[conspire] OT: Science Fiction, places to start

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Edward Cherlin (echerlin at gmail.com):


> It's funny, I never know what will set you off.

Indeed.  That would be why you impugned the morals of my father right in
the middle of the house where he and my mother raised me, after I'd
mentioned to you that I strive to be as good a man as he is, and
respected in particular a deed he carried out after discharge from the
Army Air Corps.

And that would be why you had the gall to _argue_ after I got tired of
CABAL attendees behaving like a bunch of mannerless hooligans in my
house and lowered the boom on their misbehaviour.

But, hey, at least you've moved to Indiana, which fixed most of the
problem.


> Perhaps you have no idea what you are talking about, but like any of
> Socrates's victims, are entirely unaware of that fact because you are
> so knowledgeable about other matters. 

OK, I'll bite.  What about _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress's_ informal
Luna management before the revolt, the professor's entirely mild notion
of 'rational anarchism', Terra's power blocs that are pretty much the
same as today except with more consolidation, and the Luna post-revolt
government's devolution into a control-freak compendium of rules
qualifies as the 'most vicious and elitist fantasy politics and revolution 
[you] have ever read', to the point that you forgot entirely to complain
about _Starship Troopers_?  Try to be specific.  (You can look the word
up.)

> You raised the issue.

Nope.  In your dreams.

> Atlas Shrugged is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be
...parodied under the name 'alt.Shrugged', with yr. humble servant as a
minor character.

> It means a computer that you allegedly have to talk to in Loglan
> because it can't understand English accurately, that somehow passes
> the Turing test in real time with flying colors, as a pivotal member
> of an entirely self-unaware revolutionary conspiracy that throws its
> political opponents out airlocks.

(Ah, a sense of the word 'deviant' with which I was previously
unaquainted.)

Although it certainly would fit Luna society if the Loonies threw any
particularly troublesome counter-revolutionaries out the airlock (that
being a common fix for problem people in a mileu lacking in resources),
I don't recall any particular use of that treatment (even in the 'Won't 
someone git rid of this annoyance? sense) by the revolt's leaders.   The
novel said it was primarily applied to any male observed attacking a
woman, on account of the 10:1 or so male/female ratio.  

Do I even want to _know_ what you think 'self-unaware' means?

Anyhow, you have opinions.  Bully for you.  Feel free to send Yudhvir
your own damned list.

> I rest my case.  _You_ turn into a cardboard cutout character when you
> get angry. ^_^

I'm not angry, just a bit disgusted.  And I want my time back.


> Except, of course, when they were. By you.

No, they weren't.

I sent a list of novels.  Other people argued that various non-novels
should have been included.  I discussed them, and pointed out that I was
dealing only with novels.

Now, you have wasted enough of my time.  Please go away.