June 11
History is a race between education and catastrophe.
—H.G. Wells
PAN. Bill Hardie enters a room of soft contours and padded chairs. He glides to the corner, where he commands a view of both participants and podium. He turns, and the flatcam on his lapel sweeps the room.
ZOOM. A group of people emerge through the doorway. The sizes and shapes vary, but all look like residents of Fairfax County. They come to the headquarters of the Zetetic Institute not because it is the headquarters, but because it is handy. It wouldn't make sense for people to come from great distances just for the Sampler. The curious investigator could find many places throughout the country offering this seminar. The skeptical investigator could obtain a condensed version of the Sampler on videotape for the cost of postage and handling.
FOCUS. A man of medium height in a medium blue suit separates himself from the ragged line of people and walks to the front of the room with a light step—confident yet quiet. He sits on the edge of the desk, relaxed, projecting that relaxation to his audience. Even Bill feels at ease.
CUT. Everyone is seated now except Bill himself. Noting a number of eyes upon him, including the lecturer's, Bill slides into a chair.
The lecturer stands and introduces himself. "Good evening, everyone. I am Dr. Hammond, and this is a quick introduction to the Zetetic educational system."
Dr. Hammond shifts toward the audience as he warms up. "The Zetetic educational system arose to fill a gap in American society. The public schools teach our children oceans of facts and ideas. The colleges bend more toward teaching the theories that lie behind the uncovering of those facts. Meanwhile, vocational schools teach how to create products of various flavors.
But what do you do with all those facts? Worse, what do you do with all those theories? How do they apply to the everyday occurrences of life?"
Hammond's eyes harden; his voice booms. "How do you extract the truth from a used car salesman? How do you spot a lawyer whose interest is his own welfare, not yours?" He steps forward. "Those are communication skills that aren't well taught. Another class of skills that is left out of most people's eduction is real business skills. America is supposed to run on a free-enterprise system. But how many people know how to operate in a free-enterprise system? To start your own business, how do you identify a market, make a business plan, acquire capital, design an advertising campaign, write a contract? Does it really make sense to leave the answers to these questions—the heart of the American economic process—to students working on MBAs? If it does, then we don't have a system of free enterprise—we have a system of elite enterprise, because only a handful of people understand what's required. " He smiles. "And there are other analytic skills that we see in action, but that people rarely learn how to apply. For example, there's a vast difference between accuracy and precision. How many people here know the difference?"
BACK OFF. Bill frowns. A difference between accuracy and precision? What difference could there be? Only a few people raise their hands to suggest that they know.
Hammond looks around, unsurprised by the apparent ignorance of the majority. "Usually only physicists pay attention to the difference. But the difference is important in everything from household budgets to airplane repairs. Human beings have wasted vast quantities of effort through the centuries, trying to increase their precision beyond the level of their accuracy."
Hammond takes a deep breath. "You can find numerous texts on subliminal cuing and impulse motivation—but very little on how this information is used against you in advertising. And no educational institution will tell you that it's important for you to know.
And everyone learns statistics—but how many people can tell the difference between newspaper articles that use statistics to illuminate the truth, and articles that use them to conceal it?"
CUT. Bill bristles with hostility. Bill finds it particularly unnerving because, as Hammond makes his last statement, he looks toward Bill himself with a slowly rising eyebrow.
Hammond continues. "Nathan Pilstrom founded the Institute over a decade ago. He started with the limited idea of developing software that could teach some fundamentals of Information Age problem-solving. The individual software modules were called PEPs, or Personal Enhancement Programs."
PAUSE. Bill shakes his head in surprise. He didn't know the Zetetic Institute had created the PEPs. He'd used a couple himself.
"Of course, the Zetetic movement didn't become widely known until Nathan's sister, Jan Evans, synthesized anti-smoking techniques from all over the world into a comprehensive package. That package could be adapted with a high degree of success to each individual's therapy needs. And that is perhaps the unique feature of Zeteticism: it focuses on the methods used for customizing methods for each individual set of needs and values. Zeteticism explores methods of method-selection."
PAN. Methods of method-selection indeed! Bill recognizes the sound of hokum.
"So tonight we have a sampler for you—short discussions of a number of aspects of life upon which Zetetic ideas offer different perspectives. We'll lead off with a little experiment—something that you can all participate in. We shall explore the meaning of rational thought, irrational thought, and superrational thought: we shall play the game of the Prisoner's Dilemma."
PAN. Men enter, wearing badges with the insignia of the Institute, and escort groups of people away from the lecture hall. Dr. Hammond walks over to Bill. "Let me show you the way," he offers. His eyes follow Bill's face like a biologist who has just spotted a delightfully rare but degusting insect. "That's a beautiful button on your collar there. I've never seen one quite like it."
He knows about the flatcam!
"When the games are over, would you be interested in a copy of our videotape? It would probably be easier to edit."
CUT. Bill opens his mouth, then closes it. He shrugs. "I'll roll my own if you don't mind."
Hammond tilts his head. "Suit yourself."
He escorts Bill to a small, antiseptic cubicle, chatting constantly, probing occasionally into Bills viewpoint. The cubicle contains a beige computer terminal, a chair, nothing else. Bill stops at the doorway. There is something odd here—he inhales sharply.
Is there a scent of pine trees here, ever so subtle? He looks hard at Hammond. "Is my reaction to this room a part of the test?" he asks.
Hammond chuckles. "No. Mr. Hardie, this isn't a test. We aren't interested in your reactions in any direct way. Our purpose here is to give you an experience, so you can see how theories apply to action, and so you can see firsthand the importance of superrational thinking. We think it's particularly important to introduce superrational thinking to people such as yourself."
FOCUS. Bill does not ask what Hammond means when he speaks of people "such as himself."
