This is A_Better_Earth.info, produced by makeinfo version 4.11 from
A_Better_Earth.texi.

24 February 2008
Copyright (C) 2006, 2007, 2008 Robert J. Chassell


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A Better Earth
**************

24 February 2008
Copyright (C) 2006, 2007, 2008 Robert J. Chassell

* Menu:

* Thank You::
* Chapter 1::
* Chapter 2::
* Chapter 3::
* Chapter 4::
* Chapter 5::
* Chapter 6::
* Chapter 7::
* Chapter 8::
* Chapter 9::
* Chapter 10::
* Chapter 11::
* Chapter 12::
* Chapter 13::
* Chapter 14::
* Chapter 15::
* Chapter 16::
* Chapter 17::
* Chapter 18::
* Chapter 19::
* Chapter 20::
* Chapter 21::
* Chapter 22::
* Chapter 23::
* Chapter 24::
* Chapter 25::
* Chapter 26::
* Chapter 27::
* Chapter 28::
* Chapter 29::
* Chapter 30::
* Chapter 31::
* Chapter 32::
* Chapter 33::
* Chapter 34::
* Chapter 35::
* Chapter 36::
* Chapter 37::
* Chapter 38::
* Chapter 39::
* Chapter 40::
* Chapter 41::
* Chapter 42::
* Chapter 43::
* Chapter 44::
* Chapter 45::
* Chapter 46::
* Chapter 47::
* Chapter 48::
* Chapter 49::
* Chapter 50::
* Chapter 51::


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Thank You
*********

* Menu:

* Pronunciation::


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Pronunciation
=============

D and G are hard, as in `doll' and `gulf'.  J is soft, without a D
sound.  It is a French `J', as in `Jean'.

AE is a long `A', as in `name'.  In English, the name `Djaeds' is
spelled `Djades', where a vowel is made long by following it by a
consonant and a silent `e'.  `Gammae', which ends in AE, is
pronounced `Ghah-may'.


File: A_Better_Earth.info,  Node: Chapter 1,  Next: Chapter 2,  Prev: Thank You,  Up: Top

Chapter 1
*********

"A bribe, a simple bribe.  An extra-legal payment for an extra-legal
action."  He muttered to himself.  That is what Vallen wanted.
Suddenly, he remembered he had spoken outloud and had an escort.  The
young man was sitting with him in the limosine but way to his left and
seemed to be asleep.  In any case, Vallen had been nearly silent.

He thought about receiving a bribe, not speaking, then a quarry
distracted him.

Vallen Dundel was traveling to a subcontractor's factory for an
inspection.  He was in a country distant from his own and curious.  He
saw the quarry in the middle of a field.

The land looked flat.  The quarry was a big hole in the ground.  Its
existence told him that rock lay below the dirt rather than sand or
gravel and that the dirt was thin enough.

Strong men, he saw, cut large blocks with diamond toothed saws.
Special cranes lifted the blocks; they were too heavy for people.  No
one cut small blocks with a hammer and chisel.

The quarry was efficient.  It employed a technology quite different
from that of a thousand or two thousand years before -- even though
the old methods had provided stone for beautiful buildings which had
lasted.

Vallen mused.  By now, the modern techniques for stone cutting were
generations old.  The adaptation took place long ago.

But the first time, Vallen knew, the new techniques meant the same
number of men could cut more blocks.

For inland cities, transportation was the big cost.  Without many
stone companies in the market, the people who headed them could get
together, restrict production, and keep prices up.  No one powerful
would have any reason to cut more blocks.


File: A_Better_Earth.info,  Node: Chapter 2,  Next: Chapter 3,  Prev: Chapter 1,  Up: Top

Chapter 2
*********

Filgard Meldon did not plan to become a revolutionary; he tried to
raise money from venture capitalists.

As he packed, Fairta leaned against a door frame in the house they
lived, on what had once been a farm.

It was just a day trip, but he figured that something might happen.
Fairta was middle aged, not too tall, not matronly.  She and Filgard
had been married for more than two decades.

Fairta said to Filgard, "I have a notion for you to think about as
you travel."  Filgard grumbled a bit, "I am going to be looking out
the window."  "Yes," Fairta said, "but some of the time, you will be
waiting and have already looked at everything.  Then you can think."
Filgard nodded.  He also knew she would tell him.  She prepared
everything for him, quite reasonably thinking he was impractical.  It
no longer bothered her.  Most of the time, she led her own life as a
violinist.

"Think about the four Galenic temperaments.  I don't have any
evidence -- you might find it -- but I do think they fit.

"My temperament, that of making beauty, being optimistic, preferring
the here and now, is what Galen called `Sanguine'.  His theory of
humors was wrong; but that is neither here nor there.  I am concerned
about the descriptions his temperaments suggest.

"That first pattern is not practical for a complex society.  We don't
think of leaders as special."  She grinned.  "We cause lots of
trouble."

Then she went on.  "Temperaments are about preference.  My preference
is Sanguine.  That does not mean I cannot see other patterns.  Also,
of course, there are some people who do well in many different ways.
Older people gain skills, too.

"In any case, for a society, a more practical and extensible pattern
is the second, the Melancholic.  People with that preference work hard
and have much common sense.  They are conventional.

"Centuries before Galen, Plato and Aristotle talked about
temperaments.  Aristotle referred to the Melancholic as Proprietary,
as people who gain pleasure by acquiring material assets.  Plato, for
all his idealism, looked at what people did.  He called these people
Guardians.  They guarded the city.  He said they also are endowed with
common sense, work hard, and are very necessary for survival.  All is
true.

"If you enjoy moral virtue, if you have what might be considered an
intuitive sensibility, then according to Galen, you are Choleric.
Aristotle called such a person Ethical, since he or she seeks virtue.
That is where these people's pleasure comes.  Plato called them
Idealists.

"Galen called the fourth type Phlegmatic.  They are supposedly calm;
at least, they try to appear calm to others.  They can learn a great
deal easily; it is not necessarily practical immediately.

Fairta stopped and laughed.  "Plato would have called you a Rational,
because of your reasoning sensibility.

"Some modern people say that there are more than four types, but that
those are the biggest.  They say that temperaments are expressions of
beneficial behaviors.  If taken too far, those behaviors become
dangerous illnesses.  Thus, people who are good diplomats in a
tactical sense, make beautiful things, the optimists, the Sanguine as
Galen called them -- if their beneficial character goes too far, it
becomes mania, a disease.

She grinned.  Filgard was not wearing his tie, even though he had it
hanging out.

"Don't forget your tie ..." she said.  "Also, you don't need to pack
a suitcase; it is only a day trip."

"What if something happens?" Filgard asked.

"There are no canals, ponds, or lakes where you are going; besides,
if you did fall into one, your hosts would laugh and help you.  You
are worried and trying to be too much of a perfectionist.  All you
need to carry is a briefcase with printed copies of your abstract and
of the proposed contract."

"No one needs those; we can exchange email."

"Yes," said Fairta, "anyone can be practical; that is not the purpose
of this trip.  It is symbolic; carrying a briefcase is like your suit.

