[tears] The Tenth Planet by Edmund Cooper

[James Nicoll]

The Tenth Planet by Edmund Cooper
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/smiles-awake-you-when-you-rise
--
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

[a425couple]

On 11/15/2020 6:27 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
> The Tenth Planet by Edmund Cooper
> https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/smiles-awake-you-when-you-rise
>

-"I was struck by the contrast between The Tenth Planet and
-Moon of the Crusted Snow , which I reviewed yesterday. Both
-books are about surviving catastrophe. But whereas Crusted Snow
-applauds a peaceful, cooperative First nations community and
-paints the assertive white visitor as a villain, The Tenth Planet
-takes the side of the disruptive, violent outsider. I didn’t plan
-this contrast, but there it is.

- I didn’t read all that many Cooper novels when I was a teen.
- Rereading this one reminds me why. "

OK.
However I found both Edmund Cooper's
"Seed of Light" (generation ship tale)
and "A Far Sunset" to be interesting and
worthwhile.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1931069.Seed_of_Light
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GU333AA/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Far_Sunset
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1113527.A_Far_Sunset
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00H6SOCYY/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

[Quadibloc]

I might not sympathize with a guy like Idris in real life, but suspension of disbelief
would allow me to sympathize with him in the book.

Or, perhaps more to the point, I would not sympathize with the Minervans, since
they don't seem to be a freedom-loving society. Human survival is only meaningful
if it also comes with the survival of liberty. And the failure of Mars... oh, I'm willing
to accept that it _happened_ and isn't something the Minervans made up, but I
still find it implausible; something the author contrived to create his situation.

People don't have to be regimented and controlled to keep them from having
nuclear wars - it's the tyrants who try to conquer the world that cause those.
So I'm unsympathetic to the Instrumentality, and hostile to those computers in...
oh, I can't remember the name of the book offhand, and could not easily
find it in a Google search.

John Savard

[rksh...@rosettacondot.com]

James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> The Tenth Planet by Edmund Cooper
> https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/smiles-awake-you-when-you-rise

For some reason I recognize the name, but I don't recall reading any of the
author's work. This is surprising...during the period he was being published
I read pretty much everything that was available in the SF section of the
library, bookstore or supermarket.
My first thought was that this was due to his being British, but I see that
most of his works should have been available in the US. Very strange...
OTOH it doesn't sound like I missed out on much.

Robert
--
Robert K. Shull Email: rkshull at rosettacon dot com

[Quadibloc]

On Sunday, November 15, 2020 at 10:41:52 PM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:

> So I'm unsympathetic to the Instrumentality, and hostile to those computers in...
> oh, I can't remember the name of the book offhand, and could not easily
> find it in a Google search.

Found it. "The Memory of Earth" by Orson Scott Card.

Did not know it was a fictionalized version of the Book of Mormon. My, one
learns new things every day.

John Savard

[Kevrob]

> --
Over the years I've brought up "Son of Kronk," which was "Kronk" here in
the States, a few times. As a novel with a pandemic as a plot, it has some
relevance in 2020, but the pathogen is spread sexually, so it isn't on the
nose - or any other body part!

I imagine one could write a long piece with the theme "Edmund Cooper
Had Problems With Women."
_ _
Kevin R
a.a #2310

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <5236aa23-6378-4851...@googlegroups.com>,

The more you knew about Card, the less this would've surprised
you.

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

[Paul S Person]

A lot of his writing is similar.

I found that series to be ... less than exciting.

But the first two books of Alvin Maker were definitely worth reading.

/Folk of the Fringe/ was quite interesting, albeit explicitly Mormon.
/Saints/ was so good I wanted it to continue on, just to see what
happened next.

The most surprising were the "Women of Genesis" stories. The
Patriarchs were, apparently, depicted according to Mormon belief (they
spent all their time copying mysterious books from scroll to scroll),
so the ladies ran the show.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

[Robert Woodward]

In article <qJwE9...@kithrup.com>,

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:

> In article <5236aa23-6378-4851...@googlegroups.com>,
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >On Sunday, November 15, 2020 at 10:41:52 PM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:
> >
> >> So I'm unsympathetic to the Instrumentality, and hostile to those
> >computers in...
> >> oh, I can't remember the name of the book offhand, and could not easily
> >> find it in a Google search.
> >
> >Found it. "The Memory of Earth" by Orson Scott Card.
> >
> >Did not know it was a fictionalized version of the Book of Mormon. My, one
> >learns new things every day.
>
> The more you knew about Card, the less this would've surprised
> you.

Once upon a time, decades ago, I was at a convention, where the GOH
(Philip Jose Farmer), mentioned the Book of Mormon as a possible source
for science fiction (or fantasy, I can't remember which). Orson Scott
Card was in the audience.

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
ã-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robe...@drizzle.com

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On 16 Nov 2020 at 19:05:23 GMT, "Robert Woodward" <robe...@drizzle.com>
wrote:

> In article <qJwE9...@kithrup.com>,
> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
>> In article <5236aa23-6378-4851...@googlegroups.com>,
>> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>> >On Sunday, November 15, 2020 at 10:41:52 PM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:
>> >
>> >> So I'm unsympathetic to the Instrumentality, and hostile to those
>> >computers in...
>> >> oh, I can't remember the name of the book offhand, and could not easily
>> >> find it in a Google search.
>> >
>> >Found it. "The Memory of Earth" by Orson Scott Card.
>> >
>> >Did not know it was a fictionalized version of the Book of Mormon. My, one
>> >learns new things every day.
>>
>> The more you knew about Card, the less this would've surprised
>> you.
>
> Once upon a time, decades ago, I was at a convention, where the GOH
> (Philip Jose Farmer), mentioned the Book of Mormon as a possible source
> for science fiction (or fantasy, I can't remember which). Orson Scott
> Card was in the audience.

If only L Ron Hubbard had been there too...

Cheers - Jaimie
--
Some people have years of experience.
Some have one year's experience several times.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <robertaw-8267C5...@news.individual.net>,

Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com> wrote:
>In article <qJwE9...@kithrup.com>,
> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
>> In article <5236aa23-6378-4851...@googlegroups.com>,
>> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>> >On Sunday, November 15, 2020 at 10:41:52 PM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:
>> >
>> >> So I'm unsympathetic to the Instrumentality, and hostile to those
>> >computers in...
>> >> oh, I can't remember the name of the book offhand, and could not easily
>> >> find it in a Google search.
>> >
>> >Found it. "The Memory of Earth" by Orson Scott Card.
>> >
>> >Did not know it was a fictionalized version of the Book of Mormon. My, one
>> >learns new things every day.
>>
>> The more you knew about Card, the less this would've surprised
>> you.
>
>Once upon a time, decades ago, I was at a convention, where the GOH
>(Philip Jose Farmer), mentioned the Book of Mormon as a possible source
>for science fiction (or fantasy, I can't remember which). Orson Scott
>Card was in the audience.
>

Wow! Was Glen A Larson there too?
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[William Hyde]

On Sunday, November 15, 2020 at 9:27:28 AM UTC-5, James Nicoll wrote:
> The Tenth Planet by Edmund Cooper
> https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/smiles-awake-you-when-you-rise

I read quite a bit of Edmund Cooper when he was an active writer, though not this particular one. I always felt that he was semi-fanthorping these, that he could be writing better, if fewer books. One or two seemed to rise above the rest.

On the day of my first hangover, I read three novels, one of them a Cooper. It remains a favourite Cooper, perhaps because I was feeling far better by the end of the book. But I do recall some lines about art which had nothing to to with babes, busty or otherwise.

William Hyde

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Mon, 16 Nov 2020 08:46:40 -0800 (PST), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>
wrote:

>On Monday, November 16, 2020 at 11:03:08 AM UTC-5, rksh...@rosettacondot.com wrote:
>> James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>> > The Tenth Planet by Edmund Cooper
>> > https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/smiles-awake-you-when-you-rise
>> For some reason I recognize the name, but I don't recall reading any of the
>> author's work. This is surprising...during the period he was being published
>> I read pretty much everything that was available in the SF section of the
>> library, bookstore or supermarket.
>> My first thought was that this was due to his being British, but I see that
>> most of his works should have been available in the US. Very strange...
>> OTOH it doesn't sound like I missed out on much.
>>

>Over the years I've brought up "Son of Kronk," which was "Kronk" here in
>the States, a few times. As a novel with a pandemic as a plot, it has some
>relevance in 2020, but the pathogen is spread sexually, so it isn't on the
>nose - or any other body part!
>
>I imagine one could write a long piece with the theme "Edmund Cooper
>Had Problems With Women."

