From: utzoo!decvax!genradbo!grkermit!markm
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Title: HHGttN #6
Article-I.D.: grkermit.254
Posted: Fri Dec 31 11:53:25 1982
Received: Sat Jan  1 03:08:18 1983



					 Hitch Hikers Guide To The Net
							   Episode 6

(Flarg Brittashik is leading the crew of the Infinity down the
contorted stairway toward the interior of Netrothea.)

Martin:	What an awful place, why do we bother to go on?
Xaphod:	Quiet!
Flarg:	Actually, he's right. One of the things we Netrotheans proved
	was that the Net does not actually exist. It therefore follows that
	nothing we do really matters at all.
Arnold Lint:	What?
Flarg:	Is that all you can say you mindless, facial emation!
Rod:	What do you mean "we don't exist"?
Flarg:	Well, first we approached the problem assuming that we were a
	unique Net. There is none other like us in the entire domain of
	space, right?
Rod:	Right . . .
Flarg:	Well, if we are alone, how do we know we are? Without another
	Net to tell us we are, we may not be. We could just be the figments
	of our imaginations. How do you KNOW that that cat over there does in
	fact have 5 legs? You see it, but what's to say that it is actually
	there. Do you follow?

[************************************************************************
What Flarg Brittashik was pointing out was the famed five-legged cat
of Felix Major. The "The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Net" indicates
that the myth of the five-legged cat was actually the result of the
heavy drinking done on Felix Major. You see, the female of the
species on Felix Major is covered with a blue slime which eventually
dissolves her mate if contact is maintained for too long. Because of
this, the men on Felix Major spend a lot of time in bars discussing
the differences between being Kosher and being a Cannibal. They tend
to drink an awful lot while discussing this topic. In their usually
intoxicated state, it is not difficult to mistake a cat for having a
fifth leg if viewed  side ways (or as having one eye if viewed from
the rear).  The "The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Net" also points out
that the favorite drink on Felix Major is called the 'Intesto-rout'.
It is mixed as follows: Mix equal parts of gin, whiskey, rye, vodka,
rum, bourbon, and brandy. Add a cup of beer that has been left in a
gym locker for 3 days. To this add 5 Ex-Lax pills, 1 Valium, 2
No-Doz, and half a lid of grass. Mix it well in a Hamilton Blech
mixer. Now add a rotten egg, a decaying guppy, the spleen of 10
freshly killed frogs, and about a fistfull of goat brains. Again mix
it all up. To add a bit of zip to the mixture, add some Drain-O. Now
put the whole mixture under a dead horse for 37 hours. After it has
aged, filter it through the right kidney of a rabid lamma and serve
it in a slightly soiled bed pan with an olive. Felix Major, quite
obviously developed quite a drunk driving problem. The solution
arrived at was simple and logical. They simple ground up offenders
and added them to 'Intest-rout's. Rumor has it that this extra
ingredient gave the drink the full bodied taste it had always been
lacking.
************************************************************************]

Arnold Lint:	It's the old "Does a falling tree make a sound if
	there's no one there to hear" story, right?
Flarg:	Ooo! 'The falling tree makes no noise!' Aren't we the
	smart-behinded little cretans!
Xaphod:	No, you idiot! It means . . . uh . . . 
Flarg:	Actually, he's quite correct. We were not happy with finding
	out that we may be alone, so we then assumed that there was the
	possibility for an infinite number of varied Nets.
Gillian:	How nice.
Flarg:	Yes, well, it now became apparent that our one little Net was
	entirely insignificant in the scope of things in general.
	Mathematically, our percentage of existance amounted to 1 over
	infinity, which is too small to even consider. Worse yet, since no
	other Net has ever contacted us, we may REALLY not exist after all. We
	could REALLY be mirages of the cosmic mind.
Xaphod:	Wow, that's heavy!
Flarg:	Quiet, you drugged out excuse to evacuate my stomach on the
	table!
Rod:	Go on already!
Flarg:	Well, after taking many heavy drugs, we finally arrived at a
	solid decision.
Gillian:	What was it?
Flarg:	We agreed that our existance was so insignificant that
	anything we did really wouldn't matter. Hence our national slogan
	changed to "Who Cares". After all, in light of everything I've
	revealed to you, it must be perfectly obvious that it just doesn't
	matter what you do or say on the Net.
Arnold Lint:	Boy, I hope the rest of the Net doesn't hear that.
Flarg:	Oh, they did. That's why they attacked us and wiped out most
	of Netrothea. They just couldn't accept that all the fuss they were
	making really didn't amount to a damn thing.

[************************************************************************
"The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Net" points out that the Netrotheans
were somewhat renowned for exploding the faiths of others. Prior to
their non-existance fetish, the published a series of treatises
titled: "Who is this guy God anyway?", "Everything you always wanted
to know about the benevolent Lord, but were afraid to ask.", and
"Well, that's it for God." The Netrotheans had no fears of being
wiped out for their bizarre views. They believed that since what we
call 'death' is theoreticly infinite, and what we call 'life' is so
finite and miserable (what with everybody wearing digital watches and
coveting thy nieghbor's bits of green-dyed, processed plant matter),
we must surely have gotten things backwards. They therefore had no
problems dealing with the after-life.
************************************************************************]

Xaphod:	Wow, that's wild!
Flarg:	Now if you really want to blow your mind, consider this: If
	the Net doesn't really exist, do we exist? If we exist, what is
	the point of our existance? What is the medium of our communication if
	there really is no Net? What does it all mean? 
Arnold Lint:	I don't know?
Rod:	That's obvious.
Martin:	I'm kind of relieved that nothing really exists. It's sort of
	reassuring to know that all the misery I've endured on the Net really
	doesn't affect anything anyway.
Gillian:	Quiet Martin. Don't you know what this all means! It
	means that the constant day to day struggle to keep up with the Net is
	all pointless. Posting news is futile, reading news is futile,
	thinking about news is futile - because where ever the news came from
	or goes to, what ever thought up the news - none of it exists - and
	neither do we! 
Rod:	Yah, just think. We may have been posting news to a void!
Xaphod:	Wait a minute! We get replies to our news!
Flarg:	We thought of that too. But consider the odds against our
	actual existance. They could be considered random at best. The odds of
	other beings also existing comes down to the same random probability.
	It follows that any communication would have to be a random
	coincidence. Now, consider that the only communication we see is
	simply processed electrical impulses. Consider the quantity and speed
	of the impulses. The odds against them coming together in a logical
	combination are astronomicly bad. It follows, then, that what we
	mistake for communication with other beings (which don't exist
	either) are simply galactic burps in our faces, if we existed.
Xaphod:	Wow!
Flarg:	Well, you wastes of space, I've got to go and kick my dog
	through a hedge.

(With that Flarg disappears in a burst of purple smoke. When the
smoke clears, only a can of "Putrina Rat Chow" remains.)

		******************** End Of Part 6 ********************

What other fantastic things (which don't exist) will be revealed on
Netrothea (which also doesn't exist). To find out . . . Tune in next
time (a bizarre concept, time) . . .  same Net-time . . . same
Net-channel.