expect to disprove it by calling the Smithsonian, even if they deny it. That also got me to thinking about the person whose job it is to call places like the Smithsonian and ask, presumably with a straight face, for confirmation on these stories. Does the constant string of denials and rejections gradually wear them down? And what of the person whose job it is to reply, presumably with a straight face, that no, they aren't aware of anything like whatever the caller is asking about? Do these people ever tire of what to them would be a never-ending string of foolish questions? Do these people get to know one another? Might they eventually become friends, despite their differences? Might romance bloom? ********************* Suppose we get interstellar travel and discover a whole bunch of potential colony planets. Some are Earthlike enough that it would be almost like colonizing Australia, while others need varying degrees of terraforming and some will always limit humans to domes and such but do have economically valuable resources. None have intelligent life. Getting batches of colonists to the planets, along with initial supplies and equipment, is economically feasible and does not involve multi- generation ships. Earth may have some contact with the colonies after they're established, but there won't be anything like commuting or tourism. Groups are applying for planets to colonize. You're on the board that approves such requests and determines who gets which planets. Now suppose somebody like the Ku Klux Klan applies for a planet on the grounds that they're suffering religious persecution here. Would you be in favor of giving them one? Would you put any special conditions on what they do once they get there? I think I would give them one of the ones that would have the least contact with Earth, and put it in the contract that they won't do any military activities outside their system. If they want to sit around and be racially pure, that's OK, as long as they don't bother anybody else. Self-defense is also OK. But I don't want them (or any other colony planet) dreaming of galactic conquest. I'd do the same for others like the Black Muslims. And I think I'd make the part about no military conquest outside a group's own system standard for all colony planets, although as the centuries roll by and empires fade and others arise this can't really be enforced. If the object of a group's hatred is not around, the old feelings may slowly fade. So by the time the colonists start banding together into their own empires these groups will either have learned to cooperate with others or will be isolated from whatever new civilizations arise. If you were on the board handing out colony planets, what would you do? ********************* Somebody on another email list I'm on has been having problems with someone else who seems to have taken a dislike to him. This other person put up a Web page ridiculing him and calling him a "looser". It's obvious from context that he meant "loser" and spelled it wrong, but the misspelling gave me the idea of a "Looser" who goes around setting things free. This could be for good or ill, depending on what is unleashed. In FRP terms, the Looser might be Chaotic Neutral, since setting things free tends to lead to chaos more often than it leads to order. Would the Looser hang out with the Trickster and/or Eris? When might you call the Looser? Perhaps when your creativity is blocked, provided you aren't downstream of a big dam during rainy season. Perhaps when someone owes you money and is reluctant to pay, but not if you have a history of such medical problems as diarrhea or uncontrolled bleeding. And so on. Since this happened on a Pagan-oriented list I posted these thoughts there. Two other people then chimed in with descriptions of things in their lives they needed to let go of. So this may have started something. The gods often work in devious ways. ********************* There's a story in the paper about a man convicted of kidnapping plus ten counts of child molestation. He's been sentenced to 251 years in jail, but could get out in about 212 years if he behaves well. Most people seem to be assuming he'll spend the rest of his life behind bars. But the science-fiction fan in me begins to wonder about that. He's 40 now. Suppose sometime during the next 20 or 30 years we get a series of breakthroughs in medical science, extending the human lifespan indefinitely. And suppose there's no law allowing the authorities to withhold life-prolonging treatments if prisoners want them. So when the year 2213 (or 2252 if he behaves badly in prison) rolls around he's still alive, his sentence is up, and he's a free man. Now what? Will other aspects of medical science have also progressed, so that whatever mental aberration led him to kidnap and molest a young girl can be cured and he can safely rejoin society? If that happens will some still demand vengeance rather than rehabilitation? Or will society have outgrown the need for revenge? On the other hand, what if they can cure the physical body but not the mind? Maybe they still have to let him go, but if they do there's a good chance he'll return to his predatory ways. Then what? One possibility is some new law that would extend his sentence, more or less retroactively. Another is what amounts of euthanasia, as distinct from the death penalty. These may be unconstitutional now, but we're talking about a future as far from today as today is from when the U.S. Constitution was first written. A lot can happen during that time, perhaps even a change to some completely different system of government. If you or I are still alive between about 2213 and 2252 this could get interesting. Mark your calendars. ********************* In another forum somebody was talking about the reincarnated Buddha and/or Christ, now supposedly living in London and soon to go public. Others expressed doubts about this. That got me to wondering how such a person knows he's the reincarnated Buddha, and how he would differ from people who are merely deluded into thinking that they're the reincarnated Buddha. Such a person might have memories of other lives (assuming reincarnation is real), but can such memories be distinguished from delusions? I suppose one test is that a real reincarnated Buddha should be able to function in the world well enough to stay out of insane asylums while successfully building a following. Or would the reincarnated Buddha want to get put in an insane asylum as some sort of penance or martyrdom or something? We lesser mortals can't really know for certain. Like many religious questions, this has no clear answer that followers of other faiths will agree with. ********************* There was a solar eclipse (not visible in the U.S.) a few weeks ago, and there was an earthquake in South America around the same time. And then somebody made a prediction to the effect that scientists would soon find a connection between eclipses and quakes. I'm kind of skeptical of a connection with eclipses, but I do see the possibility of there being a connection with moon phase, with more quakes around New Moon and Full Moon. Those are the times tidal forces on the Earth are strongest (lunar and solar tides adding) and tidal forces may be the last straw if a fault is just about ready to let go. So why don't all quakes happen at those times? Because faults run in different directions, and their sensitivity to things like tidal forces is sort of like a directional antenna. Thus some faults would be in a position (literally) to be triggered by tidal forces while others wouldn't. Because of that, if you were to lump statistics from all faults together it would obscure the connection. You need to study each fault separately, or maybe sort them by orientation. Is anybody doing research in this area? ********************* July 20 was the 25th anniversary of one of the Mars landings. Thus this: Draining the Last Canal "It's landed! It's finally landed!" "Let's go see it!" "What if it sees us?" "Don't worry. It has eyes only for the physical. We could form a mob and advance on it with pitchforks and torches and plaster it with posters and graffiti and make obscene gestures right into the lens and still it would ignore us." "But surely among its masters are a few who are not blind. Won't they see us?" "They have seen us for centuries already without artificial aid. Physical sight forms a barrier: If we want them to see us we must approach from behind, lurking just outside the picture: Or else retreat behind a dune, or better yet, the horizon." "Retreat, retreat, retreat. First to remote areas of their world, then to here, and soon to places beyond. Will it ever ens?" "Probably not, since that is why they created us: To give them something to follow to remote lands, then here, and eventually the stars." "The stars... Enough to last quite a while. But then???" "We'll think of something." "We always do." Thomas G. Digby written 0205 hr 7/24/76 entered 2225 hr 2/08/92 ********************* HOW TO GET SILICON SOAPWARE EMAILED TO YOU If you're getting it via email and the headers show the originating site as "lists.best.com" you're getting the list version, and anything you send to DigbyZine@lists.best.com will be posted. That's the one you want if you like conversation. There's usually a burst of activity after each issue, dying down to almost nothing in between. But any post can spark a new flurry. If there's no mention of "lists.best.com" in the headers, you're getting the BCC version. That's the one for those who want just Silicon Soapware with no banter. The content is the same for both. To get on or off the conversation-list version send email to DigbyZine-request@lists.best.com with the word "subscribe" (to get on the list) or "unsubscribe" (to get off) in the body, but nothing else (except maybe your signature if that's automatic). 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