### Apollo BBS Archive - August 14, 1991

    Mail from Apollo SysOp
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 07:52:41

    A GM dealer?    for my Plymouth Barracuda?   Are you sure?

    A set of locks for only $15.00 or do you mean each?

    If you get by this way...please stop by.  I have the locks out of the car.
    I also still have that shed lock that James H could never pick...

            If you have the gaskets....  how much do you want?

    *=* the 'Mighty' Apollo SysOp *=*  <-clif-
    [A]bort, [C]ontinue, [I]nsty-reply or [Z]ap:Insty-reply

    Enter a line containing only an [*] to stop
     1:I was sleepy last night and was also having a conversation with a visitor.
     2:I meant the gaskets are Briggs & Stratton part numbers but would be sold by
     3:a MoPar dealer, not a G.M. dealer.  Sorry.
     4:
     5:I believe I have the gaskets, what year did you say it was, 65?  New locks
     6:at our supplier, 7th St. & Glendale sell for something in the neighborhood
     7:of $15. for a set, trunk and doors although there should be sets that
     8:include the ignition and glove box, all coded or uncoded.  I'll call Jerry
     9:at Black Lock Supply.  The locks are made by All Lock Company and are
    10:excellent reproductions, can't tell the difference from OEM.
    11:
    12:I'll look in my van tomorrow and see what I have. If I have gaskets they are
    13:yours.
    14:
    15:Rod
    16:
    17:Live long and prosper.

    Mail from Apollo SysOp
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 11:58:08

            Watch your mail box....  I photo copied the gaskets

    *=* the 'Mighty' Apollo SysOp *=*  <-clif-
    [A]bort, [C]ontinue, [I]nsty-reply or [Z]ap:Insty-reply

    Enter a line containing only an [*] to stop
     1:Most of the time the gaskets I see with the new locks are clear colored
     2:plastic although years ago I think they were black rubber.  I know that when
     3:I remove a gasket from a 60's car that I can stretch them but when I do the
     4:same from an 80's car they snap and fall into little pieces.  Change of
     5:composition.

    $tatus Club Bulletin Board command:$C

    Message: 7993
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: Rod
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 02:55:02

    Hey, talking about early man, that reminds me, that report just goes to show
    that the National Enquirer got it all screwed up again.  It wasn't PEKING
    Man who was found with a bottle of Classic Coke.  It was JAVA Man who was
    found with a bunch of stone coffee cups...

    Message: 7994
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Idea for thought
    Subject: Entropy
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 02:55:49

    If entropy as a whole is increasing throughout the universe, and if that is
    a law, can we say that human life, or the spontaneous appearance of any kind
    of life, is in violation of it?  If local phenomena can appear randomly,
    there is nothing to say they can't buck the overall trend -- as long as they
    don't have enough effect on the universe to violate or reverse the law.  Can
    we say that human beings are powerful enough to change the structure or
    ordering of the universe?  We can imagine, and even predict, the possibility
    of "planetary engineering", or reproducing ourselves and getting to the far
    stars, given time.  But can we *do* it?  And if we do, can we change
    anything?  That's far from being proven.  We are a very tiny race occupying
    one planet in a solar system in an infinitesimal corner of a galaxy that's
    part of a cluster that's part of a supercluster that's still microscopic
    compared with the vastness of the universe as a whole.  How long will it
    take us to get to even the nearest star?  And that's only the beginning.

    Suppose some guy bought an annuity from an insurance company, then got
    annoyed at the company for some reason and determined to drive them out of
    business by violating the statistical law that says the average buyer of
    annuities will be dead within, say, twenty years.  He could do so by getting
    everyone else who had bought annuities to live for more than twenty years.
    He could start a vast campaign to get everyone to be careful, stop smoking
    and drinking, eat healthily, exercise regularly, stop taking the slightest
    risks, and do your best to *live long*.  He might have an effect; but could
    one person have enough effect to violate the universal law?  I doubt it.

    Local and temporary decreases in entropy are not necessarily in violation of
    the universal law that entropy increases.  If entropy *does* decrease, that
    is.  That's far from being proven.

    We do claim that entropy never *decreases* overall, but it only increases in
    an irreversible process in a closed system.  In a reversible process,
    entropy stays constant.  If we set a pendulum swinging, eventually it will
    slow down and stop because air resistance and friction in the bearing
    destroys the kinetic energy of the pendulum by converting it to heat.  But
    if a pendulum were to swing on a perfectly frictionless bearing in a vacuum,
    it would go on swinging for ever.  The swing from left to right would be a
    reversible process.

