SPOILERS Going Postal Discussion *Spoilers*

[Trish]

Golems are more than robots. Can't they overrule their own chem anyway? Does Dorfl (FoC) even have chem? (I can't remember)

Free golems may be able to have a say in their chem. "Frees" certainly develop personalities.

MoC:
Dorfl ends up without a chem, but has a receipt saying he owns himself.
From there, Dorfl decides how he will act as a being.
Vimes orders Dorfl be given a tongue. Although Chalky the Troll is horrified at the idea of a talking golem, he makes it.

 

[poohbcarrot]

If I remember correctly that was because he was given his own freedom. His chem was removed and he was able to think freely for the first time.

I don't believe you do remember correctly Tony, because when his chem was removed he shut down. When the receipt was put into his head, it meant that he owned himself and then he started thinking freely.

 

[Tonyblack]

If I remember correctly that was because he was given his own freedom. His chem was removed and he was able to think freely for the first time.

I don't believe you do remember correctly Tony, because when his chem was removed he shut down. When the receipt was put into his head, it meant that he owned himself and then he started thinking freely.

Thank you for the correction Pooh! It's been quite some time since I read Feet of Clay.


In fact (having checked) it was over two years ago.

 

[poohbcarrot]

.... because when his chem was removed he shut down.

Exactly like a robot. Not a slave. Robots live 9,000 years, slaves don't.
Robots don't work without programming.

In fact I'd call golems, along with Hex, Discworld articial intelligence.

 

[Tonyblack]

It depends on what your definition of a slave is. And whether an item that is self aware and owned by someone else is a slave of an appliance.

 

[poohbcarrot]

Who makes the laws in robotics? Whoever does that can surely rewrite those laws.

In the Asimov books, humans were intially scared of robots, whereas the spacers weren't. I believe it was called the Frankenstein complex. As all the robots were made by the same company, the president (Susan Calvin) agreed that all robots would incorporate the three laws, thus making them acceptable to humans, and preventing a robot rebellion at some time in the future.

(I'm remembering this from 30 years ago, so could be wrong)

 

[poohbcarrot]

As it's beddy-byes time shortly, here's my last comment until tomorrow.

On Roundworld, humans no longer design computers, but computers design computers.

Imagine if 20 years into the future, computers design AI. This AI is then put into a Robot (robotics having advanced considerably in the 20 years too)

Now, would you call this robot a tool or should it be given equal rights to humans? (Asimov's Bicentenial Man)

And would you allow it to get built without the safeguards of the 3 laws of robotics? (No safeguards and we're entering the realms of Terminator)

In fact in Feet of clay, this is exactly what the golems (robots) do. They build their own robot which unfortunately malfunctions.

If all golems are classed as self aware, then they must be given the same rights as humans. Therefore the badly programmed white golem must also be in the same category.

 

[Sjoerd3000]

I really enjoyed Going Postal (everytime a bit more it's true ) I do like Moist (a bit anyway) He's a hero (sort of) he resurects the post office defeats Gilt and rescues a cat(very heroic). Off course he is also a con man but in the end he chooses not to be (when he sees the second angel) and his entire loot is spend on the post office so the peolple he conned can see it as taxes

About Dorfl didn't he got his head bashed in by the golem king and then he finds the chem in his heart? So in the end he got no more chem.

Did anyone notice the sweeper in the temple of Offler? Could be Lu-Tze

No I'm off to college I'll be back 8)

 

[Tina a.k.a.SusanSto.Helit]

You can't be talking about a mistake on the hardcover version, that one was lamer then the paperback. The only thing I see on the paperback is the "postal Franking stamp" has 4 lines on one side and 7 on the other.

Moist is ok, I don't mind if my heroes come with a slide of grease, all they have to do is be heroes in the long run. He is honest with himself. He does not like the gold suit at first, but sees it for what it is... a symbol.

You ain't got a thing, if you ain't got that swing.

The US cover shows the horse "Boris"? the evil thing on four legs that almost makes Moist faint. It shows that nobody believes in the idea of the post office, even those who would use it.

I like Stanley, he is very tightly wound and has to rely on his compulsions to keep life ok. The piece of paper crossing the line in the basemen which has been trimmed by a razor shows that. The joy he finds with stamps, and "putting away his childish pins" bit is hilarious.

