Sounds like the Struldbrugs from Gulliver's Travels. And I like Silverberg enough to hunt this story down — do you remember what the title was?

Literature itself is a species of code. You line up symbols and create a simulacrum of life.

When get very, very anxious my butt tingles. I'm so serious about this. That's near-panic for me though. Adrenaline reducing the circulation in non-critical bodyparts would explain this, I think.

Oh I'd definitely watch this, bad accents aside. I'm a sucker for anything in a similar vein to Wolfenstein.

I'm most befuddled by the people who insist that I should breed even after I explain I'd be a horrible abusive parent (and I'm sterile so it's a moot point anyway.). Does a wizard cast a spell on you at the moment of conception that makes you magically love kids? if so, he's skipped a lot of people. Unless the message…

I'm with you on this. I also think I've read somewhere that they believe there's a genetic advantage to having non-reproductive adults in a family group (which would include both gays and people who just elect not to breed) — it benefits the survival of the children if there's extra adults to watch them.

If they figure out a way to combine one of these with an interactive porn game and a VR headset, I wonder how many people would never leave the house again.

The other day I happened to walk by a TV that was playing some sort of ultra-right-wing news program and the words "homosexuality, contraception and abortion" caught my eye. I have no idea what the context was (aside from the fact that the far right generally dislikes these things) but it struck me that the…

Personally I've always thought that those "vestigial" cognitive features are really what holds humanity back. People seem to devote such a large chunk of their lives to activities and pursuits that don't (a) increase the odds of their genes getting passed on, or (b) measurably improve their health and/or happiness.

As a kid I ate all manner of bizarre stuff and still wouldn't have touched this. Looks nauseating. Below is what comes to mind when I think of "cereal tea":

There is no possible way this could go wrong.

Man, I wish I could play Real Life like I play The Sims. Without getting arrested, that is. (Using cheats to get tons of money, building elaborate villains' lairs and imprisoning people in basement dungeons is generally frowned upon in the real world, I gather.)

I love that it's going to be set in the 70's. Something like this could be ruined with the wrong sort of "updates" to its setting.

I never, ever dream about relationship issues. I also can't recall the last time I had a legit nightmare either, unless dreaming about being late for work or trying to pee in a filthy bathroom could be considered nightmares.

Thanks for answering. I understand that you're saying money's value is agreed upon by society and the individual, as are gender categories. (This is why different cultures have different expectations of gendered behavior; it's all fluid.) And I'd be the last person to argue that people with male bits should all do…

Here's what puzzles me: who gets to define what "male gender" and "female gender" actually are? I know several women who do tons of 'traditionally masculine' stuff that would probably try to deck you if you suggested their gender was male. Who gets to decide what defines male and female behavior or presentation?

I guess I'm the other way around; my first Mandarin teacher was from Beijing and the second was from Taiwan, and the Beijing accent sounded harsher to me. In fact a lot of Chinese speakers seem to think the Taiwanese accent is feminine or softer in some way.

Many of these do look like some kind of weird shrine offering, especially with the food being there.

I wouldn't begin to describe the "plot" of any of Burroughs' cut-up novels. I spent a long time agonizing over the meaning of Naked Lunch before I read up on the author — telling people up-front that it was written while the guy was on heroin makes everything so much clearer.

I really think this is a love/hate book for most. I can see how the philosophical dialogues could bore some people, and not everyone wants to read about a bunch of ultra-evolved psychic/telekinetic free-love-advocating nudist hippies and their alien messiah.