"And don't forget to wear your tie."



                                 ---


The building possessed only a single storey.  It was behind barriers,
safe from a car or truck attack.  Most of the employees, those who had
to be there physically, came down a light rail system that had been
built in the far right hand lane of a previously wide road.  From the
airport, it looked like the right hand lane.  Going the other way, it
would be the left hand lane.  The company's name, ADVANCEMENT INC.,
stood on the barrier wall.  It was small, discreet, and meaningless.

Unless you were invited, you would not know that it was the home of a
significant venture capital operation.

Filgard was glad the company had paid for his flight.  Not only had
flying become expensive since the Disaster, much more expensive than
it used to be, but he felt pleased they were paying for him now.  He
was no longer a supplicant.  They wanted to smell him, not merely see
him on a high resolution audio/video link.

He was happy about the limousine they provided, too.  He looked out
its window.  The grass on the side of the road looked just like his at
home.  There were more deciduous trees here, though.  He decided that
looking out the window of the limousine was no different than looking
at a very high resolution audio/video link, except the image went all
around.  He stared out one window, but they were others.  The inside
smelled of leather.  Filgard decided that was probably artificial.
Still, he did not normally sit on leather and enjoy a leather smell.
He liked the service.

Filgard did not have to walk from the rail station through the hot,
humid air to the barrier, but only through the tunnel from the barrier
to the building.  The air in the tunnel was not much cooler than the
air outside, but it was considerably dryer.  Filgard wondered
momentarily what low-energy technology was used to remove water from
the air.

He moved comfortably and loosely -- it was like being in an old time
city, he thought, not an old time suburb in which you drove
everywhere.  He walked; he enjoyed walking.  It served as exercise.
And he enjoyed dry heat.

Old time cities, those with sky scrapers, were dangerous.  That is
what he thought.  He knew that statistically, most were quite safe.
Still, he was fearful.  Someone might attack.  Even though the new
suburbs were much more expensive, being less dense and less energy
efficient, they were perceived as safer.  He perceived them as safer.
You could keep cars and trucks away from buildings.  Each commercial
building had its own security force and back-up generator.  It stored
extra fuel, water, and food.  It was resilient.

Of course, cities worked well for most people.  They were dense and
energy efficient and no longer contained high value targets.  A
belief-based non-state organization could raise money and organize
suicide soldiers for an attack, but the payoff had dropped.  Few
attacked.

The tunnel was not gloomy at all; it was more like a hall in a large
building.  It felt wide and safe.  Natural light came through many
windows.  Although ceiling strips could provide light, they were off.
Filgard looked closely.  As he hoped, the windows were triple paned
with a vacuum between them.  Little heat crept in or out, except for
radiation.  The tunnel fit energy standards for new construction.

It enjoyed rather good wall paper, too, with repetitive glide and
transfer elements.

Filgard came from a university that was close by a town of 250,000
people.  Filgard thought of the town as a city.  It was large enough
for him, but not large enough to become a target.  The buildings were
older than this suburb.  His house was older.  All had been
retrofitted for energy conservation.

In the past, the university had done nothing notable, except to win
sports' tournaments, football, Filgard thought, and maybe other
sports, too.  It used the victories to raise money from alumni.  A
fair bit of the money went back to sports -- Filgard thought of
competitive sports as an irrelevancy to a university, a way to raise
money, as it were, a tax on education.  But some of the money came to
Filgard.

Leaving the tunnel, Filgard came into a large reception hall, larger
than any at his university, except for the one built a generation
before in the business school.  A young man met him.

"Doctor Meldon, please come with me," he said.  As they walked down a
short hall, the young man introduced himself.  "I am George Trumman.
I am your contact here."

During the walk, George Trumman made small talk.

"Filgard D. Meldon, hello," Trumman said.  "I do not confuse you with
the other Filgard Meldon.  He is a convenience store owner.  When
looking into your background, one of our researchers discovered him
first.  Not a Professor of Engineering!  I wonder what the man thought
we were thinking.  It took a moment for him to realize that even
though you have an unusual name, there can be two people with the same
name in the same city.  At least, you have different middle initials!"

Like Filgard himself, Trumman was wearing a suit and tie.  Filgard
thought of that as a uniform telling people who was higher class and
who not, at least in his culture.  He figured Trumman was better at
dressing than he since Trumman did it more often and was more
concerned.

Trumman noticed Filgard's momentary lack of attention but said
nothing.  `Engineers are all alike,' he thought.

He led Filgard into an office twice the size of Filgard's at the
university.  Filgard did not comment on that, but finished the
conversation, a conversation that Trumman had almost forgot.
"Filgard B. Meldon, the convenience store owner, turns out to be a
distant relative.  I had not known about him.  When it became
possible, I did searches for Filgard D. Meldon or Filgard David
Meldon.  That search always brought up me and only me.

"The Filgard comes from the name of a common ancestor several hundred
years ago.  We are sometimes confused, although the truth is, mostly
not.  Or people do not tell me.  I suspect there are more cases like
your researcher, momentarily confused, then understanding.  Meldon
itself is a common enough name, but not Filgard Meldon.  Well," he
grinned, "I find it fascinating that the only two Filgard Meldons in
the whole world live in the same city."

There was no one else in the office they came to.  Filgard began to
worry.  Trumman did not take long.  He said, "Your work is very good.
Even though your light waves are hundreds of times larger than
molecules, it is clever how you are able to determine the molecules'
exact locations, as well as their types.  We would like to keep an eye
on the project."

Filgard did not say anything; he simply stared.

Trumman shook his head minutely and said, "We cannot fund your
project.  But it is very good."

Filgard still did not say anything.  Trumman, as if he expected this,
said, "You not only have `proof of concept', you have a working
device.  But we cannot sell it.  We would have to spend a fortune to
design the liquid helium coolers, the lasers, and the recording
elements for everyday use."

He went on. "You might think, well, we can recoup high private
development costs with a high per unit price.  But we cannot.  That is
a problem in a globalized world."

Trumman had a decanter on his desk.  He poured a fair amount into a
glass and handed it to Filgard who took it without thinking -- and
took a big swig of what he realized was very good Scotch whiskey.
Trumman curved his lips into a tiny smile.  He went on.  Filgard still
had not said anything.

"As soon as we produce one saleable unit, someone, somewhere -- very
likely in one of our factories -- will produce identical copies
without the high initial cost we paid."

He helped Filgard into a chair and sat down himself.

"That happened with the first CDs and DVDs: people in factories that
manufactured them simply bribed a few people, ran extra shifts to
stamp out copies identical to the originals, and sold them at whatever
the market would bear.  As for prevention, the main producers said the
action was as dangerous as murder on the high seas -- they called it
piracy -- but they mostly focused on the small and irrelevant.  They
avoided big action.  They did not prevent these actions.  I think they
were bribed.  After all, you can get many people to do just about
anything for what comes to a relatively small amount if you are
planning on a large return.  And bribing people to let a foreign
factory run an extra shift?  That does not cost much at all.

"It is all a matter of price discrimination: charge more to people
who can afford to pay more, less to people who cannot.  But we cannot
distinguish units of your recorder from one another, not the way an
airline can distinguish seat sales by time.  We cannot sell one unit
more cheaply than the rest.