Hammond waves Bill into the single chair next to the terminal. He explains the rules. "Here's the situation. Every person from the class is sitting in a cubicle like this one. Now, we're going to pair you up with one of these people, and together you are going to be the Prisoners."
"Are you going to lock me in?"
Hammond shakes his head. "Of course not. But you are on your honor not to enter another person's room. Not that it matters; you won't have time to hunt for them all over the Institute anyway."
"I see." Bill feels too warm, though the room is comfortable.
"As prisoners, the two of you have been put in separate rooms for interrogation. You have two choices: you can confess to the crime, or you can deny involvement."
"Why would I want to confess?"
Because when you confess, you turn state's evidence against the other guy. It's a betrayal as well as a confession. Then you get off with a quick parole, and the other guy goes up the river.
"Of course, the other guy might decide to betray you as well. Indeed, the worst thing that can happen to you is that your partner confesses—betraying you—while you sit here denying involvement."
"Then why should I ever do anything but betray the other guy?"
"Because the only way either of you can get out scot free is if you both deny involvement. Denying involvement is a collaboration—a conspiracy as well as a denial. So your best outcome is if you both conspire—but your worst outcome is if you conspire while the other guy betrays."
"So you're stuck with trusting this guy in another room whom you can't trust."
"Yes, it's quite a dilemma, isn't it?"
Bill glares. "Why is this game part of the Sampler?"
Hammond shrugs. "The results of the Prisoner's Dilemma apply to many real-life situations. We ll discuss some of the applications after we've analyzed the results of the game. The game might seem silly now, but remember that even obvious ideas need to be exercised before you can truly own them. You can't get more out of this seminar than you're willing to put in."
"But I can get a lot less than I put in."
"True enough. Life is generally like that—you must put something in to get something out."
Bill growls, "Okay."
"Good. You'll play this game with ten randomly selected people from the class. Then you'll play with them all again. We'll play ten rounds with each player and then discuss the results. For every game, all you have to do is punch either the Conspire button or the Betray button." Hammond shoots him a quizzical look. "So how are you going to play?"
Bill thinks about it for a long moment. "The only rational thing to do is to betray the other guy," he states with confidence. "You just can't take a chance on some random human being."
"I see your point." Hammond's smile again makes him feel like a bug under a microscope. "We'll keep score by adding up the years in jail you accumulate. Good luck. The door swished softly behind him.
Bill looks at the terminal, annoyed by this pointless game that dooms all the players to lose. Surely, everyone here is as rational as he is; if so, there will be an endless series of betrayals.
The terminal comes to life, telling him he is matched with partner number one, and that they have never played together before. Bill stabs the Betray button.
In less than a minute Bill realizes that not everyone is rational. Several people offer to Conspire in that first round, and they take terrible punishments as Bill betrays them. Bill himself gets off lightly. In the second round, he finds that the terminal gives him a description of his history with his opponent. He stabs the Betray button with a moment's regret—and realizes that when he thinks of the other player as an opponent, he is creating a fundamental statement about his relationship.
Seeing himself paired with a player who had given him a valuable Conspiracy the last time, Bill generously offers a Conspiracy in return—but the bastard Betrays, leaving Bill holding the bag. After a few more plays, Bill realizes that these people don't trust him worth a damn. He admits—with considerable reluctance—that he has given them cause for suspicion. In self-defense, he reverts to a constant stream of Betrayals.
On the third round, the handful of people to whom he has offered Conspiracies in the second round come back with Conspiracies for him. Of course, he has given up any acts of mercy, zapping all players with Betrayals.
Meanwhile, two of the players have doggedly continued to give him Conspiracies. It matters not that he Betrays them again and again. On the fourth round he reciprocates, and they remain as solid partners till the last round of the game. He gives up on the ones with whom he seesaws back and forth from Betrayals to Conspiracies, and switches to permanent Betrayals. They do the same.
At the end of ten rounds, he has accumulated over a century in jail.
Hammond pokes his head in. "How'd you do?" he asks.
FOCUS. Bill shrugs. "As well as anybody, I guess."
Back in the discussion room, Hammond disproves that assessment. Several people do substantially better than Bill. Hammond points out key features of the "winners."
The winners had three distinctive characteristics: They were optimistic, offering to Conspire with untested partners. They were just, never letting a Betrayal go without response. And they were predictable in their responses, so their partners knew what they would do at all times. With sudden insight, Bill realizes that these people were the ones with whom he had seesawed early in the game; his stubborn Betrayals constituted a major part of their losses. Of course he had shared their losses, since they soon responded with Betrayals of their own.
"All in all, we have a very rational group here," Hammond says with airy cheer. "Fortunately, I think we can improve on that."
He continues. "I always feel sorry for people encountering the Prisoners Dilemma for the first time. The Prisoner's Dilemma hurts because there is no formula for success. Intuitively, we suspect that the right answer is to Conspire, thus working together with the other prisoner for mutual gain. And if we could talk with the other prisoner, if we could communicate, we could make a good arrangement. But looking at the situation without that ability to communicate, we conclude that we must protect ourselves. The merely rational mind inevitably derives a losing formula."
Hammond leans forward and whispers, as if conspiring with the members of the class in a secret fight with a vicious universe. "But if you can step beyond rationality to superrationality, then you can derive a winning formula. The formula only works if your partners are superrationai, too—but at least it's a winning formula sometimes. It's better than what happened to all of you in the Dilemma you just faced. " Hammond points at Bill. "What's the sum of four plus three?"
SNAP. Bill looks up, startled. "Seven," he answers without hesitation.
"If another person in a different room were asked the same question, would he give the same answer?"
Bill mutters. "Of course."
"So the two of you would be able to make that agreement without communicating?"
