From: "Roy C. Lackey" 
Subject: Re: (urth) robot desires -- Jonas tells a joke
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2002 11:47:37 -0500

mantis wrote:

>In the joke that Jonas tells, a woman interviews three sailors to find out
>what each one wants the most.  The first says power, the second says
>(social) polish, and the third says love.
>
>The woman laughs and says that they are all robots.  The first sailor says
>that is true, and he can see how she figured it out from the first two
>answers, since power and polish are things all robots look for, but he
>couldn't figure out how she detected a robot in the third answer.
>
>She says it is because she began life by looking for power and polish and
>wound up just like the third sailor.  Then the woman and the third sailor
>go off for a drink and neither of them ever came back to the ship.

So what is the joke? We know that Wolfe has a warped sense of humor, and
that Jonas is telling the joke. It only dawned on me today that the woman's
last line is also the punch line. We've heard this joke before, in PEACE.
The one Weer told Lois: "I knew we were mechanical engineers, but I didn't
think we'd wind up like this."

She's a robot, too.

-Roy



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