"So, we can't fund your project.  We here live in a country with laws
that are obeyed, more or less.  If we were only to manufacture and
sell domestically, like a steel mill or car firm a century ago, we
could fund it.  But we manufacture and sell all over the place.
Everyone does.  And no one will bribe me or the owners of this
company."  For a moment, he looked wistful, as if he wanted to be
bribed.

"But there is hope."  Trumman took a resolute stance.  "Even without
high resolution manufacturing, without nano-assemblers, existing
droplet sprayers can reproduce many MPLs, many metal-plastic-lubricant
designs.  They can manufacture parts for a washing machine.  I don't
know about washing machines, they are simple relatively speaking, but
your recorder means that complex mechanical devices can be
manufactured much cheaper.

"I suggest you use the recorder you have built at the university.  We
can suggest what to look at, pay for what gets destroyed, and sell the
results.  You can give some of the proceeds to the university, some to
us, and keep the rest.  That way, you can fund more work.

"As I said, your recorder is neat."

Filgard found that the whiskey made him a little woozy and
considerably less concerned than he would have been.  They were not
offering him full funding, but they were offering a little.  He would
take it.

So Filgard asked simply, "What are you suggesting?"

Trumman was ready, although he seemed a bit startled at how quickly
Filgard recovered.  "I am sending a file to your wearable," he said.
"We can do that in here without any concern for security, although we
have encrypted it like everything else we have sent you.  Mostly we
are suggesting tools to make tools."

He stopped for a moment.  Filgard noted that the file had finished
downloading.  It was short.

Trumman went on.  "These devices are intrinsically expensive.  Even
when the designs are known, as they normally are, the tools are
difficult and complex to build.  On a world-wide basis, few of each
type are needed.  That means few are sold.  So a company has no
motivation to manufacture and sell them at a lower price.  We will pay
for each tool."

Filgard looked at the prices on the file and realized that his project
could not afford even one.  And it would be destroyed in the process
of recording it.  Filgard could not think of any way to get around
that.  After localizing the position of each molecule or atom,
determining its type, and conveying that information to a computer
file, a cutter had to scrape away the very thin, measured layer.  That
destroyed the original.  Then the sensing could continue.

He did not remember anything else that Trumman said.  There was
nothing meaningful in it.  Somehow, he drank more.  A little later, he
ate a very good lunch that focused on a portion of salmon with an
excellent mustard sauce.  Salmon are carnivorous.  They had become
expensive, too.  Normally, Filgard hardly ate any.  He did not object
to the fish at lunch.  In a sense, it was just as if the company had
funded him.  He left that afternoon at the time planned before and
flew back home.

He liked the flight's service and its speed.  He was in a higher
category than his irregular flights before.  `If only I could do this
on all travels,' he thought.  `But you have to be rich or have rich
sponsors.'  The new plan made it much less likely that he would ever
become rich.  Still, he consoled himself.  `The new plan is not an
ending.  It is not an ending of my day-to-day reality.'  He stopped
thinking for a moment.  He did not want to think his next thoughts,
but they were true.  He could imagine that ahead of time.  `It is an
ending to my dreams.'

Coming up to his house, his wife, Fairta, studied him shrewdly.  She
understood immediately.  Meanwhile, Filgard looked at his windows.
Like those around the tunnel, he could see through them clearly.  But
the panes were fairly small.  They were doubles, with a vacuum between
glass.  They were small so the two sides would not be crushed together
by atmospheric pressure.  Obviously, a glass company could put gas
between the two panes; that would counter the pressure.  The design
would help, since a trapped gas does not convect much.  But a vacuum
was better.  In his house, more heat was lost through the frames than
through the glass itself.  The frames were insulated, but they had to
be narrow, so even with insulation, they conducted.

The university had windows that were bigger and originally were
considerably better.  The new ones -- now he realized that `new'
meant two decades old; he had grown older, too, quite unexpectedly; he
still felt young and laughed at himself -- the `new' windows had
three panes of glass with aerogel columns as spacers between the outer
and central panes.  The spacers kept the pressure of the air on the
outer pane from collapsing it against the central one.  Initially, the
aerogels were transparent and you could hardly tell they were there.
But now you could see them.  The university windows had become uglier
than his.

His wife had not been at all certain what would come of the trip.  She
did not have his optimism.  So when she saw him as gloomy but not
excessively depressed, she understood.  His face, as usual, told her
more than he realized.

Filgard told her that the venture capitalists would not buy into
company development, but that they would fund operations with the
current machine.  He repeated what Trumman had said about the world
being mostly extra-legal.  "That means," he said, "you cannot make a
profit from something that will be manufactured world-wide."  At
that, Fairta grumbled and said, in a voice that told him he should
not take her too seriously, "What you are saying is that I will still
have to pay attention to money when I buy shoes."  He laughed.

Fairta said she did not have to go out that evening -- she was a
violinist in the university orchestra -- and had prepared a meal.  It
had lamb and chicken as two kinds of meat and squash, potatoes, onions
and beans as vegetables -- it was almost a holiday meal; Filgard
thought of it as a holiday meal.  Fairta had also purchased an
excellent, and expensive, bottle of wine.  "I expected you to be
either exultant or despairing," she said.  "I did not expect you to
be in the middle.  But we are stuck with this wine, unless, of course,
you want a cheap bottle.  We have that."

"No, no," he said.  "The wine goes with the meal.  Let's splurge."


File: A_Better_Earth.info,  Node: Chapter 3,  Next: Chapter 4,  Prev: Chapter 2,  Up: Top

Chapter 3
*********

First, Vallen went to wash his hands.  He found one of the younger men
washing beside him.  Vallen recognized the man and said hello.  Vallen
was slightly bemused to realize that the other was so low on the totem
pole, they had never been introduced.  Vallen did not know his name.
The young man was not wearing a tie.  His shirt was open at the neck.
Vallen did not know whether that was a generic instance of younger
people attacking older or whether it was a peculiarity of the local
culture, of saying, `we are not you.'  Vallen suspected the latter.
He also noticed that the cloth in the shirt was carefully strengthened
so that its open neck looked well.  That cost.  Vallen liked the
effect.  He took off his tie occasionally; he would make sure the
shirts made for him had the same strengthening.  As he left the wash
room, the young man put on a jacket.  His rebellion did not go too
far.

As he was leaving, he said, "You know," -- Vallen decided the young
man spoke with the same accent as that of major movies -- "You know,"
said the young man, "we could make more profit if we produced more
and sold the extra production at a lower price.  We would just have
to make sure we did not lower all our prices."

"Price discrimination," said Vallen.  The young man had halted half
way out the door.  "But how do we do it?  We do not have regional
markets, like the first DVDs.  We cannot discriminate by time, like
airlines."  "Well," said the young man, "we can do the same as the
first DVD sellers: we cannot copy their governmentally enforced
regional markets, not that they concerned themselves with big
operations; we don't sell that kind of product; but we can encourage
an extra-legal market.  That is where the DVD companies sold.  In
regions without strong government price policing, they ran extra
shifts."

