Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 13:05:57 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jerry Friedman 
Subject: Re: (urth) TBOTSS and colonialism


--- matthew.malthouse@guardian.co.uk wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 31/05/2002 05:12:16 Jason Ingram wrote:
> 
> >On Thursday, May 30, 2002, at 12:41 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> >[. . .]
> >> To get back to something more to the point, why doesn't Silkhorn
> >> try "donating" blood to inhumi?  That would seem like an excellent
> >> attempt at making improvements.  He's too humble to think he
> >> would help?  Too squeamish?  Wolfe didn't like the echoes of the
> >> Eucharist?
> >
> >I believe that he did so, deliberately opening his veins several times
> >to feed an inhumu or two.  It seemed that this altered their subsequent
> >behavior, though Jahlee presents a counter-example (I believe that she
> >was a recipient).  I couldn't opine whether Silkhorn's intent was
> simply
> >to prevent them from preying on others or he had something else in mind
> >without rereading.

Anybody have a cite?

> Thought just appeared out of the blue so perhaps nonsense: if humans
> volunteered this and inhumu acceded to it would it not create a
> dependence
> that ultimately could make the inhumu a slave race?  Potentially a
> solution as ethically problemtaic as the problem.

Well, we're not the slaves of OPEC (Dan'l's example) or of utilities,
still less of farmers.

I think the real problem along these lines might be people forcing
slaves to give the inhumi blood--those slaves who are adjusted to
their condition, predisposing the future generations of inhumi to
be slaves.  See the April _Scientific American_ for some not overly
original notes on the psychology of slavery.

> This would't happen if all human doners were altruistic.  But isn't our
> premis that they (we?) can't be so consistantly and universally?

Yes, or at least Wolfe's premise, but I agree with Dan'l that
ordinary economic behavior and enlightened self-interest could lead
to an improvement on the situation in the trilogy.

Jerry Friedman

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