Subject: Re: Questions about "The High Frontier"
From: Pat Flannery
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science, sci.space.history

Eivind Kjorstad wrote:
> Hop David skreiv:
>
>
>> # can sense its environment, and manipulate or interact with things in it
>> # has some degree of intelligence or ability to make choices based on
>> the environment, or automatic control / preprogrammed sequence
>>
>
> That doesn't help much. Every object "interacts with things", even an
> inert rock "interacts" with every other thing in the universe by way of
> gravity.
>
> "sense" is one of those words that are hard to define again. In any
> case, by the WikiPedia-definition my car is certainly a robot.
>

This is the sort of stuff Rabbis love to discuss for a month or so...
since the Golem was something like a robot (and a android at that), the
Jews may have pride of place in coming up with this idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem
.....with the possible exception of the self moving sacred tripod lamps
or incense burners in some old Greek myth I remember vaguely.
So we get the Rabbis working on what a robot is.
First question: What sort of work does it do?
Second question: Does it do this on the sabbath?
Third question: If so, is it owned by a goyim or something?
Forth question: Can it do a decent job on taking in a suit? I saw the
movie "Sleeper", and the Jewish tailor robots in that were complete
schmucks when it came to making a suit...and a Rabbi has to look well
dressed if he is going to impress those under his care. Lord forbid I
should go down to the Synagogue in a pair of bad-fitting pants made by
some goy-owned schmuck robot that works on the Sabbath. In fact, I think
that a Rabbi should only wear cloths made by Jewish tailors, as it helps
his own people's prosperity. Now Morey Leibowitz, that man was a tailor
of the old school! He used to make my suits back in the 1960's, and
there wasn't a thing that man didn't know about the needle and the
thread. They had him making uniforms for the SS back in Auschwitz in
1944 and he figured out a way to sew in a stitch that felt great when
they first put the uniform on, but would tighten right up in the groin
the first time they laundered it. Those things would pinch their schlong
like they had a lobster grabbing it.
I heard that one entire Nazi laundry crew were shot after that happened
to the one he made for Himmler...that's the truth, Morey, rest his soul,
wouldn't make something like that up...but his son, that's a whole other
story...where do you start with things about him? I mean they were great
stories, but did anyone ever really believe that he had made sexy
underwear for Golda Meir? That boy, stories like that were sure to get
him in trouble, and that's why the Mossad paid him a visit back in 1972
when he started bragging he had made a jockstrap for Anwar Sadat that
was going to squeeze his "damned Egyptian wiener like a scorpion's claw"
....that's just the words he used too...well, Mossad knew that if that
thing were tracked back to a Jewish tailor there could be trouble, and
we all know what happened come 1973... so maybe he was telling the truth
that time...but that would be one of the few times...

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