Vallen nodded.  He understood what was going to be offered.  Indeed,
he expected some sort of beginning like this.  At the same time, he
thought of price discrimination as good.  Good for him, good for the
company, good for everyone, except for losers.

It was practical.  Few people in extra-legal markets were willing to
transfer as much of their resources to his company as those in legal
markets.  So, extra-legal people should transfer less.

Vallen was confident that the prices of second shift products would be
set to maximize profits.  He would benefit from higher sales.  Another
shift would require more workers.  They would benefit, too.  Only
disorganized people who paid more would get hurt.  And the unpriced
future would pay -- pollution is a tax on the future.  In places like
this, Vallen thought, it is a tax on the present, too.  He was glad he
did not live here.  The rich could afford to pay more and those around
here couldn't.  Or else they spent their time in buildings with
decently filtered air, like this one.

Vallen nodded again.  "Intelligent price discrimination is vital for
a modern business.  There are increasing returns to scale in the
production of just about everything.  Your produce more, you make
more.  Only through price discrimination can we pay for initial high
costs, including patents and copyrights, and for continuing charges."
The young man agreed.  He nodded vigorously. "Yes," he said, "yes."

The young man came out of the bathroom cheerful.  Sometime later,
after the young man talked briefly with a more senior man, a man who
wore both a tie and jacket, that man took Vallen aside.  "The problem
with price discrimination," he said, "is that we cannot make it
public.  Everyone wants to buy as cheaply as possible."  "It is also
illegal," said Vallen.  "That, too," said the old man dismissively.
"If we do engage in price discrimination, you will have to be
recompensed."  The man's language was flawless, Vallen noted.  `Price
discrimination' and `recompense' were long words that just flew off
his tongue.

Vallen quoted Adam Smith,

     _It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or
     the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to
     their own interest._

The senior man smiled.  They had a deal.

It never occurred to Vallen to repeat a different quotation from Adam
Smith; he never thought it relevant; it never came to mind:

     _People of the same trade seldom meet together ..., but the
     conversation ends in ... some contrivance to raise prices._

Part of the reason was that Vallen did not think of what he was doing
as raising prices.  On the contrary, he felt he was lowering prices to
people who could not afford more.  He never considered that over all,
he and his company were helping to keep prices higher than they would
be in a competitive, free market.  They did not sell meat, ale, or
bread like the people in the Adam Smith quote.  It did not occur to
him that at the time Adam Smith wrote, neither a butcher, a brewer,
nor a baker enjoyed increasing returns to scale; on the contrary, as
more animals were killed, as more grain was grown for brewing or
baking, costs rose.

Vallen ran a division which manufactured and sold specialized car
parts.  All in all, he figured, there was not much risk in permitting
the factory to produce more, but there was some; he would have to be
compensated.

He would have to make sure nothing ill-written passed him by.  He
would have to make sure that tax people and noisy investors expected
the numbers he provided.  It would take work.

It would not do him any good to permit legal prices to fall.  That
might happen if more people learned of this extra-legal development.
At home, only a few managed to get away with paying low prices.
Mainly, they claimed that the products `fell off a truck' or that they
`bought them wholesale.'  Low prices were not widely published.

And of course, agents, especially those employed by competitors and by
the government, knew that at home this kind of price discrimination
was illegal.  It was not simply extra-legal.  If it were proved that
he was involved, he could go to jail for conspiracy.

He would have to be compensated a fair amount.  Well, they could
afford it.

The goose was good.


File: A_Better_Earth.info,  Node: Chapter 4,  Next: Chapter 5,  Prev: Chapter 3,  Up: Top

Chapter 4
*********

The morning after coming back from the venture capital company,
ADVANCEMENT INC., Filgard went into the university.  He told people
what had happened.  He tried to make positive remarks, but everyone
could see he was disappointed.  Still, everyone said he did well,
which Filgard thought was simple politeness.  Moreover, they acted as
if he had done well.  He wondered whether anyone besides himself had
hoped.

Later that day, he had to go to a faculty-wide meeting.  At first, he
thought to himself that it would prevent him from working, but then he
saw he would get nothing done anyhow, not that day, so the meeting did
not matter.

As far as Filgard remembered, such meetings were rare.  Rather than be
useful, they were designed to impress on the faculty the plans of the
administration.  Since administration plans did not change very often,
and memos served as ritualistic reminders, there were few meetings.
The announcements were routine.  He expected to be bored and was
surprised when the meeting became exciting.

Among other items, the president of the university spoke of continuing
the contract to EFFICIENT WINDOWS INC.  She spoke as if the decision
to continue was routine.  Doubtless, she thought it was.  But one of
the physicists spoke up.  "Why should we do that?" he asked.  "They
failed before; what makes you think they have changed?"

Clearly surprised, the president asked, "What do you mean, the
windows failed?"  The physicist responded, "The aerogel columns on
the windows we got from them became visible.  Yet they have never said
or done anything about it; nor have we."

The president glanced at the windows.  There were faint, blue squares
visible in them.

"But we installed those windows a long time ago," she said.  "Yes,"
responded the physicist, "eighteen years ago.  And after seven years,
the aerogel inserts appeared.  The aerogel could not handle the
relatively small amount of ultra-violet that got through the glass.
And neither you nor they have said or done anything, even though they
and the university administration said that the windows would remain
transparent.  They conduct more heat than they did, too."

"The decision was before my tenure," said the president.  "Yes," said
the physicist.  "It looks as if your predecessor or some other senior
administration officials were bribed not to say anything."  The
president hid her surprise at this comment.  Why would anyone bother
with windows?  She thought the fellow was seriously crazy.

"They could have given us an apology.  `Efficient Windows' could have
replaced their faulty windows.  That would have been sufficient.  It
would have directed other potential customers to ask about the
aerogel.  It would have told them that `Efficient Windows' does what
it says it will do.  They could have carried on.  As is, we have no
evidence whatsoever that new windows will not fail the way the old
ones did.  Your talk here is about purchasing a potentially faulty
product."

"But will anyone notice?" asked the president.  "I certainly did."
The physicist interrupted the president before she could go on and,
Filgard presumed, say that she did not care.

Many professors from the English department and from the business
school looked at the windows as if they had never noticed the blue
checkers before or had forgot their appearance.  But Filgard saw that
a good number of physicists, mathematicians, and engineers nodded
their heads vigorously.  They noticed.

"Remember," said the physicist, "we are installing windows to last
more than two decades; we do not want them to be faulty for two-thirds
of that time.  And my hunch is that we will not replace them until the
passage of many more decades than two.  People will spend their whole
careers in this university with faulty windows.  Good people will
avoid us."

That last phrase grabbed the president's attention.  "What do you
mean, good people will not come?"  "Well, to my certain knowledge,
since they told me," said the physicist, "two good people asked about
the windows.  We had selected them.  I mean the people.  We also
selected the windows.  We wanted the people in our faculty.  But after
being told that neither you nor the company had said or done anything,
they declined.  One of them told me, `That indicates what the
administration is like overall.  I am better off staying were I am.
At least, the people running the place notice mistakes.  They would
have the law department draw up a tort; it would be good practice for
the students.' That is what he said."

