A Good Parody

This showed up on soc.history.what-if a few years ago and really cracked me up. Quonster was a definite net-kook and had just come up with this fresh and funky new name and Charlie Stross (I think) came up with the parody.

From: hunter-gatherist@cjc.org (The Hunter-Gatherist)
Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if
Subject: Hunter-Gatherism is on the way back!
Date: 21 Jun 1999 15:49:57 -0400
From: egg-layer@jurassic.org (Egg Layer)
Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if
Subject: Egg-laying is the way forward!
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1999 21:26:10 +0100
Nice Day, eh?

I had returned from upstate New York in March, but due to my occupational constraints I didn't have time to post until today.

I do know most of you won't welcome my return, but face it. The world is heading, ever faster, to hunter-gatherism.

I went to Rochester (I didn't go to Niagra Falls and Albany as intended, since I decided these places could wait until I learned some Uzbeki), and it did have a monument. It was the Quebecer-built, incredibly ugly TV Tower. (See? The Parti Quebecois cannot build a decent monument!)

Hello again, my mammalian friends.

I am back from my relaxing vacation in the tar pits of Gondwanaland! The cycads are gorgeous and the dragonflies tasty, but my vacation could only last for so long.

I had an enjoying walkabout, nosing among the coprolites and crunching lice. I didn't do much swimming though -- there are megalodons in the tidal estuaries, and the riverbanks are all infested with irritating little ovivarous furballs that squeak when you crunch them in your beak.

Sadly, I found practically nothing about the Imperial Glory of the Empire State. I did find lots of anti-Kodak materials though. The Allies did a great job of taming the Rochesterians; Rochester would probably never threaten the world order again. Also, unlike the Germans, the Rochesterians did not seem to miss Silesia and Pomerania a lot (although they were German from time immemorial until 1945). Sadly, I also met no Canadians; the greatest stock of warrior race in the North America was no more.

I had spent some time near Lake Ontario, then went to "historic" Rochester, and walked around the city. However, my limited command of English language did hurt.

I climbed the Catskill mountains, and admired the Knickerbocker love of forests and mountains (although I don't like the Free Beer Party).

I stand by with most of my old views, however, after the trip. My basic Weltschauung has not changed. Hunter-Gathering will return, as the most logical form of human existence is hunter-gathering. This is the social organization under which mankind has lived for millennia longer than feudalism. Social systems like Feudalism lead only to degenerate sedentary lifestyles like "farming" and "industrialization"!

It was rather hard to research the glories of the age of carnosaurs, on account of them all having been dead for about sixty million years, but I did make friends with a fetching little ornithosuchian (until we were mugged by a flock of admirable if remarkably hungry velociraptors).

Anyway. My old views are mostly unchanged, but now I am confirmed in my belief that the true glories of civilization are exemplified by egg- laying. None of this icky retrovirus-infested placental nonsense, thank you very much, just good honest calcium carbonate and a warm nest with plentiful access to furry snack-food. Egg-laying is quite clearly a better way of propagating the species: modular, tidy, and neat! Those who do it are full of oblate spheroids! Furthermore, by favouring large clutches it encourages the spawn to compete or die. This is good for the virility and strength of the race, and avoids the urge to indulge in degerate practices like wearing fur, copulating with non- cloacal organs, acquiring the power of speech, and manufacturing plush Barney The Dinosaur(TM)(R) dolls.

I won't be posting as often as I used to, because I have grown quite busy nowdays. However, since this is my first day of comeback, I will post a few today. I won't be posting as often as I used to, because I have grown quite busy these days (moderating my core body temperature), but since this is my first day back on the newsgroup I will howl and grunt a bit as I flip mud across my broad and scaly back.
And, please call me Hunter-Gatherist from now on. And please call me egg-layer from now on.
Hunter-Gatherist Egg-layer

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