"Sure," Bill snaps. "There's a formula for calculating the right answer."
"And everybody knows the formula." Hammond looks around the class. Some look puzzled; others look expectant.
Hammond continues. "Suppose some of the people didn't know the formula. Then you couldn't guarantee that you and the other person would get the same answer, could you?" A shiver seems to sweep the room as many people shake their heads.
"Okay, now suppose there were a formula for deciding what to do in the Prisoner's Dilemma. No matter who you were, if you applied the formula, you would get the right answer, right? And if you knew that your partner knew the formula, you wouldn't have to worry about the outcome: you could both crank the formula and come out with the right answer."
Hammond raises his arm and points to every person in the class. "So the very assumption that there is a formula tells us what the formula must be, does it not? If there is a formula, the formula says to Conspire, to cooperate with the other prisoner." His arm descends in a human exclamation mark. "But the formula only works if you know the formula, and if you know that your partner knows the formula, and if your partner knows that you know the formula."
About a fourth of the faces in the class brighten immediately with understanding; others brighten more slowly as they grasp the concept. Hammond drawls, "So you and your partner must in some sense be superrational to succeed, for you must be not only rational enough to select rationally among your individual choices, you must also be rational enough to understand the meaning of rationality for the group."
Hammond's eyes shine with pleasure in revealing the key to the game. "So the big question is, how do you find out if the other guy is as superrational as you are? In the Prisoner's Dilemma, there is one way to find out." He spreads his arms in a gesture of martyrdom. "Assume your partner knows the formula in the first round: Give him a Conspiracy. If he knows the formula, he will also give you a Conspiracy in that first round, and you will have found each other.
"But if he doesn't give you a Conspiracy in that first round, you know that he doesn't know the formula. He may be rational as an individual, but he hasn't succeeded in looking outside his own viewpoint—he hasn't achieved superrationality, so you have to treat him accordingly. In games where your partner is only rational, or worse yet, irrational, you must betray him, for he will betray you."
Bill slides backward in his chair, amazed at the short yet devious flow of this logic.
"Consequently, the only way to make games like the Prisoner's Dilemma safe is to educate all the people who might become your partners, so they can be as superrational as you are. Only superrational people working together can win the Prisoner s Dilemma." Hammond stands triumphant before his newly baptized members of the superrational. At least some of them are superrational, anyway; Bill sees doubt on many laces. From those expressions, he knows which ones he would prefer to have as partners.
Bill cheers for victorious superrational mind. He senses the same desire in other people around the room, but the thoughts are too deep to accept just yet. He, and the others, must chew on the idea of superrationality.
Hammond realizes this. "And with that, we'll take a break. Think about situations in which this kind of thinking might affect your life. We'll talk about applications in a few minutes—applications in areas as diverse as office politics and child-rearing." He paused. "And then, we'll show everyone how to engage in a decision duel."
Jet lag gave Nathan a tremendous business advantage when he flew west. He noted this with little pleasure, sitting outside the Pelmour complex waiting for MDS Software Associates to open its doors. Here in Mountain View, California, it was not quite 8 a.m. His internal body clocks, still set on D.C. time, told him it was closer to 11 A.M. Everyone on this coast was still coping with morning, injecting fresh caffeine into their bloodstreams. Nathan, however, was almost ready for lunch.
The Pelmour complex was one of the dozens of office clusters designed for the unique requirements of upstart startup companies here in the heart of Silicon Valley. The Silicon Valley entrepreneur could not begin life with merely a great idea, a reasonable product, a decent business plan, and a tight chunk of venture capital. The Silicon Valley entrepreneur had to initiate his future corporate empire with the right style.
Much of that style was embodied in the building where the entrepreneur began his life. He could not tool up in an old warehouse, tainted by vanished crates of fruit once plucked from orchard groves that blossomed in the days before silicon. No one would believe he could succeed from such a decrepit location; certainly, his business plan was inadequate in scope.
Nor could he start life in an opulent penthouse office overlooking the ocean. Such ostentation was allowed only to those who had succeeded. Anyone who started in this manner was just a pretender; his great new idea could only be vaporware.
The proper entrepreneur instinctively understood that proper businesses started in two-story buildings: Shipments came and went through the loading dock in back, on the bottom floor. Customers came and went through the door in front, on the top floor. Back in the '90s, construction crews had built miles of ridges here in Mountain View, to create enough cliff edges in which to embed such proper two-story buildings.
The Pelmour complex was a long chain of these startup company buildings, the entrepreneurial equivalent of a tenement row. Nathan couldn't help chuckling as he squinted down the stretch of bland sandstone building fronts. Though he had started the Zetetic Corporation outside Seattle, not San Francisco, he too had worked out of one of these tenements for a time. Indeed, for Nathan, the move to a Seattle tenement had been a step up; he had written the first Personal Enhancement Program—the Advertising Immunity PEP—in the spare bedroom of a friend in San Antonio. No real entrepreneur would have considered working under such conditions. Only his friends in San Antonio, and his sister Jan, had supported his efforts at the time. Jan had always believed in him.
The doors of MDS Software Associates opened. Delilah Lottspeich, the woman he had come to see, had a subcontract with MDS Software. He walked along the curved sidewalk to the front door. Few employees or subcontractors had arrived during the minutes before 8 o'clock; either they arrived enthusiastically early, or they started randomly late.
When he entered, he found people hurrying along behind the receptionist; evidently, enthusiasm was the driver here. Nathan held a brief negotiation with the receptionist before he persuaded one of the passing young men to escort him back to Delilah's office.
Security was not as strict here as it usually was in fledgling companies: the man waved at Delilah's office, then disappeared behind a labyrinth of room dividers. The whole office had the unnatural quiet that follows after the discussions have worn down, when everyone can strive toward well-understood goals. Only the soft click of keys, and the softer sound of mouse buttons, broke the stillness. A weak aroma of coffee came from the brewing station in the corner.