An older man in the math department rose up.  Filgard did not know
him; the man kept to himself or to other mathematicians.  At meetings
he was silent.  But this time he spoke.  He said, "Three have told me
that faulty windows are the reason they did not come.  They would have
been interesting.

"You know that, in a sense, it is not relevant where people are
located.  We can communicate much more easily than a century or two
ago.  But still, unplanned communications convey many ideas that would
not come otherwise -- conversations `by the water cooler,' as they
are called.  That is why we seek good people.  Well, I know you seek
them because prizes and awards will help you raise money.  Nothing
wrong with that.  But you threw away prizes and awards.

"It may well be that administrators, business people, English
professors, and the like are not sensitive to their physical
surroundings.  So they do not care.  They pay attention to their human
surroundings.  They tell the rest of us to get used to physical
problems; they urge us to adjust to unnecessary incompetence.  But
many of us are sensitive, do notice, and do care."  He sat down.

The president looked flustered; maybe the physicists and
mathematicians were all crazy; regardless, she did not want to be
accused of throwing away money.  "We will defer the issue," she said.
One of the engineers spoke without rising, "That is only one of the
issues of efficiency and competence."  The president looked even more
flustered, but pretended not to notice the interruption.  She went on
to another topic.

The meeting improved Filgard's spirits.  He felt bucked up.  The
university might never eschew stupidity, inefficiency, and
incompetence, but at least a few of the old guard protested.  It was
good to see that happen.

Then he got back to his project area and Peter Dev, one of his
graduate students, made him depressed again.  Filgard thought well of
the fellow.  Peter could explain engineering.  Moreover, he not only
focused on engineering, he read other books, too.

"It makes sense," Peter said, "that ADVANCEMENT INC. would want to
watch what we do.  After all, we are one-half of oligarchs', our
rulers, biggest practical threat.  No one is going to stage a
political revolution, at least, not in the rich countries.  Rulers
need not worry about that."  He paused for a moment, looking at
Filgard's face.  Filgard nodded at the obvious.

"But they, or at least a few of them, will attend to real dangers.
For many, the big threat are von Neumann machines that produce
material objects as a side effect of replicating.  Rapidly reproducing
von Neumann machines mean that what people want costs nothing, at
least, that the material objects that people want cost nothing.  Were
that to happen, the corporations that currently make the objects would
go out of business."

"What do you mean, we are one-half?" Filgard asked.  "We are the
recording half of the threat," the student said.  "The other half is
manufacturing, making copies of what we record.  That half has only
developed part way."  He looked at Filgard again, who seemed ready to
listen.

"Spray-droplet technology," said Peter, "means we can build metal and
plastic devices.  So long as parts are separated by sufficient
lubrication, we can manufacture separate parts in position.  With
decent droplets, we can duplicate ball bearings in their housings and
do that more cheaply than assembling them.  Rapid reproduction is
amazing."  He repeated himself, "It is amazing, and it means that
engineering design becomes very different, even though structural
rules stay the same.  You can see and test the results of your design
quickly.  But that is a digression."  He focused his eyes on
Filgard's face.

"A good way to track what we do is to pay us to record how to
manufacture expensive and complex machinery.  That tells how good we
are.  And if you pick machines that are not going to be duplicated
widely, even if they become cheap, you can sell manufacturing rights
and pay for the cost of keeping track."

He looked at Filgard. "Think of the implications of generalized,
rapid reduplication, even what we have now.  By duplicating the
machines for mining, refining, and granulation, we could cut the cost
of inputs dramatically.  And if we used high resolution droplet
sprayers, we could inexpensively manufacture new sprayers that work at
conventional resolutions."  He used the word `resolution' to mean the
size of a sprayed droplet of metal, plastic, or lubricant.  The
droplets were so small that regardless of composition they could
easily be melted in flight by a laser and then frozen by the cold of
what they hit.

"Even if we cannot do everything an atomic assembler could, even
without complete closure, we are ahead.  In the end, with spray
technology, we may only see a factor of ten increase in efficiency.  I
expect more, but who knows.  Still, that is the same sort of factor
that enabled the industrial revolution to threaten and sometimes to
destroy the old elites.  The people who manage the new dinosaurs have
reason to worry."

Filgard said, "They wasted the planet; they had cheap energy,"
referring to the people who had come in the centuries before him.  The
graduate student understood.  "Yes, yes, they did that; they had
that," he replied.  "But they also built with fewer inputs than
before.  Sure, their pricing of fossil energy was screwed.  They did
not take into account the long term or distant costs of what they did.
They did not have to count the cost, so they didn't.  That was an
important subsidy."

Peter continued to speak.  "Many people were not even aware of that
subsidy.  You know, even for sensible matters, like smoke in the air,
people criticised government regulations as costing extra rather than
being a recognition of what was already being spent!  They did not
link private health spending, government action, and someone else
dumping smoke into their breath."  He shifted back to his main topic.
"Still, the old-time industrial revolution engineers also figured out
how to do more with less, and much more with the same amount.

"Look at the university's windows."  They both turned to stare at the
windows with blue checks.  "Yes, they are faulty.  We all know that.
But even though they were built with three levels of glass, with
complex aerogels, using vacuum pumps and so on, when you take into
account everything, including especially the flow of energy through
them and their frames, they are better than single pane windows.  And
that is even though they failed.  Over fewer than ten years, whether
it be land to grow wood or some other direct solar converter, or
whether you mine your energy in an oil well or something like that,
this kind of triple-paned window ends up consuming less."


File: A_Better_Earth.info,  Node: Chapter 5,  Next: Chapter 6,  Prev: Chapter 4,  Up: Top

Chapter 5
*********

When he reached home after his inspection trip, Vallen found his
managers judged him successful.  Both the production and sales they
saw increased, not much, but a little.  In fact, as Vallen knew,
production had increased considerably more, but the sales to move the
car parts were not the sort that could be reported; and they weren't.
Vallen's managers rewarded him with a perk.  It cost them nothing,
cost the company little, and was not transferable; it was not, as the
economists liked to say, fungible.  It was a trip on the company
yacht, HAPPY TIMES.

Vallen and his wife, Jennifer, walked up the gangway.  The ship was
fairly large.  An engine powered it.  It lacked sails and three
stories rose above the first.  Vallen remembered he should call them
decks, not stories or floors.  Except for deck, gangway, and a few
other words, Vallen thought in landlubber terms.  He remembered that
starboard was right and port left.  On the ship, he mingled with the
buyers and sales' people that justified the ship's tax existence.

They planned to go on a cruise out of the bay and into the deep ocean.
It would be two days of luxury and networking.  Vallen and his wife
were good at both.  He was very happy he had married the woman.  They
were not close; it had never occurred to him that they might be close;
but she knew how to support a rising corporate manager.  It was, he
thought, a good arrangement.