Definitely. I often cite his Five to Twelve as one of the stupidest
SF novels ever published; not only is the entire premise idiotic, and
the "solution" based on the most ridiculous misunderstanding of
genetics I've ever seen, but the idea that women outnumbering men
twelve to five is an absolute catastrophe to be remedied by any means
possible... well, let's just say some of us don't see it that way.



--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
My latest novel is Stone Unturned: A Legend of Ethshar.
See http://www.ethshar.com/StoneUnturned.shtml

[Quadibloc]

I certainly don't.

John Savard

[Robert Woodward]

In article
<6k66rfl9q4crag9p9...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,

I believe that female/male ratio isn't as bad as Paraguay's was after
the War of the Triple Alliance. Paraguay was hosed for decades
afterwords, but it was the economic destruction that was the problem,
not demographic (which, of course, solved itself in one generation).

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.

-------------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robe...@drizzle.com

[The Horny Goat]

On Mon, 16 Nov 2020 16:39:22 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
Heydt) wrote:

>In article <5236aa23-6378-4851...@googlegroups.com>,
>Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>On Sunday, November 15, 2020 at 10:41:52 PM UTC-7, Quadibloc wrote:
>>
>>Found it. "The Memory of Earth" by Orson Scott Card.
>>
>>Did not know it was a fictionalized version of the Book of Mormon. My, one
>>learns new things every day.
>
>The more you knew about Card, the less this would've surprised
>you.

Never heard of that book though no question having read a dozen or so
Card books (e.g. the entire Ender Opus plus the Alvin Maker series -
where the LDS stuff REALLY comes out) it's clear which side of the
altar rail he prays on.

[Quadibloc]

But, on the other hand, a society where women are enslaved _is_ "an absolute
catastrophe to be remedied by any means possible", and the same applies to
one where men are enslaved.

And vat-girls are precisely a means to avoid enslaving women and to avoid
enslaving men - women don't need to be enslaved in order for there to be a
wife for every man, and men don't need to be enslaved in order for the violent
(or at least disruptive) impulses of men without wives to be contained.

John Savard

[Paul S Person]

Was it as funny as the explanation of "XYY" in Dario Argento's /The
Cat O' Nine Tails/?

[Paul S Person]

Leaving, presumably, only the violent (or at least disruptive)
impulses of men with wifes to be contained.

[Robert Woodward]

In article <i1g2qp...@mid.individual.net>,

I don't think so. BTW, "Battlestar Galactica" was a current TV show then.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

Haven't seen that, so I can't say. The idea was that the hero turns
out to be YY -- no X at all -- and not only is he alive and
functioning and siring sons (and only sons), but it BREEDS TRUE. His
sons are ALSO YY.

I threw the book across the room.

[William Hyde]

I haven't read that, but at least XYY cases exist, about one in a thousand males. YY leads to death before birth. Among other things a YY person would be almost without clotting factor.

Aneuploidy has shown up in a fair number of SF works.

I seem to recall Niven and Pournelle had XYY males (or maybe XYYY) as some sort of testosterone fueled super-soldiers in some pre-Mote works. Apparently this was conventional wisdom in the 70s.

A quick google search tells me there was a set of British crime novels and a TV series based on this. Somehow didn't qualify for "Masterpiece Theater". Alastair Cooke was probably a jealous XY type.

Ursula Leguin was equally wrong (again IIRC) in "nine lives" where female clones of a male were created by removing the Y chromosome. That would lead to females, but by definition they'd have Turner syndrome, leading to heart problems and diabetes, among other issues. Even the folks in "Brave New World" would frown on inflicting that.

Not a good record for SF authors, though Fred Pohl did point out, correctly, the existence of XY women in "Day Million" and Rossiter played with the concept of aneuploidy in "Tetrasomy Two" in a more informed way.

William Hyde

[William Hyde]

I don't believe I finished that one.

>
> I threw the book across the room.

At relativistic speed, one assumes.

William Hyde

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <6374c7c5-692d-45c4...@googlegroups.com>,

William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Ursula Leguin was equally wrong (again IIRC) in "nine lives" where
>female clones of a male were created by removing the Y chromosome.

Didn't Heinlein do something of the sort in one of the books I
didn't read, but only saw discussed?

And was it he or Randall Garrett that wrote the filksong that
begin,

"Oh, give me a clone of my own flesh and bone,
With the Y chromosome changed to an X...." ?

> That
>would lead to females, but by definition they'd have Turner syndrome,
>leading to heart problems and diabetes, among other issues. Even the
>folks in "Brave New World" would frown on inflicting that.

I suppose you could take two ova and replace the Y (if present)
with an X from the other ovum.

Or just fuse two ova.

Given technology I don't think we have yet.

[Quadibloc]

On Tuesday, November 17, 2020 at 2:24:09 PM UTC-7, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:

> Haven't seen that, so I can't say. The idea was that the hero turns
> out to be YY -- no X at all -- and not only is he alive and
> functioning and siring sons (and only sons), but it BREEDS TRUE. His
> sons are ALSO YY.

There is one way in which that could work. Their mothers could also be YY.

Which is, I suppose, only slightly less improbable than for a YY male to be
alive.

John Savard

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <qJyox...@kithrup.com>,

Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>In article <6374c7c5-692d-45c4...@googlegroups.com>,
>William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>Ursula Leguin was equally wrong (again IIRC) in "nine lives" where
>>female clones of a male were created by removing the Y chromosome.
>
>Didn't Heinlein do something of the sort in one of the books I
>didn't read, but only saw discussed?
>
>And was it he or Randall Garrett that wrote the filksong that
>begin,
>
>"Oh, give me a clone of my own flesh and bone,
>With the Y chromosome changed to an X...." ?
>

I thought it was Gordon Dickson for some reason.

[J. Clarke]

On Tue, 17 Nov 2020 07:23:09 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc

Quadi, please cite the peer-reviewed research on which you base your
contention that "men without wives" have "violent impulses" that men
with wives do not. And while you're about it, explain serial killers
who are often married and with large families.


>
>John Savard

[Robert Carnegie]

Maybe the sperm come out with two Ys and they gang up on the
X and eject it from the ovum.

Regardless, is this a solution to the gender balance problem, or
does it just end up with 99 percent of the human population being
YY men?

From explanations at
<https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/883640.Five_To_Twelve>
<http://www.trashfiction.co.uk/who_needs_men.html>
I cannot tell that there /is/ a problem in the story world.

The slight information on _Who Needs Men?_ suggests
that it is (i.) technically "science fiction romance"
and (ii.) more than slightly worse.

[Quadibloc]

On Tuesday, November 17, 2020 at 3:55:47 PM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:

> Quadi, please cite the peer-reviewed research on which you base your
> contention that "men without wives" have "violent impulses" that men
> with wives do not. And while you're about it, explain serial killers
> who are often married and with large families.

Although I do not have peer-reviewed scientific papers to point you to,
I do have two books by George Gilder, esteemed as America's #1
futurist - Sexual Suicide and Naked Nomads.

So I am not without CITED SOURCES, even if they may be no more
reliable than Edgar Cayce in your estimation.

John Savard

[J. Clarke]

On Tue, 17 Nov 2020 16:51:52 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
<jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>On Tuesday, November 17, 2020 at 3:55:47 PM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:
>
>> Quadi, please cite the peer-reviewed research on which you base your
>> contention that "men without wives" have "violent impulses" that men
>> with wives do not. And while you're about it, explain serial killers
>> who are often married and with large families.
>
>Although I do not have peer-reviewed scientific papers to point you to,
>I do have two books by George Gilder, esteemed as America's #1
>futurist - Sexual Suicide and Naked Nomads.

Do you have any books by anyone who disagrees with him? This is the
trouble with autodidacts, you read one source and think that you know
the whole story. On any topic, find a book you like. Then find one
by somebody who thinks the author is a crackpot.

>So I am not without CITED SOURCES, even if they may be no more
>reliable than Edgar Cayce in your estimation.

One can find "sources" for just about any viewpoint. That doesn't
mean that those sources have any relationship with reality.

You want to completely reshape society based on the opinion of one
author who most people have never heard of.