    If a cold planet were orbiting around another cold planet in a perfect
    vacuum, it would continue orbiting for ever.  If the orbit were elliptical,
    each movement of the planets away from one another toward apogee would be
    balanced by a later inward movement toward perigee.  The process is
    reversible.  In practice, the Earth has slowed down in its rotation and in
    its revolution partly because of impacts with other material from space.
    The Solar System is not a perfect vacuum, and neither is it a closed system.

    We may assume that the universe as a whole is a closed system, but it
    doesn't follow that it is all slowing down to a complete stop.  Stability
    may lie, not in motionlessness, but in oscillation, like the pendulum.

    It may in fact be going through a cyclic process that is eternal.  The Big
    Bang, assuming that there was a Big Bang (which is by far the most probable
    though perhaps not an inescapable conclusion from the evidence), may have
    been just one of many big bangs.  Physicists are still trying to figure out
    how much extra undetected mass there may be out there among the stars and
    the galaxies.  It could well be that there is enough mass to produce enough
    gravity to slow down the outward expansion of the universe, and to make it
    collapse back in upon itself.  Eventually it could all reform into the
    Cosmic Egg.

    Then what?  Well, some forces are far too weak to be detected except at
    enormous scales.  Gravity is the weakest force we know.  We can only detect
    gravity in the presence of very large masses.  But if we have a large enough
    mass all together in one place, gravity multiplies until it becomes so
    strong that the nuclear forces of repulsion are overcome and atomic nuclei
    are forced together to make a "neutron star" of immensely high density.  If
    the amount of mass in one place increased further, nuclei would collapse
    inward on themselves and make an unimaginable concentration of mass, with
    local gravity being so high that not even light can escape: a "black hole".

    Gravity is a weak force of attraction.  Now, suppose there were an even
    weaker force, but a force of repulsion.  Perhaps it's one of the forces we
    already know; or perhaps it's a force so weak that we cannot detect it.

    Just as an enormous mass in one place brings gravity into play so that
    nuclear fusion takes place in the Sun, or matter collapses into a black
    hole, perhaps an even greater amount of mass -- like the entire Universe --
    collapsing into one spot can concentrate this force of repulsion so that it
    overcomes even the force of gravity and makes it all explode outward again.
    Perhaps the entire Universe is like one vast pendulum going through a cyclic
    process of collapse and expansion.  Then entropy over time would not be
    increasing, but simply remaining constant.

    Could there be something even outside the universe we know?  We have a hard
    time seeing to the farthest reaches of our Universe.  But we do know that
    matter tends to clump for some reason.  Planets orbit around stars.  Star
    systems crowd together into galaxies.  Galaxies organize themselves into
    clusters, and clusters stick together to form superclusters.  All in our own
    universe.  Is our universe itself just another such clump of matter?  Are
    there other universes so unimaginably far away that we just can't see them?
    Perhaps they all have Big Bangs of their own, going off at irregular
    intervals, just as we see stars explode into supernovas at irregular
    intervals.  The intervals would be so long that we could hardly ever hope to
    see one in our infinitesimal lifetime, even if we could see that far away.

    Is our universe really a closed system?  Or is it a subatomic particle in a
    atomic nucleus in a piece of a fuel rod in a nuclear power station belonging
    to some race of unimaginably large giants?

    The rate at which their lives proceeded would be immeasurably slow compared
    to ours.  So what?

    These giants could change our lives -- our whole Universe -- by dipping the
    fuel rod a little farther into the reactor, or retracting it a little.
    Perhaps the Big Bang wasn't caused by internal forces, but by the impact of
    some object from outside our Universe -- the equivalent of a neutron
    striking a uranium nucleus and exploding it.

    Would we call these giants Gods?

    I'm not at all sure that this is true, because our own observations of
    small-scale effects show that things happen jerkily and randomly at that
    level, rather than smoothly, showing we're dealing with the smallest units
    of matter and energy.  Within our Universe as a whole, processes take place
    smoothly.  If our universe is really just a particle in the body of a Giant,
    he wouldn't see the same randomness at his "microscopic" level, which
    suggests that either the whole concept is untrue, or else we ourselves just
    happen to exist at the smallest scale of all -- which seems unlikely.

    Or is it?  Perhaps the probability of sentient life arising is so small that
    it *can* only happen on the smallest scale, where randomness is the rule.
    Perhaps in the Universe of universes of universes, chaos and uniformity and
    lifelessness reign supreme, and life only exists on the tiniest scale.

    And so to the third question: what of God?  I keep seeing people say: "PROVE
    that your God exists!" (or, conversely, "PROVE that He doesn't exist!")

    How would we prove that God exists, or doesn't exist?  What *is* God,
    anyway?  We have to answer this question before we can determine how we
    would prove that God exists.

    God is seen as the Creator of all.  If God created our Universe and our
    physical laws, then God must have two qualities: one, an Intelligent
    Purpose, and two, a Power outside of these physical laws.  So the evidence
    of God's existence would lie in an apparent violation of physical laws that
    simultaneously seems to fulfill some intelligent purpose.