The yacht was fine.  His cabin was not too big.  It had a window, a
porthole, Vallen remembered to call it.  The porthole was covered with
a curtain.  The cabin's only bed was double and fit into a wall.
Storage lockers fit below it and above it.  The locker below, a big
drawer, was empty.  That above contained life jackets.  On the room
side of the bed, the only side open, it had a fence that you could
raise or lower.  The barrier was covered with leather.  The crewman
who showed him in asked him to please raise it at night.  "It will
keep you from falling out of bed if we run into big waves," he said.
"We do not expect to; none are forecast.  But forecasts have been
wrong."

The only blemish was outside of Vallen's room.  There were no panels
on parts of the wall in the hallway.  Bare metal showed instead.  The
old panelling had been removed.

Vallen learned that the fellows who were going to glue in new panels
-- they were made of wood and had wall paper on them -- could not
afford to come to work because of higher fuel prices.  Or the company
that employed them directly could not afford to carry them.  Instead
of their two buses, the company that organized them had to find a
single, more efficient and bigger bus.  It had not done so in the
hours before sailing.

Vallen figured the workers must be illegal or extra-legal.  Either
way, his own company would pay less.  Less skilled workers, he
wondered if in practice they were less skilled, might take a little
longer, but they were considerably cheaper than citizens; and the big
robot companies did not permit prices to drop sufficiently that humans
could be replaced in general.

In any event, his company's president asked Vallen and several other
relatively junior `guests' to do the job.  Vallen saw this as a test
and enthusiastically accepted the assignment.

The job was not that hard.  The panels were glued into place.  They
and the glue-guns were already on board.  Vallen wondered whether the
stated reason the subcontractors had not come was true or whether the
job had always been intended as a test.  Vallen decided the reason was
true and the president of the company got to where he was because he
could always turn a disaster into an opportunity for the company's
backers.  It was, Vallen thought, a good-to-know instance of a general
lesson.

So Vallen started gluing panels into position.  It was a little
tricky, since he wanted the straight lines on the wall paper to move
across the wall without any jagged jumps.  But other than that, it was
not difficult.  It was not as hard as gluing on rolls of wall paper.

Nonetheless, one of his fellows worked more quickly and less
carefully.  His lines wiggled.  Vallen complained.  The man turned and
said accusingly, "You sound like an environmentalist.  What is your
concern for craftsmanship and the future?"  Vallen responded simply,
but loud enough for others to hear, "We are going to be walking
beside these soon and for a long time."

After finishing the wall, Vallen and Jennifer washed up and went to an
event in which the food and drink were so good he did not feel
unsatisfied although he ate and drank sparingly.

A little later, on his way back to their room, Vallen saw several of
the crew use a fancy machine to push a narrow but long pipe into the
cracks between panels the man had put up, spray something behind them,
and then use multiple suckers to pull whole panels off the metal wall.
On the backs of the panels, he saw the glue and the spray, which
bubbled like foam.  The crew washed off the panels and the walls.
They sucked up the liquid with an industrial vacuum cleaner and dried
each barren segment of wall with a hot blow dryer.

Vallen never saw his co-worker again.  Instead, the swell changed.
That told him that before, the yacht had not yet left the bay.  He did
not see any people fix the wall, but some did.  Vallen decided that
crew glued up the panels again, quickly and neatly.

Vallen felt he could relax, albeit carefully.


File: A_Better_Earth.info,  Node: Chapter 6,  Next: Chapter 7,  Prev: Chapter 5,  Up: Top

Chapter 6
*********

At work after the yacht trip, one of Vallen's employees brought him a
budget for manufacturing.  Brimming with confidence, Vallen said, "I
will look at this, but I am sure you did right.  Now, produce a budget
for sales, presuming we go into a new country with quite different
beliefs and marketing practices than those we are accustomed to."
The man asked Vallen, "Which country?"  Vallen named it.  It lacked a
huge group of people who could afford legal prices.  Vallen expected
to sell more parts extra-legally than legally, and more cheaply, too.
But the number of those who could buy legally was not too small; that
number justified imports and the sales campaign.

The accountant had expected Vallen to speak as he had, but had not
expected his new confidence.  When he returned to his own office, he
commented to a colleague.  "Some time since I last saw him, the boss
decided he could tackle anything.  Maybe he can, too."

His colleague thought it was the yacht.  "Usually, that kind of favor
implies a test of some sort.  I bet Vallen knows he passed with flying
colors.  He is smart.  He is going places."

Vallen figured out that people attributed his added confidence to the
yacht trip.  He did not tell them otherwise, but he knew the bribe
filled him.  The yacht trip only helped.  His poise signalled others
as well as himself that he had done well.

As for the bribe: he liked it.  He did not or shortly would not have
to depend entirely on one company in one country.  Still, he did not
dare live more grandly than his overt income permitted.  He feared
being found out.  He did not store his extra income in a local bank
either.  The tax man might discover him.  There were advantages to
living in a country that mostly enforced laws, like more personal
security, but there were difficulties, too.  " `Softly, softly,' " he
thought.  Even so, on his overt income he lived well enough for
comfort and for show.

In a sense, Vallen decided, he was helped by his discretion.  Rather
than spend the money for immediate pleasure or for show, he planned
for a more distant future.  He was not quite sure what he planned for.
All might go well in his conventional life.  But he was smart enough
to `expect the unexpected,' as the phrase went.  That is what he kept
saying to himself.

Rather than just depend on one bank that might fail or might act
against him, Vallen chose several accounts in several countries, at
different banks.  More banks meant more chance that one would feel
enough pressure to check him out, or even have incorruptible
employees; but he could simply walk away if that happened.  He was
sure that would not cost more than fifth of the total, or a quarter if
he had to bribe officials.  He would not like it; he did not expect
it; but it was doable.

Later, he would invest in land and buildings.  That would be after he
had more and learned more.  Of course, the extra accounts meant more
travel, but Vallen picked places he would visit anyhow.  The new
accounts meant only that he would conduct inspections more frequently.
`So,' Vallen thought to himself, `I will gain a reputation as a tough
and thorough manager.  Not bad.'  Vallen figured that without having
to write anything down, he could remember five false names and all the
ancillary data that went with them.  Five pretend lives.  He could do
it.


File: A_Better_Earth.info,  Node: Chapter 7,  Next: Chapter 8,  Prev: Chapter 6,  Up: Top

Chapter 7
*********

Taffod Dowwen talked himself into receiving a tour.  He realized after
only a few moments that the plant did not advertise but was ready to
give tours.  He had not needed to be so persuasive.

The `energy conversion site' was in an area close to what had been
called the Black Forest.  The site had not yet received a short name,
even thought it had been around for years.  It suffered an acronym
that no one liked and which did not cross languages.  Taffod noted
that the acronym did not appear in signs.  Then he realized that with
the appropriate software, it would not save anyone any time to use it
internally in memos.  `Maybe the acronym would vanish!'  Taffod raised
an eyebrow.  `That would be a benefit of the modern world,' he
thought.

At the site, dead trees were cut.  There were many in the area.
Taffod wondered whether they had been killed by acid rain, by climate
change, or by a mixture of causes.  At the same time, workers planted
fast growing saplings.  They would be harvested after the dead trees
were gone.

The place provided sustainable energy.

