(urth) Wall of Nessus

[Jeff Wilson]

On 6/14/2010 11:39 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> A great image, but if you're going to overhunt waterfowl, shooting them when they're flying low or walking or swimming is a lot easier.
>
> I'm no expert, but I think that in our universe, aristocrats have been in the forefront of conservation of the species they like to hunt.  It's the species that the poor can kill for food or money, or the ones people see as threats (e.g., to livestock), that get hunted to extinction.

That's at odds with Wolfe's worldiews and other stories from the period, 
like "Beautyland". He considered/considers non-Christian societies to be 
tainted and given to cruelty, and we know exultant debutantes like their 
kicks vicious. They already have to keep the flyers tethered way up 
there, what fun to throw some bread out the hatch until you've got lots 
of the buggers waiting to be zapped.

Then again , there are some number of hungry folk who come into 
possession of energy weapons in the course of any number of wars, and 
their line-of-sight range may indeed make high flight a survival liability.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
IEEE Student Chapter Blog at
< http://ieeetamut.org >