[extropy-chat] Re: Transhumanist short story

[The Avantguardian]

--- Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:


> >Once upon a time, transhumanists overcame
> >impossible
> >odds, and lived happily ever after.
> 
> Why so verbose? I have to admit that I find my own
> fairytale version more 
> concise:
> 
> "Once upon a time, everybody lived happily ever
> after."

Well the added verbiage defined the protagonists
(transhumans), the antagonists (the odds), conflict
and resolution (overcame), with a denoument. In
restrospect though, I think the story would have been
more inspirational with the following minor
modification:

Once upon a time, transhumanists overcame impossible
odds, and lived happily EVER after.

> 
> There is a great temptation to shorten these things.
> I'm reminded of the 
> chilly modification made to a classic short short by
> my late friend Ron Smith:
> 
> ==================
> 
> http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1439751
> :
> 
> "The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There
> was a knock on the door..."
> 
> This two-sentence horror tale is presented as a
> story within a story, right 
> at the start of Fredric Brown's 'Knock', published
> in the December 1948 
> edition of Thrilling Wonder Stories.
> 
> ... in July 1957, Ron Smith produced what he called
> 'A Horror Story Shorter 
> by One Letter Than the Shortest Horror Story Ever
> Written':
> 
> "The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There
> was a lock on the door..."
> 
> ======================
> 
> Here is my upload version, "A Horror Story Shorter
> by Two Letters Than 'A 
> Horror Story Shorter by One Letter Than the Shortest
> Horror Story Ever 
> Written'":
> 
> "The last man on Earth sat alone in a ROM. There was
> a log on the door..."

Yeah, your version is shroter and scarier. :)






The Avantguardian 
is 
Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they haven't attempted to contact us." 
-Bill Watterson

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