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You're probably right, but I can't help but be reminded of this witty line in "The Martian Chronicles" where the Martians think Earth 'could never support life because ... there's far too much oxygen in their atmosphere', indicating they're based on radically different biochemistry from us.

https://www.shmoop.com/martian...

This alternation between comic and tragic is all over The Martian Chronicles. Like, in "Ylla," Yll says that Earth could never support life because "Our scientists have said there's far too much oxygen in their atmosphere" (43). That's comic because it's dead wrong--it's oxygen that makes life possible on Earth.

government oversight

I bet you miss the good old days, huh?

It has a very nice forerunner to Star Trek vibe to it. The symbiote to the protagonist was like an intelligent Tribble that nestled on his arm, and the starship he served on could have been a medical relief oriented one in Star Fleet. Oh sure, it had its cheesy elements, but the story holds up. It reminds me that Star Trek also flat out adapted an older SF story for use with Kirk and the Enterprise. The one where Kirk has to battle the lizard like captain (a Gorn?) of another ship on the surface of a planet is immediately recognizable if you read the short story it credits. Boy I enjoyed reading SF during the golden age! :) lol P.S. The sex scene in Do Androids ... is painfully, realistically, awkward. These weren't "humlons", these were robots with human skin, and not really made to have sex, with all its inherent fluids. PKD compares the androids to those suffering from a mental illness that diminishes empathy. They were literally cutting the legs off a spider because, wtf, let's see what happens. But they aspired to more, which made them sometimes better than the humans who willingly closed themselves off. Pris (in all three iterations) is an interesting case. In We Can Build You PKD names a major character Pris, and she's very bright, manipulative, and damaged. She's representative for some of the women he knew. https://www.shmoop.com/do-andr... http://www.warpcoresf.co.uk/we... "Federal Mental Health Clinics are busy, with screening for mental health disorders for everyone, and compulsory attendance for anyone found to be mentally ill. One in four people spend some time in one of these institutions. Pris Frauenzimmer is one such person. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, she is on release and in remission when she helps to build one of the first simulacra, based on a historical person. The simulacra has all of the personality, appearance and memories of Edwin Stanton, a civil war era politician. Lifelike and able to hold a conversation, the artificial humans open up a lot of possibilities for the ailing company. One of these possibilities is the opportunity to work with the millionaire Sam Barrows. But Barrows' plans for the simulacra are altogether less straightforward, and less ethical, than those of MASA Associates. Louis and his partner, Maury Rock, are thrown into disarray over which course they should take in order to stay in business. Barrows is a risk-taker, and in spite of his wealth he isn't the kind of man Louis or Maury had expected him to be. To complicate matters further Louis develops a strange relationship with Pris, who also happens to be Maury's daughter. Pris is barely grown up, and she is an acid-tongued beauty with a complete disregard for anyone else's feelings. She is creative but detached from other people, and possibly as crazy as an ice fireplace." It has a clear connection to Do Androids, though it has a different feel, and dissimilar plot. Being damaged, but not giving up, is a hallmark of PKD, imo. Whether machine or human PKD sees within the connection to a higher power, and he was a very spiritual man. Sorry for rambling in a disconnected fashion, but hey, we're all nerds, right? :) Just making with the SF chatter.

Are you claiming that the country was doing really well when Reagan got elected?

Know we know you are either clueless or simply repeating lies your professors told you.

Read this article, http://www.shmoop.com/reagan-e... , and see what you can refute.

They didn't test Soma?

I would not place any special wisdom or divine provenance in the founders.

That, of course, is your right, as guaranteed by the Constitution put in place by those not especially wise folks. Aside from that, I wasn't the person who invoked the Founders; I was just pointing out that the poster's invocation of "founding principles" was likely misplaced.

As to the economic well-being of the average Colonist, you might want to look at this, which says in part, "The gross national product (GNP) of British North America multiplied some 25 times between 1650 and 1770, and scholars estimate that American colonists may have enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world by the time of the Revolution."

You do know the universe is run by mice, right?. So this research is merely the next step in their experiments and getting the one true answer.

Especially given the negative product placement the brand got in Gulliver's Travels, in which the Yahoos are a tribe of hunter-gatherer humans living on the border of what is essentially Equestria from My Little Pony.

Because Americans are no longer educated about their government or their history, and as long as they can catch the latest episode of Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo they really don't care about what is happening. Those of us who DO care and pay attention are in the extreme minority. No matter how loudly we shout about the problems we're racing into, the rest of America looks at as like we're some crazy conspiracy theorists.

It doesn't help that many of the large news outlets are government sycophants, refusing to carry news that may damage the current administration. Note that this behavior is not limited to CBS or our current administration. They're all corrupt to some degree.

But yeah, nobody gives a shit, give them some Soma, all is well. Aldous Huxly was right.

Anyhow, good luck without your researchers.

What, all 50 of them in Silicon Valley? FFS, I didn't even RTFA but I got enough from the summary to understand that this is less than a rounding error compared to Microsoft's overall R&D and engineering staffs.

Also, can we make it Schnell's Law that anyone who mentions the Year of the Linux Desktop without irony has triggered Godwin's Law about the Occam's Razor of Linux zealots' Panglossian combination of The Seven UI Laws, the Joel Test and Newton's First Law of Motion? Unless of course they have done it as part of a Russian Reversal.

You could feel every hair of the bearskin rug.

The American economy grew by more than 400% from 1865 - 1900:

http://www.shmoop.com/gilded-a...

