"Oh, it matters.  See, even after you get rich and Law all that stuff out of existence, Very Serious People go on worrying about whether it will come back a hundred years later, if we let ourselves start to drift evolutionarily on the Good-Evil axis.  I hadn't actually been informed as yet, but considering the choices I made in some test-pranks as a kid, I expect I'd have been told a few years later that my place on the Good-Evil axis wouldn't have entitled me to much support for having kids of my own.  Which, fine, fair enough, if I'm the sort of person who goes around constantly assessing how much reciprocation other people owe me, instead of just being nice, I shouldn't be too surprised if Civilization decides it doesn't owe me much.  Because what have I done for them, right, under the rules the way I say they should work?  I can either prove they're wrong about people like me not being necessary, or get out of the gene pool, fair enough.  My ambition before I ended up here was to fairly make a billion labor-hours, and then marry about two dozen women and have about a hundred and forty-four kids.  The first part to show them how much they need people like me, and the second part to unilaterally give the next generation some more people like me whether the rest of Civilization likes that or not."

"...which I should, probably, just never think about again, because this world is not and never will be a test of my ability to shine inside Civilization.  If I win here, it won't be because I was special, it'll be because I came in with a ton of knowledge that any other dath ilani might have.  And if I lose here, it'll be because there were gods smarter than any human being who ate all the low-hanging fruit that anybody in dath ilan could've found.  But hey, I'm adaptable, I can reorient my entire life, might take me a couple of minutes but I can do it.  I just - felt it might be helpful to say out loud, once, before it all drifts away.  Help if somebody else knew, even for a minute, before I let it go."

"Moving on.  If churches are going to war, it means that the gods being smart doesn't prevent humans from being stupid, not sure why, but it obviously doesn't, so maybe I can still help there.  Priority question, how much of my knowledge still holds here, if any.  Does running electricity through water produce two gases, one of them lighter than air, which can be burned to yield water again?"  If molecular chemistry is the same, higher levels of organization will probably also be the same; and knowledge about steelmaking - or using estrogen to signal the female reproductive system to not ovulate - will probably also hold.

"Oh, it matters.  See, even after you get rich and Law all that stuff out of existence, Very Serious People go on worrying about whether it will come back a hundred years later, if we let ourselves start to drift evolutionarily on the Good-Evil axis.  I hadn't actually been informed as yet, but considering the choices I made in some test-pranks as a kid, I expect I'd have been told a few years later that my place on the Good-Evil axis wouldn't have entitled me to much support for having kids of my own.  Which, fine, fair enough, if I'm the sort of person who goes around constantly assessing how much reciprocation other people owe me, instead of just being nice, I shouldn't be too surprised if Civilization decides it doesn't owe me much.  Because what have I done for them, right, under the rules the way I say they should work?  I can either prove they're wrong about people like me not being necessary, or get out of the gene pool, fair enough.  My ambition before I ended up here was to fairly make a billion labor-hours, and then marry about two dozen women and have about a hundred and forty-four kids.  The first part to show them how much they need people like me, and the second part to unilaterally give the next generation some more people like me whether the rest of Civilization likes that or not."

"...which I should, probably, just never think about again, because this world is not and never will be a test of my ability to shine inside Civilization.  If I win here, it won't be because I was special, it'll be because I came in with a ton of knowledge that any other dath ilani might have.  And if I lose here, it'll be because there were gods smarter than any human being who ate all the low-hanging fruit that anybody in dath ilan could've found.  But hey, I'm adaptable, I can reorient my entire life, might take me a couple of minutes but I can do it.  I just - felt it might be helpful to say out loud, once, before it all drifts away.  Help if somebody else knew, even for a halfminute, before I let it go."

"Moving on.  If churches are going to war, it means that the gods being smart doesn't prevent humans from being stupid, not sure why, but it obviously doesn't, so maybe I can still help there.  Priority question, how much of my knowledge still holds here, if any.  Does running electricity through water produce two gases, one of them lighter than air, which can be burned to yield water again?"  If molecular chemistry is the same, higher levels of organization will probably also be the same; and knowledge about steelmaking - or using estrogen to signal the female reproductive system to not ovulate - will probably also hold.