The wood, plus water, went into an on-site refinery.  There, the
mixture was converted into several substances.  Part became a
flammable gas, much of which was used to run the refinery; the rest
was shipped out.  Waste heat generated electricity; most of that left
the site.  A good portion of the wood (and the hydrogen in the water)
ended up as liquid fuel.  Taffod used it himself.  Like everyone else,
he found it convenient to posses energy in liquid form.

Only a small part of the liquid fuel was used on site.  Outsiders
bought the rest; a few purchased the solid residue, which went as
fertilizer.

The refinery interested Taffod only a little.  Mostly, he saw metal
pipes and containers; he did not know enough chemistry to care what
went on inside.

The armored log thrower interested him more.  It looked as if the site
manager expected that, since the log thrower was the last part of the
tour.

Originally it had been a small backhoe, though not the smallest.
Rather than have wheels, it rode on tracks like a military tank.  In
British parlance, it moved around `on its own flat feet.'  The backhoe
had a cab, engine, and movable arm mounted on a plate that could turn
independently of the treads.  It could cross rough ground.  Unlike a
tank, it could not move fast.

By mounting a second power source on the spinning part, as well as a
storage bin, a conveyer belt, a thrower, and the electric motors they
used, it could shoot chunks of wood quite a distance.  The hoe carried
the thrower; the conveyer belt was flexible, and carried wood from the
storage bin up to the thrower.  By raising and lowering the hoe and by
spinning the cab, the operator could aim.

Except for the windows and the port out of which logs were shot, the
whole machine was covered with a thick metal plates.  They were backed
with ceramic and more metal.  Outside the original windows, which
still remained, were thick sheets of bullet proof glass.  The armor
was an add-on.

The tour guide showed it all.  The door to the storage bin was counter
balanced.  The guide had no trouble opening it.  The bin was huge.

The guide, Henry, told Taffod, "Tossing chunks of wood produces a
device that is less lethal than a machine gun, but not less lethal
than a microwave denial device or something like that.  The latter
kills only one in a thousand or so.  If logs fall on a crowd, they
will kill more.  However, logs are visible."

He went on.  "Early on, we were attacked as much for show as for
anything else.  A major goal was to get videos of us killing unarmed
protesters -- I don't think the protesters thought that, but I am
sure their leaders did.

"By throwing logs, visible logs, we indicated that we were ready to
hurt, but we were not ready to use guns.

"People ran from the falling logs -- the operator intentionally aimed
to miss.  As far as I know, no one was hurt in the one protest that
occurred.  This machine made for wonderful video!"

Taffod smiled.

"Of course, it would have been easy for a professional hit man to
hide among the protesters and shoot.  He could stop the thrower
without hurting the driver.  We suspected that was part of the plot."

Taffod nodded.

"That is why we attached armor over the backhoe.  That was expensive!
We could not simply use metal plates we had; a hit man could carry a
stronger weapon.  It could penetrate whatever we had.  He could stop
the cab from spinning.  That would effectively open up the site.  The
backhoe could not turn quickly or accurately enough on its treads.

"We had to armor the whole backhoe well enough so that only a big
military weapon could get through.  Nobody was willing to risk that."

Henry turned away from the log thrower.  He looked over an open field.
Taffod vaguely remembered seeing a picture of it with protesters
filling one end.  He remembered a plume of logs falling two-thirds of
the way across the field, in front of the crowd.  `Yes,' he thought to
himself, `... good images.'  He listened more.

"Essentially, the protesters were against the enhanced trees we
plant; their financial backers were against carbon dioxide
sequestration."

Taffod nodded again.  That is what he understood.

"The protesters," Henry said, "feared that genetically modified trees
would spread all over.  Indeed, if we did not insist on strong safety
precautions, they would be right."  It was not people at the site
that insisted, but people in the regulatory arm of the government.
Taffod grimaced to himself, but understood that people in the site
supported this government action.  Henry went on, "We are safer with
these trees than with alien insects catching rides in airplanes and
ships.  Those insects are not genetically modified, but can come
without competitors.  They can spread all over the place.

"As for the backers, they feared a drop in profits."  Taffod noted he
was being told this by a tour guide.  The fellow was well briefed.
Henry continued.  "The financial backers feared that they would lose
business to companies who were not forced to bury any of their fossil
carbon dioxide.  Either they did not believe that the government would
identify the right products and tax them; or they expected that
certain imports, like windows, would be permitted regardless."

Taffod nodded.  `Interesting,' he thought.  `This is less attractive
visually than the log thrower, but more important.'

"European governments," Henry said smiling, "have had a great deal of
experience with smuggling."  He grinned.  "I know this for sure,
since some of my ancestors were on the other side."  Taffod wondered
about the present, but did not say anything.

"I don't think that nowadays there can be much.  Certainly, no one is
going to smuggle trucks and the like.  Doubtless, some items are
smuggled," Taffod almost grinned; the man went on, "... but we are
talking locomotives.  They are not going to get smuggled and then
operated illegally for twenty or thirty years."

Taffod felt safe in nodding again.  He did not know anyone who
smuggled locomotives into a law abiding country.  He could imagine the
buyer and seller of a second hand backhoe agreeing to tell the tax man
a lower price than actual.  That way, they would avoid some tax.  But
for new locomotives, a batch of them, in a transaction watched by
competitors, in a region where senior people were not bribed much?  He
doubted illegality.

"Permitted imports are another matter."  That comment surprised
Taffod.  He had not expected Henry to say anything about `permitted.'
He paid attention.  `Maybe,' he thought, `that was the intention.  In
that case, we will see that permitted imports are not relevant.'

Henry explained.  "That triple paned window with an outer layer of
glass and plastic, so an errant ball does not break it -- that is a
good idea.  Except, we do not have many kids.  We do have a few.  But
even the poorest ones play in parks; they seldom play where they can
break windows."

Taffod nodded again.  `That fits,' he thought.  Henry went on, "I can
see the argument:  a window with an outer layer of plastic with glass
on top of it, so it does not scratch easily -- such a window costs
more.  An extra tax on it will make it cost even more.  That is true.

"But if you think of the extra tax as a payment for not burying carbon
dioxide, then the extra cost vanishes.  Without the cost, you are
receiving a subsidy.

"The only argument left is that triple paned windows reduce heat
flow.  There is no argument about that.  They do reduce heat flow.
But mostly, you don't need to worry about errant balls breaking them.
When you insulate your roof, you don't need to worry about winter ice,
either.  You do not have to be afraid it would gather, melt, slip off,
and break a window.  So why bother with a window produced with fossil
energy that has none of its carbon dioxide sequestered?"


File: A_Better_Earth.info,  Node: Chapter 8,  Next: Chapter 9,  Prev: Chapter 7,  Up: Top

Chapter 8
*********

The venture capital company provided Filgard's group with a large,
complex machine that could make a special kind of paper.  It barely
fit into the recorder's cavity.  The machine took a long time to cool.

And then, after it was recorded, which meant it was totally destroyed,
the spray-droplet duplicate refused to start.  Just in case the
problem had to do with the spray-droplet machine and not with the
recorder, a second duplicate from the same recording was constructed
on a machine from a different manufacturer.  That duplicate refused to
start, too.

