… The ancient Greeks would have loved Alexa | Spectator USA. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
This is an excellent source book for confronting political and technological hubris then and now, the earliest arguable traces of modern fears. Minos, she notes, was a peculiarly brutal autocrat, belonging to a class of men that she claims is especially associated with biotechnology and its abuse. He did not trust his queen, the witch Pasiphae, who made him ejaculate scorpions and snakes if he advanced on another woman. Pasiphae herself preferred sex with a bull, and engaged Cretan high-tech to provide a cow-shaped cage in which to crouch on her hands and knees, plus the farmyard smells for romantic atmosphere and the obstetrics necessary for the birth of a Minotaur.
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