    We can easily make an analogy with evidence of human intervention.  Humans
    have both power and intelligence.  We know that natural forces such as wind
    and water cause erosion.  We can see quite remarkable configurations, such
    as stalactites and stalagmites in caves, or "natural arches" of rock, all
    caused by forces of Nature.  But if we find a wall of bricks, all the same
    size and stuck together by layers of cement, or stone tools neatly chipped
    into regular shapes, or a portable radio lying in a cave, we say this is
    evidence of Man's intelligent intervention.  The chances of Nature alone
    producing such an artifact are too remote to contemplate.

    In just such a way, the argument seems to be that the chance of life arising
    as a result of purely natural laws is far too remote to contemplate, and
    must therefore result from Divine intervention.

    I think that science has shown mechanisms by which life *could* arise, given
    enough time; and plenty of evidence to corroborate the stages in which it
    happened.  But I don't have enough time to go into that here.

    All the same, how *would* we prove the existence of God?  By an apparent
    violation of physical laws that seemed to demonstrate some purpose.

    The problem with "violations of physical laws" is that they don't
    necessarily demonstrate the existence of God; only that we aren't aware of
    all the physical laws that exist.  If there were evidence that ghosts really
    existed, for example, that wouldn't necessarily prove that God existed; only
    that "spirits" can act according to some additional laws that we don't yet
    understand because we haven't been able to detect their effects on a regular
    and systematic basis.  It might prove the existence of a soul.  It wouldn't
    necessarily prove the existence of God.

    If Rod's dream were fulfilled and stars suddenly swooped around the universe
    in a trajectory that spelled out "HI ROD, HOW'S IT HANGING?", I'm not sure
    what that would prove.  It would certainly fulfill the criteria of a "higher
    power" than demonstrated "intelligent purpose".

    But what might this "higher power" be?  Could it be called "God"?  It might
    be an advanced civilization in outer space, using its technology to hear
    Rod's words and to manipulate the motions of heavenly bodies in response.
    As Arthur C. Clarke wrote, "any sufficiently advanced technology is
    indistinguishable from magic".

    It would certainly be evidence of an intelligent Higher Power.  It might be
    good enough for members of Alcoholics Anonymous.  It might also be good
    enough for Rod.  But we still have to produce such evidence.

    It should be easier to prove the existence of God than to prove His
    nonexistence.  We can usually prove that something exists.  But we can't
    prove that something does *not* exist.  We can only demonstrate that we
    can't detect it -- with our present equipment.

    But by the same logic, if we do prove that something unexplainable exists,
    we can't necessarily prove that it's evidence of God.  We can only say that
    we haven't yet detected the true explanation.

    For those who are interested in how we might find evidence of a Creator, I
    highly recommend Carl Sagan's book "Contact".  Yes, it's only a novel of
    science fiction; but so many concepts in science fiction have been explored
    again and again over the past fifty years that it's refreshing to find
    something original, and inspiring besides.

    My own feeling -- like Sagan's perhaps -- is that evidence of God cannot
    conclusively be found by looking forwards and outwards and upwards, toward
    the events we haven't seen yet, the places we haven't reached yet, or the
    technology we haven't achieved yet.  If we saw advance evidence of those
    things, we could only say that they represent strange and unfamiliar and
    bizarre and inexplicable things.  How could we possibly hope to understand
    them, or to know what they mean?  Rather, I think that evidence of God can
    only be found by looking in the opposite direction: backwards, toward the
    beginning of time; inwards, to what lies inside the smallest things we can
    detect; and downwards, toward the ultimate explanation of all our physical
    laws.  And perhaps into ourselves.

    The effect of science is that it's proven the Universe to be a whole lot
    bigger and more mysterious than our ancestors ever dreamed it was.  So maybe
    we have to look farther to find God, and maybe some people don't like having
    to do the extra work.  But at the same time, in a bigger universe there are
    a whole lot more places for God to be found.  He's not limited to a few
    measly thousand years on one little tin-pot planet.  If there is a God, then
    He was the Creator, who was there at the Beginning.  If there are laws --
    any physical laws -- then they do represent Order, and we can justifiably
    ask how they came to be there and why, instead of the whole universe being a
    great shapeless blob of nothing.  That was what Einstein meant when he said
    "It's the fact that there's *something* out there -- where by rights there
    ought to be nothing -- that makes me think there's a God."

    Message: 8003
    Author: $ Bill Burkett
    Category: Get-Togethers
    Subject: Michael & Peter Pipe
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 08:07:09

    ...r

    > ...though true pizza-lovers won't eat Peter Piper's "pizza."