[Quadibloc]

As the posts of Ed Conrad illustrated. But I guess that reference is
about things that are as old as coal to most people now...

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Tuesday, November 17, 2020 at 6:29:45 PM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:

> You want to completely reshape society based on the opinion of one
> author who most people have never heard of.

Oh, no. There's also Elaine Morgan and Andrew Bard Schmookler, whose
works, in my estimation, have unlocked the key to the predicament of the
human condition.

Incidentally, there's a web site that says it has solved "The Human Condition",
but I think they've gotten their central thesis exactly backwards; it's human
impulsive emotions, not their rationality, which is the sorce of most evil
behavior.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Tuesday, November 17, 2020 at 6:29:45 PM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:

> You want to completely reshape society based on the opinion of one
> author who most people have never heard of.

And the other thing is that it's not as if my rationale came absolutely
out of nowhere, based only on this one author expressing a claim that
never occurred to anyone else.

It's been common wisdon that young single males are the source of
most crime.

And that the improved status of women has made them less economically
dependent on men is a fact, and that this has had the sort of consequences
I've been warning about is illustrated by the "incel" movement and the
Montreal Massacre.

The world is indeed falling apart right now; the economy is collapsing,
and just as the Depression led to Hitler's rise to power, the continuing
economic malaise has led to Donald Trump getting elected.

We need to do something to prevent Russia and China from taking
over the world. Vat-girls are something.

John Savard

[J. Clarke]

On Tue, 17 Nov 2020 18:04:09 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
<jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>On Tuesday, November 17, 2020 at 6:29:45 PM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:
>
>> You want to completely reshape society based on the opinion of one
>> author who most people have never heard of.
>
>And the other thing is that it's not as if my rationale came absolutely
>out of nowhere, based only on this one author expressing a claim that
>never occurred to anyone else.
>
>It's been common wisdon that young single males are the source of
>most crime.

You're making a stronger argument for arranged marriages before
puberty than you are for vat-girls with that one.

>And that the improved status of women has made them less economically
>dependent on men is a fact, and that this has had the sort of consequences
>I've been warning about is illustrated by the "incel" movement and the
>Montreal Massacre.

The "incel movement" is not due to a lack of willing women, it's due
to a group of men who have no clue how to approach those women getting
together to commiserate.

As for the Montreal Massacre, haters gotta hate. In the US he would
have shot up a bunch of black people or white people or Mexicans or
whatever ethnicity he thought was oppressing him. Canada doesn't have
minorities to that extent so he decided it was women.

>The world is indeed falling apart right now; the economy is collapsing,
>and just as the Depression led to Hitler's rise to power, the continuing
>economic malaise has led to Donald Trump getting elected.

It would be news to Wall Street that there is "economic malaise", and
anyone who calls it "malaise" is as feckless as Jimmy Carter, who
spent his entire Presidency whining instead of actually improving
anything.

>We need to do something to prevent Russia and China from taking
>over the world. Vat-girls are something.

Russia? At this point if they hadn't given up war, Japan could roll
over Russia. They've got nearly the same population and 3 times the
GDP. Russia's done. If they decide to get into a shooting war the EU
will steamroller them, most likely meeting China in the middle.

The world will be much better off when all the old farts who think
that Russia is the Big Bad kick it.

As for China, there is not a fucking thing that the United
States can do to keep China from taking over the world. We have the
same chance of that as Hitler did against the US and Russia. They
have a vastly larger population and their economy is already close to
or past parity. Meanwhile the US has turned itself into the Soviet
Union where the only actual industry we have is weapons, but the
Chinese have the example of how to deal with that--just spend twice as
much on weapons as we do and we'll bankrupt ourselves trying to
compete--they'll be able to afford to spend twice as much if their
economy is three times the size of ours.

If we act now and take a big one for the team, we can slow them down,
but we'll end ourselves in the process, and you'll probably catch
enough misses to end you as well, leaving Mexico the dominant power on
what's left of the North American continent.

[peterw...@hotmail.com]

On Tuesday, November 17, 2020 at 4:35:04 PM UTC-6, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <6374c7c5-692d-45c4...@googlegroups.com>,
> William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >Ursula Leguin was equally wrong (again IIRC) in "nine lives" where
> >female clones of a male were created by removing the Y chromosome.
> Didn't Heinlein do something of the sort in one of the books I
> didn't read, but only saw discussed?

In Heinlein's novel _Time Enough for Love_, thousands of years in the future,
some of Lazarus Long's cells are cloned with the Y chromosomes replaced
with a duplicate of his X chromosome, resulting in the birth of twin girls, who
are raised as daughters by Lazarus and the two gestational hosts.

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist

[Jerry Brown]

I remember the TV show, particularly the protagonist getting
waterboarded in the first episode (which traumatised 11 year old me
for a while). I also didn't know it existed as an interrogation
technique as far back as the seventies.

--
Jerry Brown

A cat may look at a king
(but probably won't bother)

[Magewolf]

Saber Marionette J has the premise of a world of only men after a colony
ship accident that left only male survivors and destroyed their supply of
stored genetic material. The problem being that it is stated in the back
story that they were able to recombine the genes of the seven survivors
enough that their clone-sons could produce an entire planet full of
diverse men with no worries. Which leads to the problem of why the first
generation of offspring were not fifty\fifty male female since they had
all those X chromosomes laying around. That idea would have worked a lot
better with a world of only women since they would have had to make a Y
chromosome from scratch.

Of course the premise was just an excuse to have a lot of hot female
androids running around and a quest for a living woman.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

And/or, wish-fulfillment of a world in which men are men and
women aren't really people and needn't be treated as such.

Really, the problem with such stories is the concept that humans
arriving on a new planet, under however unfavorable conditions,
*must* contrive somehow to reproduce and populate the planet with
humans. An extreme example being Randall Garrett's "The Queen
Bee."

[Robert Carnegie]

From Wikipedia, in this case, it seems to be why they went.

If that was not the case, they might have just settled for
the hot female androids.

[David Johnston]

On 2020-11-17 7:04 p.m., Quadibloc wrote:
> On Tuesday, November 17, 2020 at 6:29:45 PM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:
>
>> You want to completely reshape society based on the opinion of one
>> author who most people have never heard of.
>
> And the other thing is that it's not as if my rationale came absolutely
> out of nowhere, based only on this one author expressing a claim that
> never occurred to anyone else.
>
> It's been common wisdon that young single males are the source of
> most crime.

Has the thought ever occurred to you that habitual criminals are
unlikely to marry?

[Quadibloc]

On Wednesday, November 18, 2020 at 9:40:04 AM UTC-7, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:

> Really, the problem with such stories is the concept that humans
> arriving on a new planet, under however unfavorable conditions,
> *must* contrive somehow to reproduce and populate the planet with
> humans. An extreme example being Randall Garrett's "The Queen
> Bee."

As long as the planet doesn't already belong to another race of
intelligent beings, what's the problem?

Actually, of course, there is one problem. Assuming that there are
already innumerable planets already in the galaxy that are populated
by humans, as opposed to the case where the spaceship houses the
"last survivors of a doomed planet Earth", one could indeed ask why
they couldn't just give up the planet as a bad job.

However, even with _that_ problem being present, apparently the humans
who arrived on this planet could not simply hop back into their spaceship,
and either go back home, or find another planet.

In this case, they _do_ have a plausible motivation. If they don't manage
to reproduce, their individual lines will die out. They and their accomplishments
will not be commemorated by an eternal line of descendants. This is considered
a bad thing in Chinese culture, and it's even considered a bad thing in our
Western culture, even if it isn't as visibly emphasized.

So exercising a little scientific ingenuity to make up for an unfortunate
accident that took place on their voyage doesn't really seem all that
implausible or peculiar to me at all.

John Savard

[William Hyde]

On Tuesday, November 17, 2020 at 5:35:04 PM UTC-5, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <6374c7c5-692d-45c4...@googlegroups.com>,
> William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >Ursula Leguin was equally wrong (again IIRC) in "nine lives" where
> >female clones of a male were created by removing the Y chromosome.
> Didn't Heinlein do something of the sort in one of the books I
> didn't read, but only saw discussed?

As someone pointed out downthread, that was done in "Time Enough for Love", but done correctly, with two x chromosomes.

>
> And was it he or Randall Garrett that wrote the filksong that
> begin,
>
> "Oh, give me a clone of my own flesh and bone,
> With the Y chromosome changed to an X...." ?

