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Number Three's avatar

What would a Twitter dueling scar look like? A slash through one's avatar?

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Gerald Fnord's avatar

I can't shake the scent of trial-by-combat—with an attendant, further, taint of victory as the LORD's endorsement—in any actual approval of duelling.

I think the system would, as it did, make people good at killing and readily doing so the arbiters of what were correct. An armed society might have strict etiquette, but that were different to politeness, which as Emily Post observed is born of consideration, rsspect, and honesty (moderated, I'll guess) which I'll declare are made _more_ difficult by fear for one's life.

(Heinlein may have disagreed because his ideal society was his belovèd-and-lost-to-him Navy, belovèd not least because it was rational compared to his religious family and because by dint of luck and hard work he had seemed bound for a good position in it. There, as in any military, etiquette may be more important than actual politeness because one wants strong restraints on a society largely made-up of deadly, young, men.) (Note as well that the work in which his 'armed society' comment first appeared is one long plea for eugenic care in passing-on our forty-eight chromosomes.)

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