Nathan stepped across the threshold of Delilah's office. He did not announce himself. The mental gymnastics of a programmer are too delicate to disturb lightly; he would wait for the right moment.
She sat facing away from the door, unmoving, absorbed in the computer display. Her hair spilled across her pale shoulders, then cascaded down her back in a golden wave—a frozen wave, like a waterfall turned to ice in mid-flight. Touch it, and it might break.
The golden wave shimmered. Delilah twisted in her seat, and Nathan knocked on the door. She swiveled to face him.
Nathan's sense of watching a frozen waterfall did not diminish. Her arms and neck were long and thin and delicate. Her face held a cold, closed expression—the expression of someone who expects to be struck at any moment.
Nathan gave her his warmest smile. "Delilah Lottspeich? I m Nathan Pilstrom. I called yesterday about a project we need you on."
"I remember," she snapped, her voice sharp with tension. "You wouldn't tell me what it was over the phone." She smiled, moderating her tone. "But I bet it's something interesting. I've taken about half the Zetetic series on liars."
"Oh, no!" Nathan exclaimed, slapping his forehead with mock dismay. "Then I don't stand a chance of manipulating you—unless you missed the course on Lying at a Job Interview."
She didn't respond to the joke.
The Liars series included Lying with Statistics, a study of economists; Lying with Facts, a study of news reporters; Lying with Implications, covering advertising strategies; and Lying with Words, on the fine art of politics. She offered him the chair next to her work station. "Call me Lila." As he sat down, she asked, "What's the Institute working on?"
Nathan leaned forward on the edge of the seat. "Have you ever heard of the Sling project?"
"I don't think so."
Were developing a way to limit the death and destruction caused by war."
"Really." For a moment she lit up with excitement. "What have you developed? A new method for negotiating treaties?" Suspicion closed around her once more. "Wait a minute. Why do you want a digital sensor specialist for something like this—to verify compliance or something? You don't need me for that."
"No, we don't need you for that." Nathan took a deep breath. Just listening to her combination of hope and suspicion, he could predict her reaction to the real project— she would be horrified. "The Sling is a defensive system. By using Information Age techniques, we can pick out key elements in an enemy attack. By destroying those key elements, we can stop the attack with a minimal cost of life."
Her strident voice took on a pleading tone, hoping he would yet allow her to disbelieve what she had just heard. "Are you telling me that the Zetetic Institute now develops weapons?"
Nathan felt like he had been slapped. He sat very straight, very open, as if offering the other cheek for yet another blow. "Yes. We also develop weapons, Lila. If we have to fight a war, it is terribly important that we fight it the best way we know how, to end it quickly."
"You build machines to kill people? I can't believe it!" But the vehemence in her voice suggested that she did believe it. And she hated it.
"We build machines that kill people, yes." Nathan continued to speak as if to a rational person, though he doubted that his mental map of rationality matched the terrain he now faced. He had entered the room as one of her heroes; he would leave as one of her enemies. "But that's not the whole story. Just as we must accept some of the responsibility for the men who die because of the machines we build, so must we accept responsibility for the men who do not die, who would have died had we not built those machines."
She wheeled away from him. He had run out of time for rational discussion.
He had one more avenue of approach available: he could try manipulation. "Lila! You're a smart and sane person. You don't make decisions because of slogans and peer group prejudices—you make decisions because they are right decisions, after fully examining the facts." He had started his speech rapidly, with her name, to get her attention. As he proceeded he slowed down, to let the words set up a cognitive dissonance in her mind.
She now had two views of herself warring within her. One view said that she must not listen, because she hated war regardless of arguments. The other view said that she must listen, because she believed in making right decisions after hearing all the arguments. This conflict, this cognitive dissonance, had to be resolved. If Nathan could enhance her view of herself as a thinking person, she would resolve the dissonance by listening to him objectively. She would become, for a short time, the smart and sane person Nathan had told her she was.
This tactic assumed her emotional reactions clouded her views. If reflexive emotions held her, then Nathan's new words would appeal to her emotional belief in rational self. Thus Nathan could manipulate her.
But if she were fully rational, the words he had just offered would have no effect. She would weigh his words about the Sling independently from his words about her as a person. And that, too, would be wonderful; his purpose was to get her to give him a fair hearing. Thus, his best hope for success was that she was immune to his manipulation.
Nathan's use of cognitive dissonance here presented the only ethical use of manipulation that Nathan knew— manipulation geared to making a person less easily manipulated.
Small twitches of doubt broke the brittle lines of her face; the cognitive dissonance held her in thrall, unresolved.
Nathan continued, "I'm glad you see as clearly as I do the importance of careful thought. The lives of thousands of people rest with your analysis of what I have to say. " He watched her face carefully, but could not tell if he was winning. "The key to ending a war and saving lives is to prevent people from ever going onto a battlefield. To prevent that, we want to confuse the commanders who order men into battle, to remove them from the picture. Doesn't that make sense?"
"No!"
The intensity of her response had surprised her, Nathan could see. Of course, her exclamation had not been an answer to Nathan's question. It had been her answer to herself. She had resolved the dissonance. Nathan had failed.
Nathan watched her turn back to her work station, bringing up a page of test graphics. Having denied his thoughts and facts, she now denied his existence.
Nathan did not know which parts of the Zetetic series on liars Lila had taken, but he knew one part she had missed—Lying with Your Own Preconceptions. The toughest part of the series, it dealt with the lies people told to themselves.