I recall reading this in Asimov somewhere. He attributed it to Garrett.

That at least would produce a healthy person.

> > That
> >would lead to females, but by definition they'd have Turner syndrome,
> >leading to heart problems and diabetes, among other issues. Even the
> >folks in "Brave New World" would frown on inflicting that.
> I suppose you could take two ova and replace the Y (if present)
> with an X from the other ovum.

My guess is that LeGuin spoke to someone who would know about these things, but that person was older, and was trained before the cause of Turner Syndrome was discovered.

William Hyde

[William Hyde]

Actually, as zero is not less than zero, exactly as improbable.

All scenarios with YY survivors have zero probability.

But granted that, a YY male, could one exist, could have a YY son with an XY female, which do exist and at least some are fertile. There would be a tiny but non-zero chance of an XY daughter.

There's no way to save Edmund Cooper on this one. As I said, part of the time he just didn't seem to be trying.

William Hyde

[William Hyde]

It goes back at least as far as the Spanish Inquisition, where it was used frequently.

William Hyde

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <67a16d5d-7e25-4bad...@googlegroups.com>,
William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> [eliminating a Y chromosome]

>> >would lead to females, but by definition they'd have Turner syndrome,
>> >leading to heart problems and diabetes, among other issues. Even the
>> >folks in "Brave New World" would frown on inflicting that.
>> I suppose you could take two ova and replace the Y (if present)
>> with an X from the other ovum.
>
>My guess is that LeGuin spoke to someone who would know about these
>things, but that person was older, and was trained before the cause of
>Turner Syndrome was discovered.

Perhaps.

/google

Turner Syndrome was first described in 1938; first observed case
with 45 chromosomes in 1959; _LHoD_ published 1969.

Some SF is based more on "what if?" than on "how can I justify
this happening?". LeGuin was working with "what would people be
like if they were male and/or female by turns?", not with "how
would this work on a genetic basis?"

I'm not a geneticist either, and if I had to pretend to be one
for fictional purposes, I'd probably invent some gene on another
chromosome that sometimes suppressed the Y chromosome and
sometimes didn't.

This happens naturally in some animals, oysters e.g.

Or, as Ogden Nash put it,

"The oyster's a confusing suitor;
It's masc., and fem., and sometimes neuter.
I'd like to be an oyster, say,
In August, June, July, or May."

Because summer is their breeding season, "...during the warm
summer months when natural oysters tend to be unsavory, either
because their bodies are comprised mostly of gonads, or because
they become thin and watery after spawning."

From this article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/09/todays-oysters-are-mutants/380858/

About how the oysters served raw on the half-shell are
genetically engineered triploids, who can be eaten year-round
because they don't breed.

OfSF: Turtledove, _Earthgrip_.

[J. Clarke]

On Wed, 18 Nov 2020 13:12:26 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
<jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>On Wednesday, November 18, 2020 at 9:40:04 AM UTC-7, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>
>> Really, the problem with such stories is the concept that humans
>> arriving on a new planet, under however unfavorable conditions,
>> *must* contrive somehow to reproduce and populate the planet with
>> humans. An extreme example being Randall Garrett's "The Queen
>> Bee."
>
>As long as the planet doesn't already belong to another race of
>intelligent beings, what's the problem?
>
>Actually, of course, there is one problem. Assuming that there are
>already innumerable planets already in the galaxy that are populated
>by humans, as opposed to the case where the spaceship houses the
>"last survivors of a doomed planet Earth", one could indeed ask why
>they couldn't just give up the planet as a bad job.
>
>However, even with _that_ problem being present, apparently the humans
>who arrived on this planet could not simply hop back into their spaceship,
>and either go back home, or find another planet.
>
>In this case, they _do_ have a plausible motivation. If they don't manage
>to reproduce, their individual lines will die out. They and their accomplishments
>will not be commemorated by an eternal line of descendants. This is considered
>a bad thing in Chinese culture, and it's even considered a bad thing in our
>Western culture, even if it isn't as visibly emphasized.

How about facing the prospect of being old and decrepit in a hostile
environment?

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <vj7brfh36h46kl2g6...@4ax.com>,

Having children with the expectation that they will obediently
take care of you in your old age might work in
China--specifically, it might have worked in China in previous
centuries--but outside an ancestor-dominated culture, it's not
the way to bet.

How about facing the prospect of bringing babies--which is how we
all start out-- into a hostile environment?

[J. Clarke]

I'm not talking about one on one kids taking care of parents. I'm
talking about having _somebody_ to do it who is actually capable of
doing so. Just about every society makes some provision for the
elderly.

>How about facing the prospect of bringing babies--which is how we
>all start out-- into a hostile environment?

That's the babies' problem.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Reality would like a word with you about that.

--
<to be filled in at a later date>

[David Johnston]

And what would it say?

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <n2cbrf9dlves38mg8...@4ax.com>,

I hope you don't have any children.

[Dimensional Traveler]

That you're wrong. There are lots a married habitual criminals. Many
of them even get married AFTER they get sent to prison.

[J. Clarke]

On Thu, 19 Nov 2020 00:25:55 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J

Why? You seem to have a very odd view of the lives of people living
under primitive conditions. If bringing babies into a hostile
environment was something counter to human nature, then we would not
exist as a species. Remember that our natural ecological niche is
"cat food".

[Joy Beeson]

On Tue, 17 Nov 2020 13:24:06 -0800, Lawrence Watt-Evans
<misencha...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Haven't seen that, so I can't say. The idea was that the hero turns
> out to be YY -- no X at all -- and not only is he alive and
> functioning and siring sons (and only sons), but it BREEDS TRUE. His
> sons are ALSO YY.

I didn't notice that part. I was distracted by the observation that
The "happy ending" was the extermination of the human race.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

[Robert Carnegie]

Some more than once!

Some, that is why they were sent to prison!

Anyway, look at President Trump!

[Gary R. Schmidt]

In my experience, even if if they're *unmarried*, habitual criminals
have lots of offspring, also usually from a variety of partners...

But here in Oz we probably have different mores affecting such things.

Cheers,
Gary B-)

--
Waiting for a new signature to suggest itself...

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <5nnbrfpuadu7iarn5...@4ax.com>,

Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>On Tue, 17 Nov 2020 13:24:06 -0800, Lawrence Watt-Evans
><misencha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Haven't seen that, so I can't say. The idea was that the hero turns
>> out to be YY -- no X at all -- and not only is he alive and
>> functioning and siring sons (and only sons), but it BREEDS TRUE. His
>> sons are ALSO YY.

Yes, it would be interesting to get Mr. Cooper (who, I gather, is
no longer with us*) what his characters do about all the missing
genes that reside on the X chromosome.

>I didn't notice that part. I was distracted by the observation that
>The "happy ending" was the extermination of the human race.

/sigh

Many people on this planet would consider that a happy ending.
And I'd say, "You first."

_____
*/google; yes, died 1982. I was struck by the picture of him on
the Google page; there was such a strong overhead light that his
eyes were completely shadowed, and he looked like the Half-orcs
in LotRO.

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&authuser=0&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1488&bih=947&ei=6O21X4rjJdjU-gTm6KGoBw&q=LotRO+half-orcs&oq=LotRO+half-orcs&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzoFCAAQsQM6CAgAELEDEIMBOgIIADoGCAAQCBAeOgQIABAYUIEYWPA0YJE3aABwAHgAgAFKiAHMB5IBAjE1mAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWc&sclient=img&ved=0ahUKEwiK98qr3I3tAhVYqp4KHWZ0CHUQ4dUDCAY&uact=5#imgrc=kgSbtvSMrYlRtM

[J. Clarke]

On Thu, 19 Nov 2020 14:47:52 +1100, "Gary R. Schmidt"
<grsc...@acm.org> wrote:

>On 19/11/2020 12:53, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>> On 11/18/2020 4:08 PM, David Johnston wrote:
>>> On 2020-11-18 4:55 p.m., Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>>>> On 11/18/2020 12:34 PM, David Johnston wrote:
>>>>> On 2020-11-17 7:04 p.m., Quadibloc wrote:
>>>>>> On Tuesday, November 17, 2020 at 6:29:45 PM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You want to completely reshape society based on the opinion of one
>>>>>>> author who most people have never heard of.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And the other thing is that it's not as if my rationale came
>>>>>> absolutely
>>>>>> out of nowhere, based only on this one author expressing a claim that
>>>>>> never occurred to anyone else.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It's been common wisdon that young single males are the source of
>>>>>> most crime.
>>>>>
>>>>> Has the thought ever occurred to you that habitual criminals are
>>>>> unlikely to marry?
>>>>
>>>> Reality would like a word with you about that.
>>>>
>>>
>>> And what would it say?
>>
>> That you're wrong.  There are lots a married habitual criminals.  Many
>> of them even get married AFTER they get sent to prison.
>>
>In my experience, even if if they're *unmarried*, habitual criminals
>have lots of offspring, also usually from a variety of partners...