I must get ready for paintball now so, don't go getting all manky about tearing the book to bits to analyze. I think it is an entire piece in and of itself. I could use some of Adora Belle Dearheart's moxie..."This is a Pretty Lucrecitia number three, I know you're wondering, how much farther can it go" A Little bit of Clint there.

 

[Tonyblack]

If all golems are classed as self aware, then they must be given the same rights as humans. Therefore the badly programmed white golem must also be in the same category.

If that's the case then the golems are slaves by definition, because they are possessions bound to servitude.

The buying of the golems through the Trust and paid for by the free golems mirrors, to a degree, the way that freed slaves purchased their families out of bondage.

Sjoerd - I wondered about that old man sweeping at the temple as well.

As to Moist - one thing that has put me off him in this and Making Money is the fact that Terry says everyone likes him. I don't see much there to like and I'm not convinced with Terry.

However, this reading of the book, I have felt like I've come to understand him a bit better. I still don't like him, but I can see why he is like he is.

 

[Tonyblack]

You can't be talking about a mistake on the hardcover version, that one was lamer then the paperback. The only thing I see on the paperback is the "postal Franking stamp" has 4 lines on one side and 7 on the other.

This is the cover in question.

 

[Tina a.k.a.SusanSto.Helit]

Aren't the covers usually Editorial choices anyway? The Author rarely gets to choose the name of the blasted book. Then they change the cover and rename the book for poor fools like me who see it and go "oooh a Mercedes Lackey book I haven't read yet" or Ooooh a new John Ringo book. Edit: Then, I get to "give" it to a friend which is rare since most of my friends are online, or go back and take store credit. That is usually what I do since I have spent most of the time grabbing books like gumball rings saying OOOOOH Pretty, I want, NONONO walk away from the damn book, wench.

 

[Tina a.k.a.SusanSto.Helit]

I like Moist, other than the twinges of evil that lurk in EVERY man anyway, he is basically driven by his own moral compass, his just points South a lot. He is intelligent, articulate, even, sort of, saved by the love of an interesting woman, who smells like an ashtray, but in a nice way.

Set a thief to catch a thief, there is nothing that stops him from using said naughty skills to help people and the stamps were brilliant.

Moist simply plays with his Jungian dark side on a tightrope, balancing a golem in one hand and Stanley and Mr. Groat in the other. Underneath it all he is actually "good" in the broadest sense of the word. He never murdered, or actually "tried" to Hurt anyone on purpose, he just wanted to use their "Own" dark side to try and take advantage of Him.

They are everywhere, Three Card Monty, Lottery tickets, Scratch off Lottery Tickets, Politicians, Churches (Organized and NOT B'Hai faith), Fundraisers where 80 to 90% of the money goes to the workers and Not the poor. Moist is Not in with these characters.

 

[swreader]

Heavens to Murgatroyd-- you think Boris is fast? This discussion has taken off like Boris. 3 pages, and I've just finished breakfast. And it's moved so fast that I can't call up the first page now, but opening two screens and going back to the first page--

Dotsie- I couldn't disagree more -- both William and Moist have personalities that change and develop in the story. If you are saying this isn't a character-driven book, well no--it's a comic satire.

I have never liked the Paul Kidby covers, which are parodies of sorts of pieces of art work but with some form of the characters in them. Tony and I argue about this--he likes figuring how who the various people are on the covers. As a bookseller, I find the English covers almost universally too busy, and while I don't like the American ones because often the art work is cartoonish, I would say that one of my favorite covers, because it is striking and calls the reader to see what the book may be about without being overly busy-- the British ed. of Thud!. I know that the authors, at least in American publishing, have no control of the art work, and have been at several cons where panels of authors have shared horror stories about the covers. That comes, I think, because the American illustrators have, at best, read a synopsis of the book--and consequently come croppers (stamps on the letters Moist is drowning in).

I can only type (shoulder problem) so much at a time. So I'll come back to discuss golems. By the way--I just sent Paul Krugman (the Nobel Laureate Economist) an e-mail asking if he has read it, and if not suggesting it. Terry has very little use for corporations who show know interest or concern (pirates indeed) for the people around them. But Terry's view of the responsibility and intelligence of the "ordinary man" is about the same as Vetinari's.

