[4331] in Central_America
New quotes for Sun Jun 7
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Initializer.SysDaemon)
Sun Jun 7 01:51:41 1992
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 92 01:51:19 -0400
From: root@charon.MIT.EDU (Initializer.SysDaemon)
To: ca-mtg@bloom-beacon.mit.edu
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emison (Sam Grant K Emison):
Two greyhounds, in running down the same hare, have sometimes the
appearance of acting in some sort of concert. Each turns her toward his
companion, or endeavours to intercept her when his companion turns her
towards himself. This, however, is not the effect of any contract but
of the accidental concurrence of their passions in the same object at
the same time. Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate
exchange of one bone for another with another dog.
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faber (Fabricio E Rodriguez):
{From system: This user's .plan file is not world readable}
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jefft (Jeff Tang):
Hey, who's that guy over there?
---Tom
It's the Pope, on banjo!
---Crow, "Rocket Attack USA"
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sipb7 (Guest7 Sipb):
=== Disclaimer: ===
=== This is sethg in exile, using this temporary account until I ===
=== finish my game of "musical usernames" with Project Anathema. ===
[Some responses to the question "What would life be like without
sex?", printed in _Discover,_ June 1992, pp. 84-87.]
What would life be like without sex? It would be _boring._ What we'd
miss, besides the obvious, is the glorious deversity of shapes,
colors, and sizes we see among individuals in sexual species,
including of course human beings. Mutation and environmental factors
cause some variation in asexual species, but nothing like the
tremendous variety produced by genetic recombination in sexual
species.
So let me change the question and ask you to consider what life would
be like if our species required _three_ sexes to reproduce. Never
mind the anatomy, because I have no idea how it would work (make it up
yourself). But one happy certainty is that relationships between any
two of the sexes would be free of the worry of unintended pregnancy.
[This assumes that members of a trisexual species would be satisfied
by mating with only one of the other sexes. --SG] On the other hand,
three-way dating would be _very_ complicated. Imagine the
difficulties involved in finding three mutually attracted people and
getting them together. Does a couple made up of sex 1 and sex 2 first
get together and then jointly ask sex 3 to join? Or does sex 1 invite
sex 2, and then 2 invites 3? Or maybe 1 invites both 2 and 3
independently and hopes they hit it off. And then somehow all three
have to agree on a restaurant and a movie. Good luck....
Suggesting a three-sex world naturally raises the question of what
life would be like in a _four_-sex world. In a word, unmanageable.
--Daniel W. McShea, Assistant Professor, Museum of Paleontology
and Department of Geology, University of Michigan
[Obviously, McShea has never read William Tenn's short story, "The
Seven Sexes of Venus." Why didn't _Discover's_ editors interview any
SF writers? Sheesh.]
...Actually, have you people gone _mad?_ How could you even come up
with such a question in _any_ variety?
--Helen Gurley Brown, Editor in Chief, _Cosmopolitan_
You might think life would be dull without sex, but not so. Sex is
only one of nature's several ways of shuffling genes so that there's
plenty of variability among organisms. Variations improve the
likelihood that at least some organisms can survive in shifting,
uncertain environments. The generation of diversity is so vital to
survival that if sex were gone, the other ways would come to the fore.
As the French say, _Vive la difference!_
Besides sex, other ways of generating variability include parasitism
and symbiosis....
Just imagine: A stranger walks into a saloon. A head at the bar turns
to observe and gives a low whistle, thinking: "Wow! Imagine the _E.
coli_ in that beauty's gut!..."
--Joel E. Cohen, Professor of Populations, Rockefeller University
_My_ life would be fairly similar.
--Dave Barry
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starflt (Derrick Kong):
SHALLOWS OF SPACE
Ships in interplanetary space have a stacking limit of "one," according
to the designers of the game Diadem.
from Murphy's Rules
--- End of Central America ---