Charles Manson wasn't married, but he had quite the harem regardless.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Many years ago I read about a study comparing how frequently criminals
have sex compared to "normal" law-abiding people. Apparently the
criminals are all nymphomaniacs. One tidbit was that Al Capone averaged
something like four to five times a day.

Now, what connection that has to the observation I've heard that
successful politicians also have heightened libidos....

[J. Clarke]

On Thu, 19 Nov 2020 04:01:46 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
Heydt) wrote:

>In article <5nnbrfpuadu7iarn5...@4ax.com>,
>Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>>On Tue, 17 Nov 2020 13:24:06 -0800, Lawrence Watt-Evans
>><misencha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Haven't seen that, so I can't say. The idea was that the hero turns
>>> out to be YY -- no X at all -- and not only is he alive and
>>> functioning and siring sons (and only sons), but it BREEDS TRUE. His
>>> sons are ALSO YY.
>
>Yes, it would be interesting to get Mr. Cooper (who, I gather, is
>no longer with us*) what his characters do about all the missing
>genes that reside on the X chromosome.
>
>>I didn't notice that part. I was distracted by the observation that
>>The "happy ending" was the extermination of the human race.
>
>/sigh
>
>Many people on this planet would consider that a happy ending.
>And I'd say, "You first."

Unfortunately, in the modern world if you say "you first" and they
take you up up on it, that apparently makes you a murderer.

[Quadibloc]

On Wednesday, November 18, 2020 at 11:24:12 PM UTC-7, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

> Many years ago I read about a study comparing how frequently criminals
> have sex compared to "normal" law-abiding people. Apparently the
> criminals are all nymphomaniacs. One tidbit was that Al Capone averaged
> something like four to five times a day.

> Now, what connection that has to the observation I've heard that
> successful politicians also have heightened libidos....

So this is what has happened to all our alpha males.

John Savard

[David Johnston]

Saying "there are lots of married habitual criminals" doesn't count for
that much. Are, say young male gang members, junkies or burglars, as
likely as the rest of the population to get married?

[Paul S Person]

It appears to be expected in the Bible. Honoring parents, and all
that.

And, as I understand it, there is a /legal/ obligation to do so, at
least to the point that the Courts look to the next-of-kin whenever a
guardian is needed.

--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

[Magewolf]

Not to interfere with the general argument but in this case it was not
that much of a hostile environment. They crash-landed in a landing craft
full of automated colony building equipment including the cloning labs.

Actually in a lot of ways it reminds me of Lord of Light in setup. The
six founders spread out and started six nations that ended up with 1920
to 1940 tech levels except for the female androids servants provided by
the founders who kept most of the "old-tech" to themselves. Also the
founders kept themselves in power by producing sons then overwriting
their minds when they reached their twenties so everyone thought the
founders had been dead for centuries.

The androids ran on a sliding scale as well with the normal models having
pretty good AI to the high end personal guard of the founders seeming to
be full AI's without free will. And of course the stars of the story the
Saber Marionettes who had a "Maiden Circuit" that gave them emotions and
maybe superpowers.

[William Hyde]

On Wednesday, November 18, 2020 at 5:15:04 PM UTC-5, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <67a16d5d-7e25-4bad...@googlegroups.com>,
> William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> [eliminating a Y chromosome]
> >> >would lead to females, but by definition they'd have Turner syndrome,
> >> >leading to heart problems and diabetes, among other issues. Even the
> >> >folks in "Brave New World" would frown on inflicting that.
> >> I suppose you could take two ova and replace the Y (if present)
> >> with an X from the other ovum.
> >
> >My guess is that LeGuin spoke to someone who would know about these
> >things, but that person was older, and was trained before the cause of
> >Turner Syndrome was discovered.
> Perhaps.
>
> /google
>
> Turner Syndrome was first described in 1938; first observed case
> with 45 chromosomes in 1959

A retired MD in 1970 would know about the syndrome, but might not know it's genetic basis.

; _LHoD_ published 1969.

Actually I am talking about her story "Nine Lives", published a year or two later.

Ten clones were made from one man, five female when the y-chromosome was removed from them. This is the case where she didn't seem to know about Turner syndrome but for the purposes of the story, this isn't a necessary detail. The story could easily have been rewritten with one line adjusted and would be very much the same story.

I've no idea if she proposed any genetic basis for LHOD. Nor do I think one would have improved the story.

> Some SF is based more on "what if?" than on "how can I justify
> this happening?". LeGuin was working with "what would people be
> like if they were male and/or female by turns?", not with "how
> would this work on a genetic basis?"

Exactly. For me, any genetic handwaving would have diminished the book.

> I'm not a geneticist either, and if I had to pretend to be one
> for fictional purposes, I'd probably invent some gene on another
> chromosome that sometimes suppressed the Y chromosome and
> sometimes didn't.
>
> This happens naturally in some animals, oysters e.g.
>
> Or, as Ogden Nash put it,
>
> "The oyster's a confusing suitor;
> It's masc., and fem., and sometimes neuter.
> I'd like to be an oyster, say,
> In August, June, July, or May."
>
> Because summer is their breeding season, "...during the warm
> summer months when natural oysters tend to be unsavory, either
> because their bodies are comprised mostly of gonads, or because
> they become thin and watery after spawning."
>
> From this article:
>
> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/09/todays-oysters-are-mutants/380858/
>
> About how the oysters served raw on the half-shell are
> genetically engineered triploids, who can be eaten year-round
> because they don't breed.

I did not know this.
>
> OfSF: Turtledove, _Earthgrip_.

Alas, I gave up on Mr Turtledove after volume two of one of his many series.

William Hyde

[Robert Carnegie]

On Thursday, 19 November 2020 at 13:18:28 UTC, J. Clarke wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Nov 2020 04:01:46 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
> Heydt) wrote:
>
> >In article <5nnbrfpuadu7iarn5...@4ax.com>,
> >Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
> >>On Tue, 17 Nov 2020 13:24:06 -0800, Lawrence Watt-Evans
> >><misencha...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Haven't seen that, so I can't say. The idea was that the hero turns
> >>> out to be YY -- no X at all -- and not only is he alive and
> >>> functioning and siring sons (and only sons), but it BREEDS TRUE. His
> >>> sons are ALSO YY.
> >
> >Yes, it would be interesting to get Mr. Cooper (who, I gather, is
> >no longer with us*) what his characters do about all the missing
> >genes that reside on the X chromosome.

Jumping on because Google Groups seems to have
decide not to provide me with a "reply" button on
Dorothy's post. This could be related to Dorothy
including a very long URL, to Google Images.
So the button may be there at the right but on my
next door neighbour but one's screen instead of mine.

DNA may be more complicated than I think, which is
that a chromosome is merely a container for
information, in the shape of a long string, on which
some genes are written, and removing one chromosome
but putting its genes onto another one does not make
much difference.

So, new theory, these super Y chromosomes /eat/ an
X chromosome, to claim its strength.

> >>I didn't notice that part. I was distracted by the observation that
> >>The "happy ending" was the extermination of the human race.
> >
> >/sigh
> >
> >Many people on this planet would consider that a happy ending.
> >And I'd say, "You first."
> Unfortunately, in the modern world if you say "you first" and they
> take you up up on it, that apparently makes you a murderer.
> >
> >_____
> >*/google; yes, died 1982. I was struck by the picture of him on
> >the Google page; there was such a strong overhead light that his
> >eyes were completely shadowed, and he looked like the Half-orcs
> >in LotRO.

For just a search, I think you can cut everything after ? except this:

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=LotRO+half-orcs&oq=LotRO+half-orcs

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <52fca0b3-7850-4713...@googlegroups.com>,

Well, _Earthgrip_ is not part of a series, but a fixup novel
consisting of two short stories and one novella. It's a light
consideration of "what use is SFF and other genre fiction in the
real world?" with serious consequences to reality (inside the
story).