Clinton do that? Factor for his 8 years vs that 35, that's about 4 to 1, so Clinton would have had to grow the economy by 100%. Didn't happen.

Not with a bang, but with a whine.

fixed that for ya'

You "fixed" a topical parody of Eliot by substituting a lame rewording instead? That's a repair I could live without.

There's more to it than the obvious one in that scene: Hamlet Steaminess Rating

OPHELIA: I think nothing, my lord.
Translation: I'd rather not keep talking about this and I can't acknowledge your sexual innuendo because that would suggest that I, an unmarried maid, know a little too much about sex.

HAMLET: That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
Translation: In Shakespeare's time, "nothing" was another slang word for female genitalia.

That was never true for everyone just like

The 1950s saw the rise of the United States as an economic superpower. Our economy grew by 30% in a decade, a radical change over today's sluggish quarter-percentage improvements. However, it's clear by the fact you got modded up and my post down, that slashdot is increasingly a place where people are apparently oblivious to historical realities, preferring instead revisionist history that makes all times in the past the same as they are in the present.

And how much of this has to do with wanting to work outside the house or your perceptions or what really qualifies as "nice?"

It has nothing to do with either. In the 50s, most families were single-income, not dual-income as they are today. That means that there was a full time parent present. That's not nearly as true today as it was then. That was my only observation. You're trying to turn it into something more.

Would you accept an argument that regulation is bad because even though it won't end the world as we know it, it's just one more small step the wrong way that we don't need to take?

No, I would not. Regulation is necessary. Imagine trying to drive on the roads if there were no rules. Red means stop, green means go... that's all regulation, and it enables us to function as a society. Take that away, and what you've got is anarchy. So yes, I think saying all regulation is bad is about the stupidest thing you can say. But this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone -- statements which include the words always or never are dead-ringers that the statement is going to be false. I'm the only one here apparently who realizes that some regulation is necessary, and although I stated in the OP that the some part is debatable, none is not.

Slashdot has become a den of hipsters and half-witted IT wannabes, too inexperienced or dense to realize that the larger society is one of compromise and negotiation, not idealism and absolutes. Children do need to be protected online. There has to be regulation online. The discussion is not whether to regulate, but how and how much. That may not be a politically popular statement to make on a website that increasingly caters to extremist and idiosyncratic viewpoints, but it is the most reasonable one.

"People bring in broken items: a skirt with a hole in it, an iron that no longer steams, and they fix each other's stuff and meet their neighbors. Now that's an idea worth keeping."

Special case of Tragedy of the Commons coming up ......

There are people who will do the repairing, and others who will sit back and let them do it.

I have always been a repairer and saver. I hate throwing stuff away that can be repaired - partly because older stuff is often much better. Eg I'm using an IBM At keyboard right now, 20(?) years old that I have taken to pieces to clean at least 5 times. I have repaired huge amounts of stuff over the years - cars, PCs, washing machines, furniture and I have built up a vast arrray of tools and stock of metals, fasteners, timber, electrical components etc.

However I have never met anyone else remotely into repairing things at this level. I have done plenty of repairs for "friends", and things like designing their kitchens, with, I am afraid to say, little thanks (let alone a returned favour), maybe because they have no idea of the work and knowledge involved. Or maybe they are just self-centred. I feel that they regard me in the same light as the Eloi would regard a Morlock. In fact I believe I am the prototype Morlock.

From :- http://www.shmoop.com/time-machine-hg-wells/plot-analysis.html

The Eloi are pretty and the Morlocks are not
The Eloi are dumb and the Morlocks are not
The Eloi wear clothes, the Morlocks do not
The Eloi eat fruit, the Morlocks seriously do not.
Perhaps most important, the Morlocks work and the Eloi do not.

Now I only repair things for the immediate family.

Shakespeare's pronunciation was almost certainly post-vowel shift. Country matters.

Obligatory: Doctor Who, 3x02:

[Shakespeare comes out and takes an exaggerated bow and blows kisses. Audience goes wild and cheers even louder.]

MARTHA: He’s a bit different from his portraits.
...
THE DOCTOR: Genius. He’s a genius - THE genius. The most human Human that’s ever been. Now we’re gonna hear him speak. Always, he chooses the best words. New, beautiful, brilliant words.
SHAKESPEARE: Shut your big fat mouths!
[The audience laughs.]
THE DOCTOR (disappointed): Oh, well.
MARTHA: You should never meet your heroes.

Shakespeare's pronunciation was almost certainly post-vowel shift. Country matters.

Ahh... Another Dr. Pangloss who believes we live in the best of all possible worlds... We've been dealing with this sort of idiocy for quite some time now, at least since Voltaire satirized it in 1759

http://www.shmoop.com/candide/dr-pangloss.html

Dr. Pangloss and his philosophy are the principal focus of Voltaire’s satire. Dr. Pangloss, Candide’s tutor and mentor, teaches that in this best of all possible worlds, everything happens out of absolute necessity, and that everything happens for the best. This philosophy parodies the beliefs of Gottfried Leibniz, an Enlightenment era thinker who believed that the world was perfect and that all evil in it was simply a means to greater good.

Every twist of the plot, every new natural disaster, disease, and incident of robbery or assault in Candide is intended to prove Pangloss’s Optimism utterly absurd and out of touch with reality. Pangloss’s personal sufferings alone are more than unusually extreme. In regard to his own misfortune, Pangloss responds that it is necessary to the greater good. The result is that the philosopher appears utterly blind to his own experiences as well as the horrors endured by his friends.