From: Joseph Sterlynne (vxs@mailandnews.com)
Date: Thu Dec 21 2000 - 07:55:21 MST
> Anders Sandberg
> Back in my day, we didn't even have the full set of Peano's axioms. We
> didn't have 'zero', so we had to do without natural numbers and
> addition. We had to make do with scraps from empty sets.
>
> If you tell that to the youth today they just don't believe you.
You've obviously never had to build your own pocket of spacetime.
Fundamental unit by fundamental unit with rusty, broken tweezers handed down
from the previous universe. You had scraps from empty sets? You're lucky.
In my day we didn't have the luxury of the existence of empty sets. Only one
of our neighbors had half a { and then most of the time it didn't even work.
You think you had it tough. In those days television wasn't even in black
and white. Everything was in black and white! And that was only years and
years after anything was differentiated at all! Oh, other people will tell
you that it was always cold. Bah! That shows you what they know. Back then
it was always very hot! Trillions of degrees! We had to shovel the
primordial plasma out to cool the place down. But first we had to pound out
the fabric of spacetime to shovel it into. Ahh, don't get me started.
But those were the days! Or, rather, they weren't---only after we cobbled
the sun together from spare particles did we get to have a day. Later we had
to invent the concept of "morning" just to get up early in it. You don't
know how easy you've got it.
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