I don't think I'll be spoilering it too seriously if I summarize
as follows:
1. Heroine solves problem by having read "The Man Who Sold the
Moon."
2. Heroine solves problem by having read "Silver Blaze."
3. Heroine solves problem by making several groups of
bloodthirsty carnivorous aliens *read* SFF.

One of my periodic rereads.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <2f71b06c-4fcf-4ae9...@googlegroups.com>,

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>On Thursday, 19 November 2020 at 13:18:28 UTC, J. Clarke wrote:
>> On Thu, 19 Nov 2020 04:01:46 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>> Heydt) wrote:
>>
>> >In article <5nnbrfpuadu7iarn5...@4ax.com>,
>> >Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>> >>On Tue, 17 Nov 2020 13:24:06 -0800, Lawrence Watt-Evans
>> >><misencha...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>
>Jumping on because Google Groups seems to have
>decide not to provide me with a "reply" button on
>Dorothy's post. This could be related to Dorothy
>including a very long URL, to Google Images.
>So the button may be there at the right but on my
>next door neighbour but one's screen instead of mine.

Well, I'm not seeing a button anywhere; which doesn't surprise
me. I'm reading via trn on a BSD UNIX machine.

>
>DNA may be more complicated than I think, which is
>that a chromosome is merely a container for
>information, in the shape of a long string, on which
>some genes are written, and removing one chromosome
>but putting its genes onto another one does not make
>much difference.

If it still expresses the proteins/enzymes it's supposed to
express, then no, it wouldn't.

>
>So, new theory, these super Y chromosomes /eat/ an
>X chromosome, to claim its strength.

That ... might work. In that if A yields B, and *you can get
your A,* then you'd get B.

>> >*/google; yes, died 1982. I was struck by the picture of him on
>> >the Google page; there was such a strong overhead light that his
>> >eyes were completely shadowed, and he looked like the Half-orcs
>> >in LotRO.
>
>For just a search, I think you can cut everything after ? except this:
>
>https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=LotRO+half-orcs&oq=LotRO+half-orcs

Yes, that brings up all the Half-orcs Google Images has. But I
wanted particularly to show the Half-orc Scoundrel whom you can
see at the far right end of the first row of images, who very
clearly displays the shadowed eye-sockets under his (presumably)
jutting brow ridges.

I wish Images would let us just pick out *one* picture and show
it full-sized.

[Gary R. Schmidt]

What's your hang-up on them having to be married?

It's far easier to breed than get married - even in those countries
where you need a marriage license you don't need a breeding license.

[David Johnston]

Quadibloc's claim is that young single males are the source of most
crime and the cure is to give them more women to marry. I'm pointing
out that even if the correlation is valid, the causation is questionable.

[J. Clarke]

You've been here long enough to be aware of Quadi's hypothesis (which
he seems to believe is as solidly established as the First Law of
Thermodynamics) that most or all of the violence in the world is
caused by single men, thus the solution is to make sure that every man
is married, and since matrimony is a horrible thing to inflict on
women we need to produce a vast excess of women so that of the tiny
minority who are so foolish as to want to be married there will be at
least one so desperate that she will marry, say, _him_. And so we
produce vat-girls.

[Dimensional Traveler]

Your first mistake was to assume that anything Quadibloc posts has any
connection, however tenuous, with reality.

[Titus G]

On 20/11/20 3:02 pm, David Johnston wrote:

>
> Quadibloc's claim is that young single males are the source of most
> crime and the cure is to give them more women to marry.  I'm pointing
> out that even if the correlation is valid, the causation is questionable.
>

In other words you are confronting Fourbricks with logic which is about
as fruitful as confronting Lynn Dimwire with facts.
Many posters have spent many years engaging in that same behaviour with,
as yet, no results.

[Robert Woodward]

In article <qK2H2...@kithrup.com>,

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:

> In article <52fca0b3-7850-4713...@googlegroups.com>,
> William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Wednesday, November 18, 2020 at 5:15:04 PM UTC-5, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:

<SNIP! Re: Genetic engineering shenanigans>

> >> Some SF is based more on "what if?" than on "how can I justify
> >> this happening?". LeGuin was working with "what would people be
> >> like if they were male and/or female by turns?", not with "how
> >> would this work on a genetic basis?"
> >
> >Exactly. For me, any genetic handwaving would have diminished the book.
> >
> >
> >> I'm not a geneticist either, and if I had to pretend to be one
> >> for fictional purposes, I'd probably invent some gene on another
> >> chromosome that sometimes suppressed the Y chromosome and
> >> sometimes didn't.
> >>

<SNIP>
> >> From this article:
> >>
> >>
> >https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/09/todays-oysters-are-mut

> >ants/380858/
> >>
> >> About how the oysters served raw on the half-shell are
> >> genetically engineered triploids, who can be eaten year-round
> >> because they don't breed.
> >
> >I did not know this.
> >>
> >> OfSF: Turtledove, _Earthgrip_.
> >
> >Alas, I gave up on Mr Turtledove after volume two of one of his many series.
>
> Well, _Earthgrip_ is not part of a series, but a fixup novel
> consisting of two short stories and one novella. It's a light
> consideration of "what use is SFF and other genre fiction in the
> real world?" with serious consequences to reality (inside the
> story).
>
> I don't think I'll be spoilering it too seriously if I summarize
> as follows:
> 1. Heroine solves problem by having read "The Man Who Sold the
> Moon."
> 2. Heroine solves problem by having read "Silver Blaze."
> 3. Heroine solves problem by making several groups of
> bloodthirsty carnivorous aliens *read* SFF.

Didn't she also say "What would Miles Naismith do?" at some point?

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.
ã-----------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward robe...@drizzle.com

[Quadibloc]

On Thursday, November 19, 2020 at 7:02:28 PM UTC-7, David Johnston wrote:

> Quadibloc's claim is that young single males are the source of most
> crime and the cure is to give them more women to marry. I'm pointing
> out that even if the correlation is valid, the causation is questionable.

In order to go from correlation to causation, one of the important things
one needs is a _mechanism_.

Young teenage males get into lots of trouble. This tends to be ascribed
to a tendency on their part to risk-taking behavior.

They want to gain status, and at least in evolutionary terms, that motive
stems from its usefulness in finding mates.

So, even though an element in adolescent risk-taking behavior is the
incomplete wiring of the teenage brain, as adult males are still under
the influence of tesosterone, that they might continue adolescent
behavior to a later age if unmated is at least plausible.

And, of course, I have a larger catalogue of social ills that single
men might cause.

If a job doesn't pay enough to support a family - because it doesn't
pay enough to attract a mate - and yet the job is a "real" job, not
working at a fast-food joint, which one can't expect to do that...
then the workers may feel themselves underpaid. So, union
militancy - perhaps in an economy where the company really
can't afford to pay them what they seek.

And if too many men are chasing too few women, it doesn't
matter how much pressure the unions put on employers for
higher wages, because what they get will never be enough.

So crime and violence aren't the only consequence.

Another is voting behavior. And we're seeing rising world
tensions. China is making more noise about invading
Taiwan, and stoking anti-Japanese sentiment to try and
keep their youth distracted. And the U.S. elected Donald
Trump.

So the situation where the Depression led to people getting
eleclted to start World War II is repeating itself.

John Savard

[Robert Carnegie]

An approach is to open a web page that a picture
came from. But that isn't always the effect that
you want.

Of course, most of this graphic material belongs
to somebody.

Dorothy J Heydt . . . . 00:00 (12 hours ago) * <- :
to

Is what I usually see at top left and top right of
a post in Google Groups. (If Dorothy Heydt wrote it.)
<- is the reply button, but on "that" post, none of the
right hand stuff is shown. But never mind.

In comedy show _Red Dwarf_, holographically
resurrected character Arnold Judas Rimmer
apparently tries several times to create a female
clone of himself on a terraformed world, in
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimmerworld>

The society that is discovered after a 600 year
time warp isn't fully explored and is non-technological,
sword and sandals. All we know sex-wise is that
everybody looks like male actor Chris Barrie, but
some of them wear lipstick. Wikipedia leaves out
a twist that when the other cast members catch up,
they are baffled that the Rimmer-in-Chief doesn't
recognise them - because he is one of the clone
people and the real (ish) Rimmer is imprisoned.