PAN. They step into another room. The room has the contours of a small auditorium, though only the first two tiers support ordered rows of seats. At the focal point of the room, Bill confronts the largest computer display he has ever seen—larger than the one in Houston for controlling spacecraft launches.
Hammond speaks. "This is the main screen upon which the Institute carries out its largest and most important decision duels. Its not used too often for that purpose. What we re looking at now is one of our demonstration duels—a duel held over a decade ago to determine the merits of strategic defense."
PAN. Bill looks back at the display in fascination. The colorfiil splashes that streak through the wall resolve, as he approaches, into lines of text. With a few exceptions, the entire screen holds only words, arrows, and rectangles. The rectangles enclose and divide the text displays.
They stop at a console perched high above the audience: clearly it is the display master controller. Hammond continues. "As you can see, the overall dueling area is divided into three sections." He taps a track ball on the console, and a pointing arrow zips across the screen. It circles the left half of the screen, then the right, and finally runs up and down the center band of gray. "Each duel pits a pair of alternatives against one another. Often, the alternatives are negations—one position in favor of some action, and one position against that action. The left part of the screen belongs to the proponent for the action, and the right half belongs to the opponent. These two people are known as the slant moderators. They have slanted viewpoints, of course, and they actually act as moderators—anyone can suggest ideas to them for presentation. Of course, no one calls them slant moderators. The nickname for slant moderator is decision duelist."
The pointer continues to roam across the center band. "The center is the 'third alternatives' area, where ideas outside of for-or-against may be presented by either of the duelists, or by anyone in the audience. In the duel we have here, the third alternatives section remained closed—no one came up with any striking ways to finesse the question."
The arrow shifts upward. Above the colored swirl of text boxes stands a single line of text, a single phrase. It dominates the screen, with thick letters black as asphalt. The lettering seems so solid Bill wonders whether it is part of the display, or whether it has been etched into the surface in bas relief.
This one phrase running across the top overlaps all three sections of the screen. Bill presumes that top line describes the theme of the duel, the title of the topic under discussion. Reading it now, he sees it does not. Instead, this dark, ominous line—so striking and hypnotic, as if sucking the light from the air—reads:
LET ACCURACY TRIUMPH OVER VICTORY
Despite the hypnotic pull, Bill tears his eyes away from the words. They disturb him.
Hammond speaks. "It's easy to get wrapped up in one's own point of view on a topic. After much study of the matter, we've concluded that you can't overemphasize the need for objective search for rightness, as opposed to victory." He smiles. "As it happens, we keep records on the duels written by certified slant moderators. We do not keep our records based on who wins the duel. We keep them based on whether the decision that comes out of the duel is correct. Thus, a duelist can have a perfect record even if he 'loses' every time he moderates."
A dark-haired woman wearing a smart business suit asks, "How do you know who's right? Sometimes it takes years to find out, and sometimes you can never find out. ''
Hammond concurs. "You're quite right. We can't trace the correctness of all the duels, so not every duel yields a record. However, we don't lose things just because it takes a long time to determine the outcome. The memories of the Zetetic data bases are very long indeed. In fact, the Zetetic data bases have started to free those of us who work here from our own short-term concerns. Even if we forget events and decisions as quickly as the news media forget, the knowledge remains available for recall with only a slight effort. We have automated the tracking of all the predictions of duelists, stock-brokers, crystal ball readers, and economists. A couple of years of lucky hits do not impress us." He snorts. "We also keep records of the promises made by politicians. I'm sure no one would be surprised by the results of that comparison."
Hammond leads them halfway down to the audience area, where a pair of work stations sit in friendly proximity. The left work station display shows a section of the left half of the main display—the proponents half. Some early duelist has scratched PRO into the edge of the desk top. The right station shows a part of the right half of the display—the opponent's half; another duelist long ago labeled it CON. Bill runs his finger over the rough cuts in the desk top, amazed by the presence of such graffiti.
The cloth-covered arms of the work station chairs show frays and dark stains. Bill wonders how many hundreds of anxious decision duelists have sat in these chairs, rubbing nervous hands over those arms.
"We also keep score on the development of third alternatives that are better than either of the listed alternatives. In general, duels that settle on third alternatives find the best answers of all."
The lecturer drones on, but his voice blends into the scene as Bill watches the cursor on the main display flicker from point to point.
Beneath the blinking warning are the titles: YES, A USEFUL STRATEGIC DEFENSE CAN BE BUILT. And NO, A USEFUL STRATEGIC DEFENSE CANNOT BE BUILT. Beneath the titles are the assumptions, written in cautionary amber. About a dozen assumptions show for the PRO side, and another dozen on the CON side. On the PRO side is the comment, "We assume we are discussing alternatives for getting high rates of kill against ICBMs. We are not discussing engineering absurdities such as 'perfect' defenses."
Next to this assumption lies a picture of a button. When the arrow touches the button, a further discussion of this assumption—why it is necessary—expands into view.
On the CON side, one three-part assumption stands out. "A strategic defense system must pass three feasibility tests: It must be technically feasible. It must be economically feasible. It must be politically feasible."
Beneath the yellow assumption boxes are the opening arguments. The first of these are the cute slogans with much cleverness but little content, much favored by the media. The duelists put them up even if they disagree with them, just to get them out of the way. Appropriately, here the coloration of the text seems playful--purples and oranges and reds splashing about as though written with a child's crayons.
A purple background marks off a quote on the PRO side:
BUILD WEAPONS THAT KILL WEAPONS, NOT WEAPONS THAT KILL PEOPLE.
The CON duelist colored it purple because the statement has no meaningful content, only emotional appeal: whether a weapon kills people directly or not is irrelevant; what matters is whether the weapon increases or decreases the odds that more or fewer people will die.
