Comic Discussion > ALICE GROVE
Unanswered Questions from the Alice-verse
improvnerd:
--- Quote from: pwhodges on 17 Jul 2015, 08:58 ---I knew that lambskin condoms were a thing in the past (back to Roman times); but I didn't know that they are in current use!
--- End quote ---
Their popularity dropped way off when scientists discovered HIV could penetrate them.
FunkyTuba:
--- Quote from: BenRG on 19 Jul 2015, 16:00 ---
--- Quote from: wlewisiii on 19 Jul 2015, 14:47 ---
--- Quote from: BenRG on 18 Jul 2015, 23:51 ---The Blink actively imposes a low-tech environment on the planet-bound. Synthetic rubber, like other sophisticated materials, is probably on the list of forbidden things that it prevents from working.
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I'd have to disagree with this. If it were the case, Alice's windmill would either not work or be useless.
--- End quote ---
...that the Blink only affects items manufactured on Earth from locally-sourced materials....
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I think Ardent's experience seems to back this up a bit...
ReindeerFlotilla:
Latex is a natural material. Comes from trees.
It probably wouldn't take anything too hightech to synthesize it, assuming a decent source of raw material could be contrived.
improvnerd:
Rubber trees are pretty tropical. You'd need global trade, and it's not clear if that exists.
Synthetic rubber would require a petrochemical industry, and I don't think the blink enforcement system would permit that.
ReindeerFlotilla:
I don't see why you'd need an industry. Bio mechanics are still mechanics. Figuring out how to do something in your kitchen just requires trial, error, and time in your kitchen, if nature can do it. Remember, there's nothing particularly special about any place in the universe, that we are aware of and biological processes tend to be those that don't require heavy machinery.
I'm not positing that it would be easy, just that there's very little that nature makes that you couldn't given access to raw materials and thousands of years to think about it.
While it's certainly possible that some god-like agent is specifically intervening on Earth to enforce arbitrary tech laws, keep in mind that if you have the tech to make a pitchfork, you have the tech to make a refinery, so what we are talking about is a constant intervention of a particularly arbitrary set of rules.
I don't know about you, but if I were god-like, weakly or otherwise, I'd have better things to do with eternity than force a punch of human beings to live a low tech life, with the inevitable disease and suffering that entails (along with the tendency to enforce things like gender slavery). In fact, I'd say such a being was morally reprehensible, and deserves to be destroyed.
I suspect there's some message about sustainability in the AG plot, but we are talking about a force that effortlessly separated the population of Earth and put a bunch in orbit. If you have access to space, sustainability is not an issue (which makes me wonder, as Gavia does) what the SpaceTrees want with Earth.
This does raise the interesting possibility that there is a morally reprehensible force imposing arbitrary rules (and attendant suffering) on Earth, Alice is its agent, and the SpaceTrees are the good guys.
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