"Oh, it matters.  See, even after you get rich and Law all that stuff out of existence, Very Serious People go on worrying about whether it will come back a hundred years later, if we let ourselves start to drift evolutionarily on the Good-Evil axis.  I hadn't actually been informed as yet, but considering the choices I made in some test-pranks as a kid, I expect I'd have been told a few years later that my place on the Good-Evil axis wouldn't have entitled me to much support for having kids of my own.  Which, fine, fair enough, if I'm the sort of person who goes around constantly assessing how much reciprocation other people owe me, instead of just being nice, I shouldn't be too surprised if Civilization decides it doesn't owe me much.  Because what have I done for them, right, under the rules the way I say they should work?  I can either prove they're wrong about people like me being unnecessary, or get out of the gene pool, fair enough.  My ambition before I ended up here was to fairly make a billion labor-hours, and then marry about two dozen women and have about a hundred and forty-four kids.  The first part to show them how much they need people like me, and the second part to unilaterally give the next generation some more people like me whether the rest of Civilization likes that or not."

"...which I should, probably, just never think about again, because this world is not and never will be a test of my ability to shine inside Civilization.  If I win here, it won't be because I was special, it'll be because I came in with a ton of knowledge that any other dath ilani might have.  And if I lose here, it'll be because there were gods smarter than any human being who ate all the low-hanging fruit that anybody in dath ilan could've found.  But hey, I'm adaptable, I can reorient my entire life, might take me a couple of minutes but I can do it.  I just - felt it might be helpful to say out loud, once, before it all drifts away.  Help if somebody else knew, even for a halfminute, before I let it go."

"Moving on.  If churches are going to war, it means that the gods being smart doesn't prevent humans from being stupid, not sure why, but it obviously doesn't, so maybe I can still help there.  Priority question, how much of my knowledge still holds here, if any.  Does running electricity through water produce two gases, one of them lighter than air, which can be burned to yield water again?"  If molecular chemistry is the same, higher levels of organization will probably also be the same; and knowledge about steelmaking - or using estrogen to signal the female reproductive system to not ovulate - will probably also hold.

"Oh, it matters.  See, even after you get rich and Law all that stuff out of existence, Very Serious People go on worrying about whether it will come back a hundred years later, if we let ourselves start to drift evolutionarily on the Good-Evil axis.  I hadn't actually been informed as yet, but considering the choices I made in some test-pranks as a kid, I expect I'd have been told a few years later that my place on the Good-Evil axis wouldn't have entitled me to much support for having kids of my own.  Which, fine, fair enough, if I'm the sort of person who goes around constantly assessing how much reciprocation other people owe me, instead of just being nice, I shouldn't be too surprised if Civilization decides it doesn't owe me much.  Because what have I done for them, right, under the rules the way I say they should work?  I can either prove they're wrong about people like me being unnecessary, or get out of the gene pool, fair enough.  My ambition before I ended up here was to fairly make a billion labor-hours, and then marry about two dozen women and have about a hundred and forty-four kids.  The first part to show them how much they need people like me, and the second part to unilaterally give the next generation some more people like me whether the rest of Civilization likes that or not."

"...which I should, probably, just never think about again, because this world is not and never will be a test of my ability to shine inside Civilization.  If I win here, it won't be because I was special, it'll be because I came in with a ton of knowledge that any other dath ilani might have.  And if I lose here, it'll be because there were gods smarter than any human being who ate all the low-hanging-fruit that anybody at all in dath ilan could've found.  But hey, I'm adaptable, I can reorient my entire life, might take me a couple of minutes but I can do it.  I just - felt it might be helpful to say out loud, once, before it all drifts away.  Help if somebody else knew, even for a halfminute, before I let it go."

"Moving on.  If churches are going to war, it means that the gods being smart doesn't prevent humans from being stupid, not sure why, but it obviously doesn't, so maybe I can still help there.  Priority question, how much of my knowledge still holds here, if any.  Does running electricity through water produce two gases, one of them lighter than air, which can be burned to yield water again?"  If molecular chemistry is the same, higher levels of organization will probably also be the same; and knowledge about steelmaking - or using estrogen to signal the female reproductive system to not ovulate - will probably also hold.

