Julia Jones wrote:

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Are we perhaps missing the point of limiters - were they meant for

something

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else entirely (question)?

A reliable source of plotdevicium...

No. Because it in actual fact it is acting as a plot inhibitor. Now you don't put something like that in a series unless it is there for a purpose.

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However, that's not playing the game.

As I am about to demonstrate, what do you know about playing the game?

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I think that it's likely the limiters were still relatively experimental devices, and that Gan was one of the beta-test guinea pigs.

There is no evidence at all in the series for this.

If so, the

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behaviour modification being tested may not be the only one the developers had in mind as a long-term goal. It's possible that the limiters were an early step in a form of modification for dealing with people like Avon - people whose intellectual abilities are too useful a resource to lose if there's a way to salvage them, but who aren't going to co-operate of their own free will.

There is no evidence in the series to support this.

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Unco-operative people can be conditioned, but that conditioning can be broken. It's also probably difficult and expensive, if they're still keeping a staff of Shrinkers. Perhaps the project group developing the limiters were not overly pleased about the development of Pylene-50 - their funding was cut after that...

None of this is supported by evidence from the series.

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Julia Jones "Science is not about building a body of known 'facts'. It is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them

to

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a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good." - The Science of Discworld

Yes. A lesson you have evidently failed to learn Julia.

Jenny

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