leaking pen wrote: > I seem to recall that it wasnt that a human wouldn't swat it, its that > a human wouldnt know waht a bee was.
That wasn't the point of the test, at least in the book -- in fact Deckard may even have explained to her what a bee was when the question came up; I'm no longer sure. Her (alleged) father, as I recall, was an animal-robot manufacturer, in any case, so she could easily have known a lot more about what animals had existed than most folks. The same scene existed in the movie but it was played out a little differently; it had to be, since there was no voiceover, and it was the narrator in the book who tipped us off as to what was going on with the test. Folks generally knew what the insects were -- or had been -- and in fact there were *robot* bugs running around in the corners of the book. I recall, in particular, a robot spider living on the stairwell of the apartment complex. Humans were more or less familiar with the whole array of extinct animal life, and people saved their nickels to buy robot animals to enrich their lives (or gain status or whatever). The "electric sheep" in the title were robots, of course. The protagonist's landlord, I think it was, had an electric goat at one point, and kept it on the (flat) roof of the apartment building. When we see the home of the woman/android, it's a robot manufacturer, and among other little touches there's a cage containing some apparently live ... but actually robot ... owls. (Or maybe they're not robots; one is always left wondering.) The electric goat is pushed off the roof by an android, by the way, in another demonstration of the relative "coldness" of the androids; a normal human would have been very unlikely to do that, even though the goat was only a robot. (And anyway, why should an android, provenance either Mars or an Earth-side factory, know any better than an Earth-Human what a bee was?) > > I could be wrong. > > On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 1:17 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: >> >> OrionWorks wrote: >>> >From Remi: >>> >>>> Was it Gene Hackman in a film I can't remember with this line >>>> "You're either police or little people." >>> I believe you are referring to a memorable quote from the famous film, >>> "Blad Runner" with Harrison Ford as Deckard. See: Memorable quotes for >>> Blade Runner: >> Interesting you should mention Blade Runner in the context of a >> discussion which is intermixed with other threads containing a lot of >> apocalyptic talk about global warming, mass extinctions, and, by >> implication, what may or may not survive the current round of changes to >> the biosphere. We haven't mentioned bees recently, but they figured >> indirectly in Blade Runner. >> >> As you may recall, Blade Runner was based on the Philip Dick novel, "Do >> Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". That was one his more obscure novels >> (actually, most of his books could be described that way). An >> interesting detail in the novel which I don't think they emphasized in >> the film was that *all* animal life on Earth had apparently died off, >> except for humans. Quite aside from any practical consequences, this >> had such a major psychological impact on people that an entire industry >> had grown up, producing *robot* animals to take the place of the missing >> "real" animals. >> >> In the book, at one point the protagonist tests a woman to determine >> whether she's a real human, or an android. The test consisted of a >> series of questions. The most significant one, buried in the list, was, >> "If a bee landed on your arm, what would you do?" She responded, "Swat >> it!" which immediately pegged her as an android, because no true human >> would ever have given such an answer -- bees were too precious. >> >> The loss of the animals was never explained, as far as I can recall. >> >> >>> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/quotes >>> >>> Deckard: [getting up to leave] I was quit when I come in here, Bryant, >>> I'm twice as quit now. >>> Bryant: Stop right where you are! You know the score, pal. You're not >>> cop, you're little people! >>> [Deckard stops at the door] >>> Deckard: No choice, huh? >>> Bryant: [smiles] No choice, pal. >>> >>> >>> Regards >>> Steven Vincent Johnson >>> www.OrionWorks.com >>> www.zazzle.com/orionworks >>> >> >
