From: mark@unicorn.com
Date: Mon Jul 06 1998 - 11:58:00 MDT
Dwayne [ddraig@pobox.com] wrote:
>> How
>> much compassion does the average human currently display for apes? Yes, we
>> protect them and study them and are even occassionally entertained by them,
>> but by in large we're just too engaged in human activities to be very
>> interested in what they're doing.
>Except for when we use them for medical research or destroy their
>habitat.
This kind of discussion reminds me of one of my favorite SF series; Michael
Moorcock's "Dancers at the end of time". The stories have a lot in common
with Banks' "Culture" in that they're basically about a bunch of transhumans
who have lots of power and lots of free time, but seen from a sixties or
seventies perspective. Although the stories aren't terribly well-written,
I think that much of their behaviour -- for example indifference to
'lesser' beings (e.g. human time-travellers are put in zoos and traded
like pets) -- seems quite true to life; they don't care much about humans,
because in general they're not really regarded as 'people'.
Mark
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