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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9580553" data-attributes="member: 18">That just doesn't match up with the &quot;counting the hairs on a caterpillar&quot; example that the book actually gives. It sounds more like the later retcon (which I'm wondering now if it wasn't in a magazine or something, in which case good luck to me trying to find that!).Anyway the &quot;counting the hairs on a caterpillar&quot; example would be completely unnecessary if it was true that it was also the civil service, and also the whole &quot;you could alternatively test out dangerous new devices&quot; thing would be unnecessary if it was also the civil service, because it would be utterly trivial to find a job for a completely blind person in the civil service, so why on earth would the bizarre &quot;hairs on a caterpillar&quot; example be used rather the teacher just furrowing his brow and saying &quot;Well he'd go work in an office...&quot; like an even slightly sane person would say if the civil service stuff was true, because that'd a be a dumbass question. Instead it's treated like a valid question (which again it would not be if the civil service was really included when the book was written). Why would the &quot;dangerous machinery testing&quot; jobs even exist? Would they only be for illiterates or something? Seems like you're punishing people for society screwing up if you give a man who is literate a cushy office job which is like 95% of civil service jobs (and even some military ones), but send some illiterate but otherwise fit man to get blown up by a malfunctioning test suit of power armour.He clearly hadn't thought it through to the level you're describing. He later wanted to change it so it was more like that, but the &quot;hairs on a caterpillar&quot; example permanently derails such attempted retcons. It's hard-incompatible with them. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm surprised because it's one of the wildest and most memorable things in the entire book.Anyway when the actual book was written, it's clear that Heinlein was only thinking about MANLY and RISKY jobs as worthy of citizenship, which is why his examples are soldiers, firefighters, and experimental machinery testers, all stuff where you could get killed. But many years later very different views Heinlein wants to backfill/retcon so it's not obviously dumb (and sexist - though he did admittedly address ableism in the crudest and most insulting possible way - but hey that's why this is only fascist and not Nazi, they're not exterminating &quot;those people&quot;, just treating them as totally incapable!).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 9580553, member: 18"] That just doesn't match up with the "counting the hairs on a caterpillar" example that the book actually gives. It sounds more like the later retcon (which I'm wondering now if it wasn't in a magazine or something, in which case good luck to me trying to find that!). Anyway the "counting the hairs on a caterpillar" example would be completely unnecessary if it was true that it was also the civil service, and also the whole "you could alternatively test out dangerous new devices" thing would be unnecessary if it was also the civil service, because it would be utterly trivial to find a job for a completely blind person in the civil service, so why on earth would the bizarre "hairs on a caterpillar" example be used rather the teacher just furrowing his brow and saying "Well he'd go work in an office..." like an even slightly sane person would say if the civil service stuff was true, because that'd a be a dumbass question. Instead it's treated like a valid question (which again it would not be if the civil service was really included when the book was written). Why would the "dangerous machinery testing" jobs even exist? Would they only be for illiterates or something? Seems like you're punishing people for society screwing up if you give a man who is literate a cushy office job which is like 95% of civil service jobs (and even some military ones), but send some illiterate but otherwise fit man to get blown up by a malfunctioning test suit of power armour. He clearly hadn't thought it through to the level you're describing. He later wanted to change it so it was more like that, but the "hairs on a caterpillar" example permanently derails such attempted retcons. It's hard-incompatible with them. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm surprised because it's one of the wildest and most memorable things in the entire book. Anyway when the actual book was written, it's clear that Heinlein was only thinking about MANLY and RISKY jobs as worthy of citizenship, which is why his examples are soldiers, firefighters, and experimental machinery testers, all stuff where you could get killed. But many years later very different views Heinlein wants to backfill/retcon so it's not obviously dumb (and sexist - though he did admittedly address ableism in the crudest and most insulting possible way - but hey that's why this is only fascist and not Nazi, they're not exterminating "those people", just treating them as totally incapable!). [/QUOTE]

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