[J. Clarke]

On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 00:37:41 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
<jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>On Thursday, November 19, 2020 at 7:02:28 PM UTC-7, David Johnston wrote:
>
>> Quadibloc's claim is that young single males are the source of most
>> crime and the cure is to give them more women to marry. I'm pointing
>> out that even if the correlation is valid, the causation is questionable.
>
>In order to go from correlation to causation, one of the important things
>one needs is a _mechanism_.
>
>Young teenage males get into lots of trouble. This tends to be ascribed
>to a tendency on their part to risk-taking behavior.
>
>They want to gain status, and at least in evolutionary terms, that motive
>stems from its usefulness in finding mates.
>
>So, even though an element in adolescent risk-taking behavior is the
>incomplete wiring of the teenage brain, as adult males are still under
>the influence of tesosterone, that they might continue adolescent
>behavior to a later age if unmated is at least plausible.
>
>And, of course, I have a larger catalogue of social ills that single
>men might cause.
>
>If a job doesn't pay enough to support a family - because it doesn't
>pay enough to attract a mate - and yet the job is a "real" job, not
>working at a fast-food joint, which one can't expect to do that...

Liberals in the US do expect it to do that, hence the screeching about
raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

>then the workers may feel themselves underpaid. So, union
>militancy - perhaps in an economy where the company really
>can't afford to pay them what they seek.

Define "militancy". The unions used to strike one of the Big Three
automakers every year, just on general principle.

>And if too many men are chasing too few women, it doesn't
>matter how much pressure the unions put on employers for
>higher wages, because what they get will never be enough.

And you have evidence that union members are a hotbed of violent
crime?

>So crime and violence aren't the only consequence.
>
>Another is voting behavior. And we're seeing rising world
>tensions. China is making more noise about invading
>Taiwan, and stoking anti-Japanese sentiment to try and
>keep their youth distracted. And the U.S. elected Donald
>Trump.

And this is because Xi Jinping can't get laid? I don't think so. The
decision to invade another country is made by people who are often so
old that they've forgotten what sex is.

Oh, and explain Japan, where unsanctioned violent crime is virtually
nonexistent and war is a violation of the Constitution, but so few
people are married that this is considered to be a major social
problem.

>So the situation where the Depression led to people getting
>eleclted to start World War II is repeating itself.

Except that WWII was mainly the result of the conditions laid on
Germany after WWI, not to a bunch of horny young men. And Japan has
far more single men today than before WWII, so why aren't they
invading anybody?

[Quadibloc]

On Friday, November 20, 2020 at 6:18:38 AM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 00:37:41 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
> <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

> >And if too many men are chasing too few women, it doesn't
> >matter how much pressure the unions put on employers for
> >higher wages, because what they get will never be enough.

> And you have evidence that union members are a hotbed of violent
> crime?

Read ahead just a bit.

> >So crime and violence aren't the only consequence.

Isn't it also a bad thing if the labor unions decide to go on strike,
and stay on strike until they drive their employers out of business,
because they think they can get wages that their employers can't
possibly afford to pay?

> >Another is voting behavior. And we're seeing rising world
> >tensions. China is making more noise about invading
> >Taiwan, and stoking anti-Japanese sentiment to try and
> >keep their youth distracted. And the U.S. elected Donald
> >Trump.

> And this is because Xi Jinping can't get laid? I don't think so. The
> decision to invade another country is made by people who are often so
> old that they've forgotten what sex is.

I think this is disingenuous. He is worried about all the Chinese young men
affected by the one-child policy rising up and overthrowing him. So this
isn't about his own prospects.

John Savard

[pete...@gmail.com]

If I understand Quaddie's theory, breeding isn't required. Peace would ensue if all
men could get laid frequently enough.

Pt

[James Nicoll]

In article <639f1576-dcbe-4b30...@googlegroups.com>,

pete...@gmail.com <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>If I understand Quaddie's theory, breeding isn't required. Peace would ensue if all
>men could get laid frequently enough.
>

A quick bullet to the back of the head would be equally efficacious and would
not require creating or enslaving vat girls.
--
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

[J. Clarke]

On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 07:53:34 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc

<jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>On Friday, November 20, 2020 at 6:18:38 AM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:
>> On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 00:37:41 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
>> <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
>> >And if too many men are chasing too few women, it doesn't
>> >matter how much pressure the unions put on employers for
>> >higher wages, because what they get will never be enough.
>
>> And you have evidence that union members are a hotbed of violent
>> crime?
>
>Read ahead just a bit.
>
>> >So crime and violence aren't the only consequence.
>
>Isn't it also a bad thing if the labor unions decide to go on strike,
>and stay on strike until they drive their employers out of business,
>because they think they can get wages that their employers can't
>possibly afford to pay?

Are you arguing against labor unions or against single men? If you
are arguing that the actions of labor unions result from the needs of
unmarried men you really need to do more homework. The people who
actually make those decisions are not young and seldom single.

>> >Another is voting behavior. And we're seeing rising world
>> >tensions. China is making more noise about invading
>> >Taiwan, and stoking anti-Japanese sentiment to try and
>> >keep their youth distracted. And the U.S. elected Donald
>> >Trump.
>
>> And this is because Xi Jinping can't get laid? I don't think so. The
>> decision to invade another country is made by people who are often so
>> old that they've forgotten what sex is.
>
>I think this is disingenuous. He is worried about all the Chinese young men
>affected by the one-child policy rising up and overthrowing him.

There is no one-child policy. Care to try again?

>So this
>isn't about his own prospects.

If it's about his fear of being overthrown it is.

[J. Clarke]

On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 17:23:44 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
Nicoll) wrote:

>In article <639f1576-dcbe-4b30...@googlegroups.com>,
>pete...@gmail.com <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>If I understand Quaddie's theory, breeding isn't required. Peace would ensue if all
>>men could get laid frequently enough.
>>
>A quick bullet to the back of the head would be equally efficacious and would
>not require creating or enslaving vat girls.

But Quadi's squeamish about that sort of thing unless the person
getting the bullet is brown and the bullets are delivered wholesale.

[Paul S Person]

But it's so much /fun/.

And quite safe. The chance of this particular lion eating you is quite
small.

[Paul S Person]

On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 08:18:32 -0500, J. Clarke
<jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 00:37:41 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
><jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

<snippo>

>>So the situation where the Depression led to people getting
>>eleclted to start World War II is repeating itself.
>
>Except that WWII was mainly the result of the conditions laid on
>Germany after WWI, not to a bunch of horny young men. And Japan has
>far more single men today than before WWII, so why aren't they
>invading anybody?

He isn't talking about Germany. At least, I don't think so.

I think he is repeating the theory that the USA entry into WW2 was
engineered by Roosevelt, in part, to resuscitate the Economy.

And it worked quite well, BTW.

[David Johnston]

On 2020-11-20 1:37 a.m., Quadibloc wrote:
> On Thursday, November 19, 2020 at 7:02:28 PM UTC-7, David Johnston wrote:
>
>> Quadibloc's claim is that young single males are the source of most
>> crime and the cure is to give them more women to marry. I'm pointing
>> out that even if the correlation is valid, the causation is questionable.
>
> In order to go from correlation to causation, one of the important things
> one needs is a _mechanism_.
>
> Young teenage males get into lots of trouble. This tends to be ascribed
> to a tendency on their part to risk-taking behavior.
>
> They want to gain status, and at least in evolutionary terms, that motive
> stems from its usefulness in finding mates.

Assume that's true. Do you then conclude the desire to "gain status"
will just disappear when men actually find a mate? If so, why?

[Quadibloc]

But there _was_ one around the time when they were born.

Governments don't usually get overthrown by babies.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Friday, November 20, 2020 at 11:20:48 AM UTC-7, Paul S Person wrote:

> I think he is repeating the theory that the USA entry into WW2 was
> engineered by Roosevelt, in part, to resuscitate the Economy.

Oh, rest assured that I am completely opposed to revisionist nonsense.

Pearl Harbor was bombed because the Japanese maintained radio
silence and stuff like that, they didn't have help from FDR.

But Mussolini in Italy, Hitler in Germany, and indeed an authoritarian
leader in Poland as well took power because of the effects on people's
judgment of the Depression.