    This cannot be denied.  However I felt the awfulness of the show more than
    made up for the pizza.  (Actually Peter Piper's (Since the "'s" is part of
    the corporate name, do I need another "'s" or perhaps just a "'" to form a
    possessive?  Where are Strunk & White when you really need them?) new
    "mucho" pizzas aren't too bad.  Not up to Streets of New York standards, but
    not bad.)

    Message: 8005
    Author: $ Green Lantern
    Category: Last....
    Subject: strunk and white
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 12:52:11

    "Follow this rule whatever the fineal consonant. Thus
    write,
      Charles's friend
      Burns's poems
      the witch's malice

    Exceptions are the possessives of ancient proper names in -es and -is,
    the possessive Jesus', and such forms as for conscience' sake, for
    righteousness' sake. But such forms as Moses' Laws, Isis' temple are
    commonly replaced by

     the laws of Moses
     the temple of Isis"

    So, I suggest "the show of Peter Piper's Pizza" for example.

    Message: 8006
    Author: $ John Cummings
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: Time
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 15:38:22

            The seven day week is perhaps an artificial division, but perhaps
    not. Let's consider the early man, who was quite able to determine annual
    reoccurrences, the seasons of the year, and the repetitive cycle of the moon
    into 28 days, about. Isn't it reasonable to assume that ol' Homo Sap found
    it easy to handle the monthly cycle by dividing it into four? And four into
    28 makes seven, so maybe the week is not so artificial after all. (I haven't
    yet found a logical reason to rest on the seventh day, tho.)  --John C.--

    Message: 8007
    Author: $ Beauregard Dog
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: Time
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 17:50:01

    Jeremy Campbell wrote a book about the research into "biological clocks" in
    humans.  I don't remember if they were on the way to finding a seven-day
    clock or not.  There did seem to be more-or-less 24 hour clocks that get
    "reset" every sunrise ...

    I've lost track of the book (either I had borrowed it, or I've loaned it
    out) or I'd hunt up the info. Perhaps Green or Gordon know about it?

    Message: 8008
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: Time
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 23:32:18

    I can't recall a book by Campbell.  I do have one on the same topic by
    Richard Coleman, called "Wide Awake at 3 AM".

    Message: 8009
    Author: $ Rod Williams
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: Gordon/space travel
    Date: 08/16/91  Time: 00:00:22

    Present day human animal would have much difficulty travelling in space.  It
    would seem that we need to evolve quite a bit more before being successful.

    Our best chance of evolving would be through diet.  We are what we eat and
    as long as we consume flesh we will be flesh.  Life, I believe can take many
    forms.  I sure got stuck with a funny one.

    Message: 8010
    Author: $ Rod Williams
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: Time
    Date: 08/16/91  Time: 00:09:03

    I'd like to live a lifestyle where there were no repetitious names for every
    dang thing, especially time.  I know that it is necessary for scientific
    notation and some other things but to wake up and find out that it is
    "Monday" again is maddening.

    It's too damn close together and on top of that it is all made up for a
    purpose.  Where would Capitalism be without time?

    Time is too human.  Time puts things into small blocks.  Time restricts an
    otherwise carefree lifestyle.

    In reality it is either day, night, dusk, or dawn.  All others can go to
    hell.  Oh well.

    I really took this thinking back to the supposed Big Bang and saw matter
    flying outward from the center.  From there I can assume that all that is
    real is the ole mass in motion, changing forever and ever.

    There are so called ten year olds who are older than some forty year olds.
    A persons motion has influence on their change, both internal and external.
    Believing in a program with line number from 1 to 100 is damning to some, to
    those who believe time to be a fact.

    Message: 8011
    Author: $ Rod Williams
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: Death
    Date: 08/16/91  Time: 00:22:27

    Death is also boring.  I was raised to be really sad at a relative dying, to
    ride in a hearse in a long procession, blocking traffic and go to a big yard
    where the victim is lowered into the ground, encased in a storm proof box
    with 'miracle shield', twelve times stronger than a wooden box.

    For one, the dead person doesn't come up in the food chain, a chain by the
    way that has nourished that particular person all of their life.  Well, if
    the box split open somehow then the earth would think it was eating peyote
    because of the imbalming fluid taste instead of whole, thick, juicy blood.

    Another thing is that the dead takes good land from the living, something
    that should be a park, a memorial park if you insist.

    I would like to open a cemetary-park and Whisper Chip all who come to me.
    The ground would be really healthy and there would be a wall way down yonder
    that would have the person's name engraved thereon.  A suitable slogan could
    be added depending on wishes.

    Instead of children being taught to fear death we should have much better
    education.  Laugh instead of cry.  "Hey, Al finally made it, he graduated
    once again, good luck Al", and Whisper Chip him into the ground.  Plenty of
    birds would come by and pick up little pieces of Al and 'drop' him in other
    places.  I think this is better than being cremated as it is more healthy to
    our earth.  The last time I tasted ash I spit it out.  The earth lives.