On the CON side, the PRO duelist had marked a statement in red: PREVENT THE MILITARIZATION OF SPACE. When Hammond's arrow touches this field, an explanation window blossoms to explain the fetal flaw in this reasoning. Space was already militarized: if a war started, 10,000 nuclear warheads could fall through space in the first half hour. Moreover, as with the purple comment on the pro side, the important issue was not whether a weapon was space-based—the question was its effect on human life. The PRO duelist had placed another purple, satirical statement on level with the PREVENT MILITARIZATION slogan, connecting them with a thin line indicating they were two different ways of saying the same thing. The satirical alternative to PREVENT THE MILITARIZATON OF SPACE was MAKE THE WORLD SAFE FOR NUCLEAR WARHEADS.
Beneath the opening comments the words shrank in size, becoming more densely packed as the two sides parried back and forth with increasing verbosity. Both sides agreed to the format described in the CON assumptions: first came discussion of technical feasibility, then economic, then political.
The technical feasibility debate ran to great lengths. PRO constructed alternative after alternative, only to see each one knocked down by CON. But PRO responded to the CON objections, refining the alternatives to overcome the objections one by one. Bill realizes that he sees the evolution of a high-level design for strategic defense outlined before him.
Two-thirds of the way down the screen, the discussion ends, the PRO side triumphant. They have constructed over a hundred different approaches. CON has marked up all but two with bright red fetal flaws, but those two approaches seem capable of defense against words, and maybe also missiles.
Then the debate on the economics begins. This is a short discussion, surprisingly. Both sides agree upon a single criterion for economic viability: Can the system knock a missile down for less money than it costs to put a missile up? If you can shoot them down for more than they cost, then the defense is cheap; if you cannot, then the whole thing is easily defeated by building more missiles. A small amber button glows next to this agreement, which expands to explain the underlying assumption that the defender is not so much wealthier than the attacker that he can afford an extravagant imbalance. A millionaire can spend thousands of dollars protecting himself from a ten-dollar pistol, for example, and easily afford it.
Here both sides invoke large windows filled with spreadsheet calculations. Again, the PRO side shows one possible way of keeping the costs within the economic limit, while CON shows the other approach would fail. Both sides note the inaccuracies in these forecasts, and the size of the ranges. But only one successful approach is needed. The strategic defense system has passed the economic test.
Hammond explains that the political feasibility test is where the CON duelist had focused his attention all along. It is here that the brilliant thrust took place, the insight that makes this a classic in decision dueling. For though there are several approaches that are technically feasible, and one of those is indeed economically feasible, there are thousands of approaches that would fail. With brutal clarity the CON duelist demonstrates, with one military program after another, that the American military development system cannot select a solution that is better than mediocre. With the wings of the C-5, with the computers of TACFIRE, with the armor of the Bradley, the CON duelist demonstrates mediocre solutions that cost factors of two and three times as much as good solutions should.
The PRO duelist concedes: given the American system of military research and development, strategic defense is a hopeless proposition.
"And as everyone here knows, this early decision duel predicted the future quite accurately." Hammond sighs. "This also demonstrates another fundamental consideration of the decision duel—one that engineers all too often forget: the critical importance of finding an approach that can succeed, not only technically and economically, but also politically. This engineering blind spot mirrors the politician's tendency to forget technical viability. Politicians live in a universe where reality seems to be controlled by the perceptions of other politicians. In the heat of finding an approach that he can get other politicians to agree to, he forgets that there are laws he has no control over."
They walk from the room. The warning in asphalt-black from the top of the dueling display continues to etch itself in Bill Hardie's mind.
CUT. After several more demonstrations of Zetetic networks and techniques, he shuts off his flatcam. There is nothing in the Sampler to help him humiliate the Zetetic Institute.
A man could easily starve, wandering the halls of the Pentagon in search of an exit. The faceless, endless corridors contain few distinguishing landmarks for the novice explorer. And the corridors are truly endless—once aligned on a ring, a person could veer gently at each pentagon-corner and return eventually to the place whence he had started. Of course, whether he recognized his starting point or not was another matter.
Sitting at his mahogany desk in the heart of the great building, Charles Somerset reflected on a story he had once heard about wild turkeys. A wild turkey, when confronted with a fence, would simply spread its wings and leap the fence. But when confronted with a thick tree trunk lying on its side, the turkey would run around the log, that being an easier scheme. So the clever farmer strung a low wire, the height of a tree trunk, in a large circle. Instead of leaping, the turkey would run around the edge of the wire to find its end. By the time it returned to its starting place, the turkey had quite forgotten it had been there before. It would run, around and around, till it collapsed in exhaustion.
Charles didn't know whether the system worked with turkeys, but it certainly did with people in the Pentagon. Dazed, dizzy, and defeated by the corridors, exhausted Pentagon commanders could easily have their wings clipped by the smart operator. For some projects, the clipping took a lot of time and gentle nudging, but it yielded results in the end.
For these reasons, Charles loved the Pentagon. The dingy corridors did not dismay him. The hollow echo of air conditioning, the sometimes painful squeal of old battered chairs, the pounding rhythm of remodeling never quite completed, the echoes of conversations that seemed to linger in the hallways long after the speakers had departed: all contributed to the sensation of fighting under hostile conditions. Such conditions made victories over the maze of circles that much sweeter. Charles seldom noticed that the endless circles had trapped even him. Only on days like today did he feel encircled himself.
Today, he felt like a wagon train struggling against a circle of Indian warriors. He had assembled a fine flock of generals, colonels, and majors for the FIREFORS projects, not to mention the gaggles of civil servants and defense contractors. But they had left a few stray turkeys beyond the fence. Strays did not present an abnormality, but when they started acting like an Indian war party, he had to do something about it. Billions of dollars in FIREFORS projects could be canceled if people started concluding that the Sling Project, with a few paltry millions of dollars, could provide more capabilities at ludicrously less cost. Rumors had started already; an intense new school of treaty-loving budget-butchers waited for an opening to storm the FIREFORS train. It was exhausting to think about.