John Savard

[William Hyde]

On Thursday, November 19, 2020 at 6:13:55 PM UTC-5, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> On Thursday, 19 November 2020 at 13:18:28 UTC, J. Clarke wrote:
> > On Thu, 19 Nov 2020 04:01:46 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
> > Heydt) wrote:
> >
> > >In article <5nnbrfpuadu7iarn5...@4ax.com>,
> > >Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
> > >>On Tue, 17 Nov 2020 13:24:06 -0800, Lawrence Watt-Evans
> > >><misencha...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> Haven't seen that, so I can't say. The idea was that the hero turns
> > >>> out to be YY -- no X at all -- and not only is he alive and
> > >>> functioning and siring sons (and only sons), but it BREEDS TRUE. His
> > >>> sons are ALSO YY.
> > >
> > >Yes, it would be interesting to get Mr. Cooper (who, I gather, is
> > >no longer with us*) what his characters do about all the missing
> > >genes that reside on the X chromosome.
> Jumping on because Google Groups seems to have
> decide not to provide me with a "reply" button on
> Dorothy's post.

Same problem. And I had such an astute and witty remark to make. So astute and witty that I have forgotten it.

This could be related to Dorothy
> including a very long URL, to Google Images.
> So the button may be there at the right but on my
> next door neighbour but one's screen instead of mine.
>
> DNA may be more complicated than I think, which is
> that a chromosome is merely a container for
> information, in the shape of a long string, on which
> some genes are written, and removing one chromosome
> but putting its genes onto another one does not make
> much difference.
>
> So, new theory, these super Y chromosomes /eat/ an
> X chromosome, to claim its strength.

The Y chromosome once had all the genes the X has, but they're now damaged to the point of uselessness, as there is no selection pressure to keep them intact, given that we all have a copy on our X chromosome. Unfortunate for those whose X chromosome is defective.

So given enough handwavy technology one could simply edit out the defects in the Y genes, and the Y chromosome would then happily supply clotting factor, colour vision, and much else. And over enough generations would decay again.

Alternately one could try to splice the masculinzation genes of a Y onto a functioning X. Hard to say which of these near-impossible feats is less near-impossible.

We may have been doing Mr Cooper a bit of a disservice. I'm beginning to think I did finish the book, as I have memory of a political campaign in which the "Well if all the men die that's just too bad" party is a man, while the leader of the "On second thought we should preserve some men" is a woman. Which makes it sound like a satire. Or was that a different book? By John Boyd perchance?


William Hyde

[Quadibloc]

On Friday, November 20, 2020 at 1:34:21 PM UTC-7, David Johnston wrote:

> Assume that's true. Do you then conclude the desire to "gain status"
> will just disappear when men actually find a mate? If so, why?

Not disappears, but becomes less urgent at least. And having greater
responsibility and the guidance of a good woman modifies a man's
behavior.

John Savard

[Dimensional Traveler]

First flaw in Quadie's argument: teenagers of both sexes take part in
risk-taking behavior. Why? Because their brains are less capable of
judging risk as they are being re-wired from child to adult.

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 15/11/2020 08.27, James Nicoll wrote:
> The Tenth Planet by Edmund Cooper
> https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/smiles-awake-you-when-you-rise

When I saw James's original post, I recognized the title. I've
had four Coopers on my shelves for decades, but only ever read
one.

Thus, I pulled this one off of my shelf and gave it a go.

To have an unsullied review, I'm posting this *before* having
read James's post. What I say might be redundant with what
he said, or even contradict it. C'est la lire.

General overview: I kept checking my book for a yellow spine
because it reads like a lot of what DAW was publishing in
the early- to mid-1970s.

Details:

The blurb on the back cover is wrong. It says "Earth had
finally succumbed to nuclear horror." The cause of Earth's
death, according to Chapter 2, was pollution and general
resource exhaustion.

I wouldn't say a lot of drinking goes on in this book, except
as contrasted with, say, your typical noir detective film.

In Chapter 6, we're informed that:

Every compartment of a space vessel that could be made
airtight in an emergency had, by regulation, to contain
enough food, water, and medical supplies to sustain four
people for two hundred hours.

A paragraph further on, we learn that this includes eight
half-liter bulbs of booze. Simple arithmetic shows that's
one liter per person for a little over eight days.

I saw somebody mention cross-thread that "Cooper had issues
with women." Those are certainly on display here. Before the
big blow-up, one of Captain Hamilton's female subordinates
dance nude (or nearly so) for him to keep him entertained
after dinner.

Much later, a woman is "fulfilled" because he impregnates her.

There are various rapes later. Violence against his fellow
males isn't neglected either, including at least one assault
that results in the death of his victim.

There's a group of hippy-dippy types styling themselves "The
Friends of the Ways." Hamilton expects them to help him win
his revolt against the status quo, but of course that wasn't
really what hippy-dippy types did.


Not a very good review, but it's not a very good story, either.

Now, I'll go see what James had to say.

--
Michael F. Stemper
Isaiah 10:1-2

[Steve Coltrin]

begin fnord

"Michael F. Stemper" <mste...@gmail.com> writes:

> In Chapter 6, we're informed that:
>
> Every compartment of a space vessel that could be made
> airtight in an emergency had, by regulation, to contain
> enough food, water, and medical supplies to sustain four
> people for two hundred hours.

So, spacecraft builders have economic incentive to have as few separate
airtight compartments as possible?

--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org Google Groups killfiled here
"A group known as the League of Human Dignity helped arrange for Deuel
to be driven to a local livestock scale, where he could be weighed."
- Associated Press

[Steve Coltrin]

begin fnord

jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:

> In article <639f1576-dcbe-4b30...@googlegroups.com>,
> pete...@gmail.com <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>If I understand Quaddie's theory, breeding isn't required. Peace
>> would ensue if all
>>men could get laid frequently enough.
>>
> A quick bullet to the back of the head would be equally efficacious and would
> not require creating or enslaving vat girls.

Terrible thing to inflict upon an innocent bullet.

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 20/11/2020 15.46, Steve Coltrin wrote:
> begin fnord
> "Michael F. Stemper" <mste...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> In Chapter 6, we're informed that:
>>
>> Every compartment of a space vessel that could be made
>> airtight in an emergency had, by regulation, to contain
>> enough food, water, and medical supplies to sustain four
>> people for two hundred hours.
>
> So, spacecraft builders have economic incentive to have as few separate
> airtight compartments as possible?

At first, this sounded plausible. But, upon reflection, no. The folks
that built spaceships would not have been the ones responsible for
stocking them with supplies, whether regular or emergency.

They were probably built cost-plus, anyway. :->


<http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?46452>

--
Michael F. Stemper
Galatians 3:28

[J. Clarke]

On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 13:04:20 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc

<jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>On Friday, November 20, 2020 at 10:33:22 AM UTC-7, J. Clarke wrote:
>> On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 07:53:34 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
>> <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
>> >I think this is disingenuous. He is worried about all the Chinese young men
>> >affected by the one-child policy rising up and overthrowing him.
>
>> There is no one-child policy. Care to try again?
>
>But there _was_ one around the time when they were born.
>
>Governments don't usually get overthrown by babies.

So why would these men rise up against him and not the people who
enacted the one-child policy?

And have you noticed any particular evidence of unrest in China other
than Hong Kong?

[J. Clarke]

So explain Trump.

[J. Clarke]

On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 14:48:05 -0700, Steve Coltrin <spco...@omcl.org>
wrote:

>begin fnord
>jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) writes:
>
>> In article <639f1576-dcbe-4b30...@googlegroups.com>,
>> pete...@gmail.com <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>If I understand Quaddie's theory, breeding isn't required. Peace
>>> would ensue if all
>>>men could get laid frequently enough.
>>>
>> A quick bullet to the back of the head would be equally efficacious and would
>> not require creating or enslaving vat girls.
>
>Terrible thing to inflict upon an innocent bullet.

A bullet might not see it that way. Ever seen Dark Star?

[J. Clarke]

Has to be room for that stuff though, so no incentive to put an
airtight door on the closet. There's also the mass issue.

[David Johnston]

Getting laid does not equal responsibility and does not guarantee that
you will get the guidance of a good woman.

[James Nicoll]

In article <rp9m8t$nkk$1...@gioia.aioe.org>,

If we simply liquidate the surplus men, then all that good women's guidance
can invested in high return efforts rather than keeping men from becoming
dumbasses who post interminably about vat girls.