    *=* X-Rated Cosmos Bulletin Board entered *=*

    Message: 5006
    Author: $ Melissa Dee
    Category: Cosmos-Chatter
    Subject: Yikes
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 18:44:16

    So what do they do to the women during these tests?  I figured they just did
    blood tests or something.

    FILm & Video Bulletin Board command:$C

    Message: 1766
    Author: $ Melissa Dee
    Category: Filmography
    Subject: In her throat?!
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 18:45:13

    You KNOW a women didn't write this!

    Public Bulletin Board command:$C

    Message: 77547
    Author: Paul Harris
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: last
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 00:28:55

    I have to disaggree that recorded sales calls aren't MOST HEINIOUS. I got a
    call from one awhile back at around 3:00am! I couldn't even have the
    satisfaction of yelling at anybody. Really bad.

    Message: 77548
    Author: Paul Harris
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: aunty
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 00:30:00

    Well I have to say I agree with Aunty---this one is the best! Where do I
    sign
    up? I've been wandering all throughout BBS west since I got a REAL computer,
    and I keep coming back to what I was able to access with my pitiful Tandy
    102.
    Long live Apollo! I argue...therefore I am!!!

    Message: 77549
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Thad
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 03:07:14

    Thanks for your thoughts.  I'm a bit slow in replying; but I'll answer the
    easy question first, which is

     TC>>Is alcoholism or drug addiction a consequence of other problems,
     TC>>social and personal, or do they cause problems of their own?
     TC>>or...perhaps is the correct answer, both?

    Definitely both!  There's no doubt that if you start off trying to solve one
    problem, and do so by going in the wrong direction, then all you do is to
    create a whole load of new ones (i.e., the secondary effects of addiction).
    Counselors tend to recognize, though, that if somebody has personal problems
    that led to addiction, you have to tackle the addiction first (typically in
    one of the Twelve-Step programs) before the underlying problems can be
    successfully addressed.  I think of this as a push-down stack.  If you pile
    things up on top of one another, you have to take off the top layer first
    before you can start clearing up what lies underneath.

    So the "treatment", if you like, depends on whether we're trying to cure an
    existing addiction, or prevent one from arising to start with.

    The interesting thing about addiction is that it can be generalized to an
    abstract class of behaviors that we call "addictive behavior patterns",
    which share common characteristics regardless of what the particular "drug
    of choice" happens to be.

    Thus some people are addicted to alcohol, some to cocaine or heroin, some to
    relationships, some to gambling, some to sex, and possibly some to
    pornography.  And some to "supporting" other addicts.  But whatever it is
    these people are addicted to, it's possible to abstract out a certain set of
    behaviors that are common to all of them, such as progressiveness, shame,
    hiding the undesirable behavior, denial, and so forth.  It's also noteworthy
    that many people get addicted to multiple things -- like the "soft" drug
    user who moves on to harder drugs.

    The big question is sorting out the precise factors that predispose people
    to addiction -- or predispose them to being addicted to particular things.
    How much of it is a physiological weakness for certain substances?  How much
    of it is learned?  And how much of it is a predisposition to addictive
    behavior in general that just happens to latch onto whatever addictive
    "substance" is found first?

    One thing that addicts do usually have in common is low self-esteem.  It's
    certainly possible to argue that addiction itself, and the sense of
    powerlessness it causes, do lower self-esteem further; but it's commoner to
    find some original cause of low self-esteem even before the addiction was
    established.  That's why I regard attitudes that tend to increase people's
    shame about their natural selves -- like calling sex bad -- as unhelpful.

    The sex drive, as you pointed out, is very nonspecific.

    So it can lead us in a positive and fulfilling direction, or it can lead us
    in a damaging direction.  Really it's a bit of a loose cannon rolling
    around.  Hey, that just struck me, it's a useful sort of metaphor.  So what
    do you do with a loose cannon?  I think a lot of people want to plug up the
    muzzle and pretend it won't go off.  You can do that up to a point.  You
    don't have to be setting it off all the time.  But I think it's a little
    different from an ordinary cannon in that it builds up pressure in the
    breech all by itself and wants to go off at more or less regular intervals.
    You can hold it back for a certain length of time, but in the long run the
    best thing to do is not to plug it up, but to get it pointed in the right
    direction (or if there isn't a "right" direction, then at least a safe
    direction) so that it won't do any harm when it does go off.