"Oh, it matters.  See, even after you get rich and Law all that stuff out of existence, Very Serious People go on worrying about whether it will come back a hundred years later, if we let ourselves start to drift evolutionarily on the Good-Evil axis.  I hadn't actually been informed as yet, but considering the choices I made in some test-pranks as a kid, I expect I'd have been told a few years later that my place on the Good-Evil axis wouldn't have entitled me to much support for having kids of my own.  Which, fine, fair enough, if I'm the sort of person who goes around constantly assessing how much reciprocation other people owe me, instead of just being nice, I shouldn't be too surprised if Civilization decides it doesn't owe me much.  Because what have I done for them, right, under the rules the way I say they should work?  I can either prove they're wrong about people like me being unnecessary, or get out of the gene pool, fair enough.  My ambition before I ended up here was to fairly make a billion labor-hours, and then marry about two dozen women and have about a hundred and forty-four kids.  The first part to show them how much they need people like me, and the second part to unilaterally give the next generation some more people like me whether the rest of Civilization likes that or not."

"...which I should, probably, just never think about again, because this world is not and never will be a test of my ability to shine inside Civilization.  If I win here, it won't be because I was special, it'll be because I came in with a ton of knowledge that any other dath ilani might have.  And if I lose here, it'll be because there were gods smarter than any human being who ate all the low-hanging-fruit that anybody at all in dath ilan could've found.  But hey, I'm adaptable, I can reorient my entire life, might take me a couple of minutes but I can do it.  I just - felt it might be helpful to say out loud, once, before it all drifts away.  Help if somebody else knew, even for a halfminute, before I let it go."

"Moving on.  If churches are going to war, it means that the gods being smart doesn't prevent humans from being stupid, not sure why, but it obviously doesn't, so maybe I can still help there.  Priority question, how much of my knowledge still holds here, if any.  Does running electricity through water produce two gases, one of them lighter than air, which can be burned to yield water again?"  If molecular chemistry is the same, higher levels of organization will probably also be the same; and knowledge about steelmaking - or that hormones can signal the female reproductive system to not ovulate - will probably also hold.

"Oh, it matters.  See, even after you get rich and Law all that stuff out of existence, Very Serious People go on worrying about whether it will come back a hundred years later, if we let ourselves start to drift evolutionarily on the Good-Evil axis.  I hadn't actually been informed as yet, but considering the choices I made in some test-pranks as a kid, I expect I'd have been told a few years later that my place on the Good-Evil axis wouldn't have entitled me to much support for having kids of my own.  Which, fine, fair enough, if I'm the sort of person who goes around constantly assessing how much reciprocation other people owe me, instead of just being nice, I shouldn't be too surprised if Civilization decides it doesn't owe me much.  Because what have I done for them, right, under the rules the way I say they should work?  I can either prove they're wrong about people like me being unnecessary, or get out of the gene pool, fair enough.  My ambition before I ended up here was to fairly make a billion labor-hours, and then marry about two dozen women and have about a hundred and forty-four kids.  The first part to show them how much they need people like me, and the second part to unilaterally give the next generation some more people like me whether the rest of Civilization likes that or not."

"...which I should, probably, just never think about again, because this world is not and never will be a test of my ability to shine inside Civilization.  If I win here, it won't be because I was special, it'll be because I came in with a ton of knowledge that any other dath ilani might have.  And if I lose here, it'll be because there were gods smarter than any human being who ate all the low-hanging-fruit that anybody at all in dath ilan could've found.  But hey, I'm adaptable, I can reorient my entire life, might take me a couple of minutes but I can do it.  I just - felt it might be helpful to say out loud, once, before it all drifts away.  Help if somebody else knew, even for a halfminute, before I let it go."

"Moving on.  If churches are going to war, it means that the gods being smart doesn't prevent humans from being stupid, not sure why, but it obviously doesn't, so maybe I can still help there.  Priority question, how much of my knowledge still holds here, if any.  Does running electricity through water produce two gases, one of them lighter than air, which can be burned to yield water again?"  If molecular chemistry is the same, higher levels of organization will probably also be the same; and knowledge about steelmaking - or that synthetic hormones can signal the female reproductive system to not ovulate - will probably also hold.