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Always a crack-up... This is one of the earlier internet jokes I remember receiving.
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 1995 12:37:25 -0800
To: jsexton
From:
Subject: Meat! (fwd)
>Subject: FW: get this..
>Date: Tuesday, August 08, 1995 9:46AM
>
>http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~eieio/Meat.html
>
>
>"They're made out of meat."
>
>"Meat?"
>
>"Meat. They're made out of meat."
>
>"Meat?"
>
>"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the
>planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through.
>They're completely meat."
>
>"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the
>stars."
>
>"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The
>signals come from machines."
>
>"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
>
>"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the
>machines."
>
>"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to
>believe in sentient meat."
>
>"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient
>race in the sector and they're made out of meat."
>
>"Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that
>goes through a meat stage."
>
>"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of
>their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life
>span of meat?"
>
>"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei.
>A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."
>
>"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei.
>But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."
>
>"No brain?"
>
>"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!"
>
>"So... what does the thinking?"
>
>"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat."
>
>"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
>
>"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is
>the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"
>
>"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
>
>"Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to
>get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
>
>"So what does the meat have in mind?"
>
>"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the
>universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual."
>
>"We're supposed to talk to meat?"
>
>"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello.
>Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing."
>
>"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
>
>"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
>
>"I thought you just told me they used radio."
>
>"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how
>when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at
>each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."
>
>"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"
>
>"Officially or unofficially?"
>
>"Both."
>
>"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all
>sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or
>favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole
>thing."
>
>"I was hoping you would say that."
>
>"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact
>with meat?"
>
>"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, meat. How's it
>going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
>
>"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but
>they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space.
>Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their
>ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."
>
>"So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe."
>
>"That's it."
>
>"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who
>have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You're sure they won't
>remember?"
>
>"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and
>smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."
>
>"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."
>
>"And we can mark this sector unoccupied."
>
>"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone
>interesting on that side of the galaxy?"
>
>"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class
>nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be
>friendly again."
>
>"They always come around."
>
>"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe
>would be if one were all alone."
>
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