[extropy-chat] humor: evil eye

[spike]

Yesterday the local bookstore had Richard Dawkins as a guest for a lecture
and book signing.  An excellent talk it was, a most wonderful time was this.
The usual transhumanist suspects met for dinner afterwards.  Since the talk
was about superstition, it seemed appropriate that Amara showed us a good-
luck talisman known as the Evil Eye.  It was a curious object that actually
looked a bit like an eye.  I was unclear on what it meant to give someone
the Evil Eye until she pointed out that the object actually functions to
scare away evil spirits, bringing good luck to the bearer of the device.
Clearly it worked for I noticed that no evil spirits were present.
Presumably it has no adverse effect on non-evil spirits, so it would not
create any panic at Google.  It may result in great discomfort at Microsoft
however, or at least the PowerPoint division.

Spirits might be a bit like people in which the moral status is far less
clear, perhaps a 50-50 mixture of good and evil.  Surely as a companion
talisman to the Evil Eye we need another device for dealing with these
ambiguously moral spirits.  In keeping with the alliteration of evil eye, I
propose the Neutral Nose.

Chemistry minded people are accustomed to thinking in terms of protons,
neutrons and electrons.  To fill out our talisman trilogy, surely we need
some device for driving out those spirits that are positively not evil.  It
isn't clear why exactly, other than to maintain symmetry.  The opposite of
evil is righteous, so what could we have?  A retina is part of the eye,
which is already taken, and a radius without the ulna seems incomplete, but
I just don't think we should go with the Righteous Rectum.  It is unclear
what such a talisman would look like, although it might actually be rather
effective in repelling spirits.  

OK well, the letter R is difficult when searching for names of body parts.
Perhaps we should come up with an alternate opposite of evil, such as good.
Good versus evil, double plus good, OK.  Let's see then, Good Groi... aaah
no.  Good Gona...  hmmm not that either.  OK R then.  Righteous...