His glasses had slid down his nose during the morning's toil. He pushed them back into place with a sigh.
Charles and his projects had met threats like the Sling before. For over two decades, he had maintained a string of perfect scores in political combat. No one had ever canceled one of his projects. Why not? his opponents often asked. For one thing, the projects were too important, he explained. For another, the Defense Department already had too much money invested in them to just throw them away. This case was no different: hundreds of important people had staked their reputations on FIREFORS by putting money into it; no one wanted a handful of Zetetic fanatics, funded with peanuts, to beat them.
Fortunately, enemies like the Sling Project had many vulnerabilities. Charles had merely to pick one and apply the right formula. The Sling's dependence on commerical hardware and software was such a vulnerability. Commercial stuff might be cheaper, but it did not match the military requirement. It could not be rugged enough, for example. It could not survive an EMP blast, or a salt fog. And cheaply built hodgepodges of commercial stuff were not systems: they did not consider the logistics, the training, or the maintenance that a full-scale development project had to consider.
All these other considerations made military equipment cost tens and hundreds of times as much as commercial equipment. Ruggedization, logistics, training—these problems were responsible for the one little mar in the FIREFORS record: in two decades of effort, not one FIREFORS project had been completed. And of course none had been canceled. So all continued on course to their ever-more-distant deliveries, a fleet of juggernauts on an endless but important voyage.
His desk remained neat throughout the voyage. A single folder of papers to one side suggested to visitors that Charles had concentrated all his efforts on a single important task, excommunicating all else to his filing cabinets, and to his conference table.
Charles did not keep the conference table nearly so clean. Too often, unfriendly visitors came with the intention of spreading their accusatory documents across its surface. So Charles kept a carefully disarrayed assortment of materials there, organized to seem important, slightly skewed to suggest that a disturbance would damage the arrangement. Charles had plenty of space on his desk for displays, if the displays showed favorable results.
A single sheet of paper now rested on the single folder on his desk. It was the draft of a backchannel message from General Curtis to General Hicks, explaining why the Sling Project represented a dangerous duplication of effort. It suggested that control of the Sling Project should move to the FIREFORS program office, where FIREFORS could manage it more effectively.
The backchannel suggested funneling the Sling Project money into the common pool of FIREFORS funds. Then FIREFORS could build a system that included all the good features of both the Sling and the FIREFORS systems—though frankly, General Curtis felt confident that FIREFORS projects already incorporated all the key features of the Sling system. After all, FIREFORS had been working on these problems for twenty years; they had experience. General Curtis recommended to General Hicks that he look at the latest revision of the requirements document describing the FIREFORS products—Version 14.7. Thus General Hicks could see for himself that FIREFORS had indeed covered all critical Sling elements.
Charles smiled, reading about Version 14.7. It had just come off the presses that morning, thicker than Version 14.6 because of a new chapter describing additional variants of FIREFORS systems. The variants looked astonishingly like the Sling Hunters. The only parts of the Sling specifications omitted from the FIREFORS plan were the parts on low cost and quick delivery.
Though the backchannel was from General Curtis, Curtis had not written it; indeed, he had not yet seen it. But Charles had spent the whole week warming him up to the idea of such a message. The general would sign with only a glance at the wording.
With a small hum of pleasure, Charles edited a few fine points in the message. His sharpened pencil stabbed against the paper, slashing streaks of red across the words. It seemed like a modern form of voodoo, wherein the slashes could appear upon the spirits of the men working on the Sling.
Charles hummed more loudly as he considered the devastating potency of this form of black magic.
President Mayfield looked at his watch with eager anticipation. The next step along the path to the next election had been sealed. His heart skipped once in a while, but only when he watched Nell Carson s puzzled expression for too long.
She strode across the room, from the conference table to the bookcase. Her eyes wandered aimlessly across the rows of volumes. It seemed as though she believed the answers to all her questions could be found here, but for some reason she could not read.
Disdainful, Mayfield glanced at the books himself. First he saw only a few books. With a mental step back, he saw more: he saw all the shelves filled with books. Then he remembered that this tiny collection represented a window into the main room of the Library of Congress; he saw walls filled with shelves.
In a moment of grander vision, he saw the rooms filled with walls of shelves, beyond the main room in the Library of Congress. Then he saw the buildings filled with rooms of shelves of books, beyond the main building. And he saw how tiny a single human mind seemed, compared to this enormous swirl of knowledge.
He lurched mentally to a horrible realization. In some desperately important sense, both he and Nell were illiterate. The answers to their questions might well lie within the behemoth of human experience. Yet those answers might as well not exist. For though both he and Nell could read, they could not read fast enough.
They couldn't read fast enoughl His heart skipped a beat. He needed to look away and think of something else, but Nell's expression held him. He felt sure that Nell had seen the rooms of walls of shelves as clearly as he had, yet the vision did not frighten her. Only sorrow, and longing, and puzzlement touched her expression as her reaching fingers touched the books at random. The gesture seemed so hopeless, yet the mind behind the gesture seemed so hopeful.
She paced back to the table, her dress swishing gracefully as she moved. She paused at the table, reluctant to sit. Yet she had no other purpose in this room; she returned to her chair.
Elated, Mayfield saw that Nell Carson, the woman of neverending surety, was uncertain about their new treaty. Mayfield shifted his gaze to Secretary of State Earl Semmens, seated across the table from Nell. Earl's posture suggested that he expected Nell to strike him physically; he evidently did not recognize Nell's uncertainty.