 

[swreader]

If I remember correctly that was because he was given his own freedom. His chem was removed and he was able to think freely for the first time.

I don't believe you do remember correctly Tony, because when his chem was removed he shut down. When the receipt was put into his head, it meant that he owned himself and then he started thinking freely.

Neither of you is quite right. But fairly clearly what Terry explores in FOC is whether golems are things (robots) or some kind of being (eg. human).
When Dorfl appears at the police station and "confesses" they take his chem out - and as long as it's out, he's essentially dead. And he appears to be subject (Terry read Asimov) to the 3rd law of Robotics, that a robot/golem may not harm or allow harm to come to a human being. When Carrot puts the chem back in, Dorfl cannot actually hit him though he tries.

When Carrot and Angua follow Dorfll from the police station after Carrot demonstrates that he is not the murderer, and Carrot buys him from the Butcher for $1.00, Carrot puts the receipt in Dorfl's head. He "faints", but when Carrot tries to remove it, Dorfl comes out of the faint and goes away to the cellar to think about things, and then to act. Dorfl knows now that he is a thinking being and as such is responsible for his actions. He was partially responsible for creating the white golem (who is insane), and he must try to destroy that poor mad creature before it does more harm. But in the fight, the King (the white golem who is mad) slices Dorfl's head open and his chem falls out.

But, he manages, even without the chem and in his mutilated state to shatter the King's head. Afterwords, in his mutilated state he writes WORDS IN THE HEART CANNOT BE TAKEN.

Dorfl is rebuilt and given a tongue, and what the Golem Trust has undertaken is implementing what Dorfl describes at the end of FOC. They are buying the freedom of other golems, rehabiliting them, allowing them to work to buy themselves free. These semi-free but conscious and speaking golems appear to have some of the requirements of preventing harm to humans, because they turn up for the fire at the Post Office. They appear to have feelings, but they are not human feelings, exactly, but based on the Universe as they see it.

 

[Tonyblack]

I hope everyone here has read Feet of Clay.

 

[Sjoerd3000]

Oh! By the way Tony, the parrot says 12 and a half %. Is there any connection between this and Reacher Gilt dressing as a pirate?

I'm glad you asked that Pooh!

But I'm sure everyone here already knows that 12 and a half percent is an eighth. So the parrot is actually saying 'Pieces of eight!' just like Long John Silver's parrot (Captain Flint) in Treasure Island.

In the Dutch edition the parrot just says pieces of eight(well realen van acht actually but that's just Dutch for pieces of eight)

 

[Tonyblack]

That's not very subtle. What a shame.

 

[Sjoerd3000]

yeah it is. Also Groats rank is postbezorger. Instead of being junior postman which is off course funnier .

Since Anghammarad is collected by Death when he died he much have a soul so Golems are alive and more than just tools just like they believe. Or maybe he was alive because he believed he was

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Who makes the laws in robotics? Whoever does that can surely rewrite those laws.

In the Asimov books, humans were intially scared of robots, whereas the spacers weren't. I believe it was called the Frankenstein complex. As all the robots were made by the same company, the president (Susan Calvin) agreed that all robots would incorporate the three laws, thus making them acceptable to humans, and preventing a robot rebellion at some time in the future.

(I'm remembering this from 30 years ago, so could be wrong)

Just about Susan Calvin and the monopoly of the manufacturer - she was the chief robopsychologist employed by the company who manufactured the robots with the positronic brain and for whom the Frankenstein Complex mostly applied as they were all vaguely humanoid in shape and the 'free-thinking' aspect was viewed with great suspicion and eventually let to a complete ban on their being used on Earth. She's a very interesting literary figure Ms. Calvin - almost like a robot herself, very emotionless, she nevertheless did have strong but well-controlled feelings, and in a way was like a mother for the positronic robots. Certainly an advocate for them.

There was another company in contention with Calvin's company at first anyway - US Robots and Mechanical Men was the one she worked for, but there was another who might have been the Mechanical Men component as I think the 2 companies merged when the ban kicked in to leave the Earth robot free. This other company produced the sort of robots who were more akin to how unfreed Golems are in Discworld (or like programmed industrial robots in our contemporary culture) and did not have positronic brains and so were less adept for unsupervised deployment off-planet although they also had the 3 Laws implanted into their operational software (or chem)