h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

re 19:

It may seem a minor detail, but it was not "The lead character [who] was so callous and cruel as to impregnate his wife, knowing he couldn't be around". In fact it was the other way around: The wife made one of the lead character's personas impregnate her in spite of his direct wishes.

re 20:

"...it's hard to imagine the father *not* knowing how accomplished she would turn out to be..." [paulh]

Oh no it's not! Given my background I could never have foreseen (let alone expected) my kids to grow up to be the wonderful and bright young adults they have become

The thread that I have lost was a person who said that she reads, intending and expecting to be angered. And this story did it for her - specifically because of HIS disreguard.

And to the following point, you are right Mr . My family produced 6 children, 4 are danged sharp with maths, 3 are very skilled with hands and mechanical affairs, one has a heart that could carry a complete rescue agency through a tsunami zone ... You never ever know what any child will be until they become fully their own persons.

Quoting Sho from my thread "Chrono-Impairment", post 16, Posted Nov 24, 2015:

"And he is very very clear with her about one thing. Extremely clear: he doesn't want a child. That is probably the most important thing he ever tells her. He doesn't want a child because of the danger that his impairment has.

And what does she do? she tricks him. She lies to him. She has a child *and puts that child - a girl - in danger* "

But let me repeat and emphasize that it is a minor detail. In the big picture it makes little difference to the daughter which of her parents decided to put her into life

Boy, did I miss remember that - my apologies.

II blame it on 2legs tossing a ripple and wave into his dream of unreality - of which we are all a part. )

" He doesn't want a child because of the danger that his impairment has.' [Pierce quoting Sho]

But at some future point, he will meet this future daughter, probably even at times after he is gone, and will *see* how great she turns out to be. Plus, she time-travels back to times when the lead character is a little kid. How can he not have seen her, long before she is even born? I can even imagine her coming back from the future to scold him for not wanting her to be born . These are time-travelers, after all. They keep running into each other....

Of course it's all 2legs' fault

- - -

Her father is in constant danger and he knows any child of his will probably be too, paulh. That's why he gets a vasectomy. (That and probably because he doesn't want a child that grows up with only one parent.) But a younger version of him is tricked into impregnating his wife.

In the film his daughter travels back in time to meet her father before he dies. It's all very complicated, but the way I understand it he doesn't reallt remember much from time to time - literally...

Yes, he does see how great she turns out to be. But her life is bound to be very complicated.

At one point, the mother looks to the back yard to see her 6-yr-old girl talking with a 10'ish-yr-old. When she asks, the little one nonchalantly says "just a future me", or words to that effect.

The daughter adapts to her situation like children usually do. And like her father did.

But if he could go back in time and give his own father a condom he probably would.

I wonder how many of us would do the same?

Knowing what I have of over a half-decade of the she-thing that sprogged mee ---

I think I would medicate a young man long enough to find almost anyone else. He certainly wasn't short of young ladies that were after him.

Yeah, I remember Sho finding the actor very sympathetic also

'reality' as I think we probably all mean it here, is, in effect 'consciousness', and therefore I think, probably, consciousness cannot said to be 'real' therefore reality cannot be real. It all comes down to a matter of interpritation of sensations and sensory inputs to our seeming physical presences.

once we realise all sensory inputs are effectively the same, biologically speaking; merely electrical inpulses, that, are, in turn, in reality just the movement of various ions over membranes, then we can, ultimately, chose to appreciate sensory inputs in any way we wish. - kinda hard to explain, but my thought is, that seems tow work a lot of the time, with various bits of pain, which arn't pain, if one decides that the sensory sense, I.E., the particular movement of irons across membranes associated with teh pain, isn't pain, then it isn't pain. Hmm. err, like the other day, when the doctor was stitching up my chest, the anasetic had worn off, so I could feel her stitching me up, but it didn't hurt..... its only hurt/pain due to where the impulses arrive at in teh brain, therefore it can't be 'pain' at the actual site of teh 'pain', therefore it doesn't need to be pain, if that makes sense. just ... felt odd really I guess. anyhow, I wasn't sure it was me, and if i was ther or not anyhow, as I'm probably still in a coma, so there didn't seem any point worrying about it, or feeling the pain, so I didn't... hmm. consciousness is os overrated.

In late April, I went under the knife to embed an automatic defibrillator, with pace keeping as a secondary. Because I ended up the last 'procedure' of the day, I got the Reader's Digest condensed version. No general anaesthesia, just relaxants and local injections. All done in under 35 minutes of actual work - 3 quad-coaxial cables fed into heart chambers and rolled out to the last nurse on-duty - coat in hand, lunch bag on arm, dropping a stack of papers on my belly.

I did not feel the incision, but I felt every trickle of 'body-juice' where it ran, I felt the first roughly 5 inches of travel of each micro cable. I presumed I was well 'frozen', but the rest of my body knew better.

" a younger version of him is tricked into impregnating his wife."[Pierce]

I'm not contesting you that, except to the extent that time is not linear for the character. Young versions of the guy pop up long after his older self has died. The book probably doesn't give *all* the future and past journeys he's gone on, but it allows or the possibility that just *before* he was tricked into impregnating his wife, he took a trip way into the future, interacted with his future daughter, and was so impressed by how she turned out that he willingly changed his mind about becoming a father. It's also possible that he simply caved because it was destiny. The girl was going to be born anyway, there was nothing he could do to prevent this future, so he made the best of it.

I admit that I'm speculating here. You can do that with a book.

re 36:

Of course you can, paulh. In particular with this book. You might even say it is inevitable

re 34 & 35

When I was 10 I had some horrible experiences with an ancient dentist with Parkinson's disease. I suspected his former job to be in Bergen-Belsen or Dachau or some such place

Okay I may be exaggerating a bit, but at least you now have an illustration of my ordeals.

But after having been very very sick with an infected jaw I realized I had to go see him - and keep doing so. Because the alternative would become so much worse. And little by little I got so used to it that it didn't bother me any more.

(Of course it also helped that I began to see younger dentists with more modern equipment)

I have transferred these experiences to other challenges from the health service. You know how kids are when they need to have their blood tested? The fact is they actually hardly feel anything. I know I don't.

But it is not easy convincing a young kid of 2, 3 or 4 years

Cool old Guy drilled by the same dentist
"Sounds like it is a matter of getting used to 'pain'; after you _know_ it, you can block/redirect it more easy.

A little synaesthesic (experiencing alternative perceptions eg tasting a colour) "

ok just to be clear (thanks for putting everyone right - I'm very famous around these parts and elsewhere on the internet for wanting to take both slapping hands to the wife for her totally selfish act)

The point is: they jump through time, to an unknown destination/time. Naked. And it is made very very very clear in the book that the reason he doesn't want a child is that he suffers a lot (read the book it is A LOT) of physical violence, endangering his life. he is repeatedly raped.

He categorically does not want that for any child of his.

What kind of mother wants that for her child - even if there are some upsides like meeting a younger version of your dead father? you could possibly meet a totally brutalised and evil psycopath older you who has had enough of the rapes and beatings. You just don't know.

sorry 'bout that
as you were