Unable to resist this opportunity to gloat, Mayfield prodded his vice president. "So, Ms. Carson, what do you think of our new agreement?"
Hard nails clicked against smooth table top. She looked up abruptly, straight into Mayfield's eyes. "I don't know." Even now, though she was filled with doubts, she was annoyingly certain of her uncertainty. "Normally, when the Soviets sign a treaty, we already have indications of their next plans. Of course, we always refuse to understand those indications, but they're there nonetheless." She paused. "This time, I can't see any indications."
"I can see that you can't see." Mayfield's ironic tone showed his enjoyment of this moment. "It couldn't be that we've finally penetrated that impenetrable Soviet suspicion, could it? It couldn't be that they've learned that treaties are better than wars, could it?"
Nell sat frozen, unable to accept this view, yet unable to refute it. Finally, she confessed, "It's possible, Jim. I can't prove you're wrong, though I can show that it's highly unlikely. They may have learned that treaties are better than wars, but that is not the lesson we've been teaching. We've been teaching them that having treaties and having wars, when convenient, is the best of both worlds." Her head tilted, as if listening for a clue. "My best guess is that they have some ulterior motive for withdrawing troops from Eastern Europe, though I have no idea what it might be."
Mayfield glanced back at his watch again; it was almost time.
Earl swiveled out of his defensive posture to confront Nell for the first time. ''Ulterior motive? I'll give you an ulterior motive. The Soviet economy is creaking like an old maid's vertebrae! They desperately need to put those men back to work in the factories and the fields. They have to become more productive—that's their motive! This arms race is hurting them even more than it's hurting us, and it's killing us! What more motive do you need?"
Nell looked ready to respond, but Mayfield interrupted hurriedly. "Let's see what the rest of the country has to say about my—our—new treaty." His finger stabbed the squishy plastic button on his remote. The dull glow of a television lit up amidst the bookshelves.
For a moment Mayfield thought he had turned on an old movie—one about the gods of ancient Greece. The man who smiled out at them from the TV screen could easily pass as Apollo.
Nell whistled. "Whew! Who is that guy?"
Mayfield shrugged. "He's a new reporter for ABN. Some of my constituents tell me he'll be the newscasting star of the decade. They asked me to watch his spots. They say he knows the nation's pulse better than anybody." Actually, Mayfield himself knew the nation's pulse best. That had been proven repeatedly. Jim had an uncanny knack for positioning himself within the public spotlight.
Nell asked, "What's this guy's name?"
"Uh, Bill Hardin, or something like that. He looks like Apollo, doesn't he?"
"I've never seen a more perfect Neanderthal animal in my life."
ZOOM. The Neanderthal Apollo wears a suit and tie and speaks with the bland accent of the Midwest. "Tonight's top story, of course, is President Mayfield's latest treaty with the Soviet Union. The new treaty, a remarkable American coup at the negotiation table, is known as the Mutual Force Reduction Agreement. It leads immediately to the withdrawal of several divisions of troops, both American and Soviet, from the European theater. This will mean an immediate relaxation of tensions, and may lead to even more impressive longterm troop withdrawals."
Nell commented drily, "At least no one can accuse him of pessimism."
"Shush, " Mayfield chided.
FOCUS. "America may be witnessing the most significant transition in world history: the transition from a world of tense, sometimes violent conflict, to a world of peace. President Mayfield has singlehandedly propelled this transition with his clockworklike invention of new ways to lower tensions, while maintaining the security of both the United States and the Soviet Union. Indeed, rumors have started circulating that President Mayfield could become the next Nobel Peace Prize winner."
What an incredible idea! The Nobel Peace Prize! Again he looked over at Nell, who stared fixedly at the screen. He felt a certain compassion for her, thinking how difficult it must be for her to acknowledge the rightness of his long, determined drive to peace. He felt flush with warm belief in himself.
CUT. The scene shifts to a picture of angry civilians and equally angry police, facing each other on a wide swath of concrete. "What incredible methods of persuasion did the president use to make the Soviets agree to the Mutual Force Reduction Agreement? He was able to arrange this withdrawal of troops despite the ongoing unrest in East Germany." Huddled groups of East Germans suddenly break into motion. A few bricks fly, then the sound of machine guns fills the air. The viewer can almost smell the gunpowder. "The only place in the world today where the Soviets face worse trouble than here in East Germany is in the city of Ashkhabad, near the Iranian border. Here militant Muslim extremists press for religious and other freedoms. The violence grows as Iranian smugglers continue supplying guns and training to militant protesters."
CUT. A diplomatic delegation comes into view. "Even this conflict seems on the verge of resolution, however. After years of reticence, the Iranian government has agreed to work out a plan with the Soviet Union for controlling these smugglers. We have reason to believe this negotiation may have been arranged by President Mayfield as well. We believe he used his influence with Saudi Arabia, which persuaded the King of Jordan to press the Ayatollah of Iran for resolution of the issue."
Mayfield started to shake his head in denial of this last twist in Hardie's analysis, then stopped. The rumor wasn't true, of course; he had had no involvement with the SovietIran talks whatsoever. And though he would never suggest that he had had something to do with it, such rumors could thrust him even closer to the Peace Prize. For now, it seemed silly to deny them.
He saw Nell contemplating him with her toowide, solemn blue eyes. Something about her demanded a reaction. He thrust his chin forward, proud of the events he had initiated. He wondered why she made him feel so uncomfortable, why she made his heart speed up like a rabbits.
Nell rose to leave, having heard as much president-worship as she could stand. "Congratulations," she offered with apparent sincerity. She nodded at the news reporter on the screen, then at Mayfield. "I hope you're both right. I hope we don't regret this a month from now."
"Don't worry," Mayfield said as she left the White House library room. "Next month we'll do something even better."