[extropy-chat] Famous author self destructs inpublic!Filmateleven.

[Charlie Stross]

On 8 Jun 2005, at 12:41, Brett Paatsch wrote:
> You missed me by 180 degrees. 'Every sperm is sacred' is my favorite
> Python song.

OK ...

> We have run into each other on the net before. It was on this list. I
> remembered you favourably as the person that had once ran a version
> of a prediction market at the Foresight Institute. I think you said it 
> was
> closed down when a new director wasn't sure how to account for it.

:-)

You mis-remember me then, because I have *never* had anything to do 
with the Foresight Institute *or* prediction markets.

> Perhaps I didn't recognize you as a science fiction writer because I
> don't read a lot of science fiction.

'S'okay. You'd be astonished how few books any of us sell, or how few 
people have read them.
...

So what are you a Canadian living in the US or what?
>>
>> British, living in the UK. (In the People's Republic of Scotland, to 
>> be precise.)
>
> An interesting part of the world. Therapeutic cloning and Ian Wilmut,
> sportsbetting licensing with Betfair, and the question of what to do
> about the EU constitution following the French and the Dutch votes.

It gets better. According to Monday's Herald, 39.5% of the population 
are hard atheists (no religion, period), and of the rest, only 60% 
believe in God -- the rest just have a numinous vague sense of 
something out there. The proportion attending church on a regular basis 
-- monthly or more often -- is down around 10%.

That's partly why I find the whole abortion thing so weird. It's like 
finding yourself on a party line with the Ayatollahs of Qom.


-- Charlie