    Well, enough of this phallic imagery! :)  Anyway, part of my attitude about
    sex is this.  I think there's a tendency for some people to look at the sex
    drive, and see what harm it can do at times, and focus on that and say
    "well, the sex drive is dangerous, and dangerous means bad", and then
    concentrate on trying to find ways to *reduce* the sex drive, or minimize
    it, or suppress it, or something.  When really all we want to do is to make
    sure that the sex drive isn't deployed at the wrong time.  The fact that
    there *is* a "wrong time" implies that there's some good reason for not
    letting rip with the sex drive at that particular time; or conversely, some
    good thing that you'd get out of *not* doing it (like not having a baby!)

    What I see is that people see problems where the sex drive conflicts with
    something else (like not wanting to have a baby, or not being unfaithful to
    someone, or not hurting someone), and they see the solution as trying to
    suppress the sex drive and squash it down, as if it were bad just for being
    there.  I think there's a subtle but important difference between doing
    that, and concentrating on the positive gains to be had from using it
    appropriately, or not using it at the wrong time.  It's a bit like trying to
    ride a bicycle, when somebody yells out "hey, watch you DON'T run into that
    post!"  And then you're focused on the post, where you're *not* supposed to
    be going (or focused on the sex drive and trying to suppress it), and you
    probably end up doing what you shouldn't anyway.  If you were thinking
    instead about steering into the *gap* on one side of the post, or thinking
    about how you could use the sex drive usefully or what you'd get out of not
    using it at some point in time, you'd probably avoid the catastrophe.

    So I think there's far too much emphasis on the "evils" of sex, and nowhere
    near enough emphasis on positive aspects of life, like good relationships
    with people -- especially a spouse -- the need to raise children happily and
    securely, and so on.  If people had those things in front of them as the
    most vital goals, I think that sex would fall into perspective naturally.

    It's perfectly true, as you pointed out, that teenage (and not-so-teenage)
    boys will spin a girl any kind of line.  But I don't question "why do they
    put so much emphasis on 'lust', to the exclusion of other concerns?"

    Instead, I ask "where are those other concerns, and why aren't they there?"
    Where, for example, is the value of truth?  Where is the value of concern
    for other people, and looking after other people (either the girl, or any
    child that might result)?  Where is the value of closeness and trust in a
    relationship?  Where is a sense of responsibility?  If these things are
    there, I think sex falls into place of its own accord, without anybody
    having to bash it over the head.

    Women and girls, for example, usually have more sense of responsibility
    about sex than men do, for the obvious reason that if they get pregnant they
    have to deal with the results.  But there's more to it than that, because
    females by and large do attach more importance to relationships with others,
    and I think there's good evidence that a lot of this tendency is innate.

    (While it is an aside, it's well worth harking back to the subject of self-
    esteem at this point and mentioning that a lot of young girls get pregnant
    as a result of low self-esteem.  "I won't be loved if I don't have sex."
    "Nobody loved me so I thought if I had a baby then I would have someone to
    love me."  "I'm not anybody really, but if I were a mother then I would be
    somebody, I'd have an identity."  These are all variations on exactly the
    same theme.  Very tragic.  And it *does* have a solution.)

    But we can't say that males don't value other people and their relationships
    with others. Most married men get very attached to their wives and families.

    I think men do appreciate the benefits of a relationship with a partner,
    even if they're not quite as hooked on "relationships" as women are and
    aren't quite so motivated to work as hard on them.  And if they're shown
    these benefits clearly in the family environment, and if there's cultural
    conditioning that values such things instead of devaluing them, there's no
    reason men shouldn't take their responsibilities as seriously as women do.

    So I've never asked myself why a man should bother marrying a woman if he
    can get all the benefits of marriage without the responsibilities.  I know
    that one reason I'm not attracted to this line of thinking is that it leads
    in the direction of marriage as a relationship where the woman sells her
    sexual favors in return for a wedding ring and housekeeping money.  I don't
    like that way of looking at life one bit.  It just keeps the old battle of
    the sexes going as furiously as ever.  Besides, women have sex drive too.

    On the topic of money, it's undeniable, as you say, that the reason people
    sell erotic material is simply to make money.  The difference in my attitude
    is that I don't see anything wrong with that.  Everybody sells things to
    make a living.  If I go to the hardware store to buy a drill, say, the guy
    who sells me the drill might derive some pleasure from the fact that he's
    selling me the right tool for the job, or from the quality of the goods he's
    handling, or whatever -- just as the maker of X-rated movies might enjoy the
    fact that he's good at it and turns lots of people on.  But the real reason
    they're putting so much effort into it is to make a living.

    Only I don't see why I should castigate the hardware guy because he makes
    money out of selling me the drill, just because he's taking advantage of my
    need for a drill to make his living.  That's the way life works.  It's a
    fair exchange.  Similarly, I don't see why I should castigate anybody else
    because they make money out of selling X-rated movies.  The only *real*
    cause to criticize somebody on that basis would be if I disapproved of the
    product itself, or of providing it to somebody -- like selling drugs to
    kids, say.  I don't disapprove of erotica on principle, so I have no trouble
    with people making financial gain out of it either.

