Sundiver, page 90: Jacob was one of less than a hundred thousand human beings who knew that there had ever been such a thing as a Manatee, or a giant ground sloth, or an orangutang.
If it didn't work for the Ch'in Dynasty, it wouldn't work for The Bureaucracy/Confederacy. The great book burning in the early history of China didn't work. Someone had lined the inside walls of their house with the bamboo strips of the works of Confucious. Wiping the internet free of all references might be easy. But every printed book from everyone's personal library? And then there's that "Damn Dirty Ape" movie and all of its sequels. [Actually, this part might be a good thi---whatever.] Will somebody go though every single home video of programming taped off the air just to wipe out the 1990s Tang commercials? And at what level will the erasing be considered complete? Anybody have a concordance to Shakespeare? How many times does the word "sloth" appear? The information superhighway cannot be unpaved. We have become drunk with information. And you can't make a silent purist out of a soused ear. "No one person can think of everything." [A fun statement I have with our good Doctor, as I keep sending him emails on how to misuse a Traeki ring, or how to prepare a high school building for a siege.] This statement, made in 1980, cannot stand up to the world of 2002. This'd work: Jacob was one of less than a hundred thousand human beings who had a need to know that there had ever been such a thing as a Manatee, or a giant ground sloth, or an orangutang. And now I have this vision of a crowded trade world street where a human suicidal maniac is holding up an ancient cardboard grocery store display while running after an alien from one of the not too friendly Galactic races. Hmmm...... back to a Chinese theme. The Great Tang Wars. William Taylor --------------------- Tang + aspirin + weightlessness = one bad Buzz. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
