| | "Look, Dogbert, give me one good reason why I shouldn't sign up for sky
diving lessons."
"Thud..."
"You mean 'thud... ouch!' or just 'thud'?"
-- Dilbert, Dogbert, Dilbert
"An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations
encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the
same way a sentence encountered a full stop. The usual example given to
illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on
a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or
writing or whatever, the neighbours were cooperative or enslaved but at
any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all
the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-
absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly
have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely
like a canoe on wet grass... when suddenly this bristling lump of iron
appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying
long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been
discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents
called 'tax' and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your
priests."
-- Iain M. Banks, "Excession"
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