    Yes, as far as I've heard, quite a lot of arranged marriages do work out
    better than you'd expect.  I'm sure this has a lot to do with the respective
    families using a little insight to match up the personalities of the couple.
    They have to allow some flexibility though, and have the interest of the
    couple genuinely at heart.  I know at least one guy (Indian) who got married
    in this way.  But his family did have more than one prospective bride lined
    up for him, and any of the women themselves would have had the right of
    refusal (unlike medieval dynastic marriages which could be disastrous, only
    the women had no say in it at all).  The fact that he was happy with the
    first "candidate" probably said a lot for the two families' knowledge of the
    partner's personalities and their skill at matchmaking.

    Some people have gotten married on the basis of sexual attraction alone.

    (I know one couple where he married her because he wanted kids, and she
    married him because she said he was good in bed!  I think they lasted
    eighteen months.)  But I'd say two things about this.  First of all, at the
    risk of repeating the same old message, I wouldn't denigrate sexual
    attraction on those grounds.  Rather, I'd emphasize the importance of the
    points you made regarding personality matches, likes and dislikes, and
    expectations (which are very important and more often than not unspoken).
    If those things were properly addressed, sex would fall into place.

    Secondly, I'd say that a lot of what we call "sexual attraction" isn't
    simply a matter of big boobs or whatever turns you on in a photograph.  An
    enormous amount of "sexual attraction" is actually underlying psychological
    factors that attract people subtly yet powerfully to one another.  The
    problem here is that if people don't understand what's in their own heads to
    begin with, it's going to trip them up.  So the solution again is not to
    downplay "sexual" attraction, but chiefly to gain an accurate understanding
    of what's in one's own head.  Too many people are screwed up.

    Years ago people would get married because it was expected of them, or for
    economic reasons.  And economic factors, or social pressure, kept them in
    their marriages for better or for worse.  Today, people don't have the same
    pressures to stay married.  Furthermore, they demand more happiness out of
    marriage.  People expect more, just as they expect more out of life.

    I don't see anything wrong with this, and I don't see any reason why people
    shouldn't get it, either.  But the important thing to remember is that it
    doesn't happen by magic, or without work.  We expect more of everything
    today.  We have a high standard of living because of technology.  Broadly,
    technology is the acquisition and the use of skills.  We've built our high
    standard of living on knowledge gained by generation upon generation of
    human beings.

    Now, some of those skills can be left to experts.  If I can't repair my TV,
    I can pay an expert to do it.  We can also build on generations of knowledge
    we have about what makes people tick and how people get on together and how
    to match people up and what makes a good marriage and so forth, and use it
    to live together more harmoniously.  But if we're going to use it
    successfully, we can't pay someone else to do it.  We have to acquire the
    skills ourselves.  We've got all kinds of support services and counseling
    and bags of knowledge about why some marriages succeed and others fail and
    why people pick the wrong partners and so on.  But most of the people who
    get married just go charging in without any kind of training whatsoever --
    except for what they got from their own family experience, which may have
    been good (if they were lucky) or may have been worthless or worse.  It's
    one of my pet peeves that we teach math and science and history in schools,
    but we don't teach anything to speak of about psychology or human
    relationships.  I think we should.

    Lastly, as you said:

     TC>>There are other consequences of sexual relations, also...  I am not
     TC>>well versed in what those consequences are...

    I think this is absolutely true -- if we're talking about the same thing.
    Sex between two people is not just a mechanical act, but has other effects,
    resulting in feelings and understandings and expectations and "bonds" and
    all kinds of things.  To tell the truth, I don't think we have a good
    vocabulary to describe all these things.  It's related, for example, to the
    difficulty of trying to explain accurately exactly why rape is so damaging
    to the victim -- although we know that it is.  It's getting a bit late, so
    I'll think about this and try to put something down in a few days.

    Message: 77559
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: News Today
    Subject: Internet News (1/2)
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 03:17:34

    Date:    Sat, 10 Aug 91 02:54:22 PDT
    From:    ho (Hilarie Kauiolani Orman)
    Subject: Future Risks

        [Via fermat!r@la.tis.com (Richard Schroeppel)]

         TINY BUG IN H.S. "GENOME" CAUSES MASSIVE HUMANITY FAILURE

    Officials responsible for a spiral galaxy near the middle section of the
    universe revealed today that a small error in an encoding for the life form
    "Homo sapiens" was responsible for the near extinction of the partly
    intelligent species.  The change had been introduced during routine
    maintenance of the life form.  Officials explained that the maintenance had
    been intended to improve the survivability of the species, but inadequate
    testing had caused it to become susceptible to a new sexually transmitted
    disease.

    Senior universe officials expressed disappointment in the control of the
    life forms in the galaxy, citing a series of malfunctions, especially near a
    yellow star at the edge.  The H.S. species has required several patches in
    the field and still seems unstable.  The latest change was not tested in
    alternative universes due to lax controls and lack of funding.

    Other officials cited inadequate specification and design review.  "How can
    we guarantee that the species works without a formal definition of what it
    is?" lamented one senior observer.  "These things just look like collections
    of cells - they just sort of grow.  There's no mathematical model that can
    be used to verify it.  I don't see how they ever got it started in the first
    place."

    Insiders feel that the species can be rescued, but expressed doubt about its
    long-term viability.  The estimate of the time needed for a thorough review
    of the documentation, writing the formal specifications, and verifying the
    genome encoding, expressibility, and environmental testing, is greater than
    the lifetime of the universe.

    Meanwhile, yet another mutation and alteration of the local laws of physics
    will be required to back out of this particular upgrade.  With funding
    already stretched, this setback might just spell the end of H.S.

    The formally verified Vulcan species, originally slated for production next
    year, has been delayed due to a series of technical problems and is now
    scheduled for beta testing after the next big bang.

    Message: 77561
    Author: $ Bill Burkett
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Join Up, Harris!
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 08:08:49

    > Where do I sign up?

    At the [M]ain menu, enter $ and you'll get all the info you need to enlist.

    One thing many non-$tatus users don't realize is how much goes on in the
    SIGs.  I don't have specific numbers, but I'll bet the [$ta]tus SIG has at
    least as much happening on it as the main BBS here has.

    Message: 77562
    Author: $ Beauregard Dog
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Gordon's news item
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 17:40:15

    Where did you find that?  Risks?

    That is a very good parody of the state of computer "engineering" these
    days.

    Message: 77563
    Author: $ Thad Coons
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Gordon's msg.
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 23:11:51

      I agree with almost everything you said.
     Especially, I think that what you have presented regarding the nature of
    'sexual attraction' and the proper role of it in life is also correct.
      Many of the reasons I am opposed to pornography is that it is directly
    opposed to many of the virtues that you have outlined.
      It's been a while since I have looked, but most erotica is concerned ONLY
    with arousing the immediate sensation of lust...not with concern for truth,
    not with concern for other people or looking after them, not with awareness
    of consequences, not with a sense of responsibility, not with the value of
    closeness ot trust in a relationship, and these other things you have
    mentioned.
      If it included these elements in their proper perspective, it would not be
    pornography...
      I am opposed to pornography in principle, and so I am more likely to
    compare it to selling drugs..to anybody, not just kids.
      It is precisely these "other consequences", these feelings,
    understandings, expectations, "bonds" and so forth, that pornography ignores
    and even denies in its emphasis on the mechanical...and I think you have
    even mentioned that.

      I liked your comparison of uncontrolled and unrestrained sex to a loose
    cannon...Exactly. The sex drive is powerful...it is a powerful force for
    good if it is handled properly, as in a good marriage (it helps make it
    good, if you include all the other necessary parts), and it is a powerful
    destructive force. In my opinion, children need to be taught that as soon as
    they begin to become sexually aware.
      BUT Pornography is NOT a 'safe' direction to point the sex drive...it's a
    bit too much like pouring gasoline onto a fire...and it promotes the very
    opposite of the careful restraint you have mentioned.
      I agree with you that trying to supress it or squash it down or label it
    as 'bad' is not the thing to do...but the consequences of letting it run
    wild are indeed bad.
      The part about the boy's spinning lines, and girls believing them (because
    of the factors you have mentioned, and them some) is correct. I don't want
    boys thinking "benefits without responsibilities"...
      What I was trying to say, was that if a boy wants the pleasure or
    privilege of having sex with a girl, he has a moral obligation to share the
    responsibilites of care and raising (economic or other) which she would
    othewise have to bear alone.

    Message: 77565
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Beau
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 23:34:57

    Risks is right.  There was another amusing item there recently, too -- a
    true one -- but I don't have it with me.  I'll put it up on the COMputer SIG
    tomorrow.

    Message: 77566
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Cat food
    Date: 08/15/91  Time: 23:40:05

    Funny, I thought we had a PETs SIG.  It must have gone.  I was just musing
    this evening on what pampered animals cats are.  The food we feed them must
    be the last word in gourmet luxury.  Other animals seem to like cat food
    better than their own food.  Our cats eat cat food.  Our dog likes cat food.
    Even our turtle likes cat food, and seems to do better on it.

    I reminded Jane earlier this evening that a few years back, when I was
    dieting to dump off some weight, cat food even looked tasty to ME...