Filgard had talked about the difference between theory and practice;
he had warned his students and everyone else that even though his
simple recordings duplicated right, more complex duplicates might
fail.

Still, this was the first time he had been responsible for so costly a
failure.  The destroyed machine cost more than his annual budget.  It
was humbling.

Fortunately, his group could record, and in the process also destroy,
both non-working duplicates.  They compared the two new recordings;
they were identical.  Filgard's group compared one of the new
recordings with the original.  It too, was the same; that is to say,
Filgard was precise in his language, all three recordings were
identical.  So the problem was not in either the spray-droplet machine
or in the recording; it was in Filgard's recorder.

Peter found what looked to be the problem, a complex interaction
between two otherwise good subsystems.  They modified the recorder and
then made another record.  Filgard had high hopes.  Indeed, the next
duplicate started.  But then it broke.

After two more expensive iterations and some of the hardest work
Filgard had ever done, a duplicate worked and kept working, exactly
like its original.

Then they tried recording a different machine, one used in truck
manufacture.  It also was large and complex.  Its duplicate appeared
to succeed.  Everyone cheered.  That evening Filgard and his wife
celebrated.  The next morning, Filgard saw that several of his
graduate students had celebrated even longer than he.  But he did not
say anything.  At that point, he and they learned that when installed
in a truck, the duplicate's output caused another part, completely
unrelated, to jam.  Something was wrong.

It took three expensive iterations to create a version of the recorder
that produced recordings whose duplicates' outputs did not cause
trouble.

The next type of machine produced duplicates that failed in yet
another way.  It took four iterations before that machine could be
duplicated properly.  Then every different machine that was copied
made records whose duplicates did well.  The spray-droplet
manufacturers produced good, working copies.

Just to be on the safe side, ADVANCEMENT INC., the venture capital
company, funded another recording of an instance of the original
paper making machine.  They wanted to find out whether Filgard was
creating a machine-specific recorder or a more general one.  Filgard
found that his recorder was too complex for him to imagine all the
interrelations.  Each part was fine; but then, they always had been.
The interrelations caused the trouble.  So he worried before and
during the test.  Fortunately, the new record succeeded.  A duplicate
worked fine.  The test cost a fortune, but Filgard decided it was in
a good cause.

The venture capital company sold licenses.  First it made money which
replaced what it had spent; then it made a profit, then it made a huge
profit.  The companies buying the licenses found their costs dropped.
They made more, too.  The companies which purchased the duplicates
were happy; they paid less.  Even the final customers felt they
gained, since they, too, paid less -- not much less, but a little.
Hardly anyone noticed that most prices stayed high.

One of the features of the `Meldon Recorder', as the venture capital
company insisted on calling it, was that it worked a great deal faster
than similar machines.  Filgard did not think much of that.  He used a
bunch of old tricks.  They mostly centered around having fewer
illuminators than parallel recorders.  Of course, he had to make sure
that the recorders worked in step with the illuminators.  No one else
had been able to do that, but Filgard did not consider that a problem.
On the other hand, he did recognize his cutter design.  That had been
hard.  Not only had it to cut and to cut quickly without much raising
the temperature -- to avoid excessive thermal jiggling, the
temperature had to stay near absolute zero; and to be practical, the
recorder had to be fast -- but the cutter had to last.

Filgard began to figure out how to make his recorder's cavity bigger,
the cooling faster, and the machine itself more transportable.


File: A_Better_Earth.info,  Node: Chapter 9,  Next: Chapter 10,  Prev: Chapter 8,  Up: Top

Chapter 9
*********

All was going well.  Vallen knew he had made two important jumps in
his career, one that he could not talk about, to receive bribes, and
the other that he could mention, his trip on the company yacht.  His
wife, Jennifer, did not look older, although she was.  She lived a
nearly independent life from him.  They did not quarrel.  Their two
children, a boy and a girl, Jeffrey and Janice, were two years apart
and entering adolescence.  Neither embarrassed him in public nor
fought him.

So Vallen planned a barbecue.  It would be his first in years.  He had
an outdoor barbecue stove, but had not used it for a very long time.
If it rained, he and his guests would go inside, but that would be
unlikely.  Where he lived, plans could be made a long time ahead.

Jennifer was good at picking guests.  She mostly chose subordinates, a
few seniors.  She also chose a few who were not in the company at all.
They role was to serve as entertaining outsiders, as misfits.

To be safe, Vallen planned to hold a barbecue for his family first.
He wanted to see what could go wrong.  He was not expecting his son,
Jeffrey, to tell him that the stove was now illegal!

"It cooks perfectly well," he said.  He was not quite sure of that,
since he had not used it for so long; but it had worked fine the last
time and he could not see anything wrong with it.

"That is not the issue," Jeffrey replied.  "I was told at school that
the problem demonstrates scaling.  No single stove is dangerous.
Each works fine.  But when you have too many together, too often used,
then you have trouble.  Each puts a little smoke into the air.  In an
empty or near-empty world, that would blow away; no one would care.
But here, we have too many in one place.  Even though we often have
wind, concentrations build up.  That is the problem."

"So, what do we do?" asked Vallen.  "We buy a modern barbecue, one
with an electric blower to move the smoke through an electrically
heated catalytic converter," said his son.

"I know what you mean," said Vallen.  "I have seen advertisements.
There are only two or three companies that make that kind of barbecue.
There must be a price leader and price followers.  I bet they do
oligopolistic pricing.  That is what I would do.  That would keep
prices even higher than all the extras.  We live in a country where a
local government can afford to send aircraft and sensors overhead to
discover who is doing what.  They can enforce the rule.  And nobody in
power cares about the high prices."

"Well, we don't care about the prices either, do we?" asked Jeffrey.
"No, not at all," said Vallen.  "It is just that this whole notion
pisses me off."  Both his wife and his son were struck by Vallen's
language.  Usually, he spoke in much more elevated words.  He was
unhappy.  Jennifer moved to placate him.  "We cannot live in a rural
area.  There are no jobs.  This place is not bad, not at all.  Just
expensive.  And, as you said, we can afford it.  We will have to buy a
modern barbecue.  That is all."

Vallen used his regular, legal income for the purchase.  As far as he
was concerned, it was not a big deal.  Still, he saw again that more
resources for him meant his freedom increased.  This purchase cut his
resources a bit.  He did not like it.

`Well,' he thought to himself.  `Very likely, the scaling issue is
real.  The catalytic converters are a needful limitation on what we
can do.  I should not be too upset about oligopolistic pricing.  That
will happen in any industry so long as there are few manufacturers or
few sellers or one or the other are controlled.  In any industry with
increasing returns to scale, there will be just a few, or just one.
It will be the one which grows bigger sooner than the rest.  Each item
it produces costs less.  So it will put competitors out of business.
That means just about every modern manufacturing industry.  It exactly
fits what we were taught in school.'

Vallen considered more.  `Of course, in successful companies, no one
will support change.  That restraint will turn those companies into
losers when technologies change rapidly.  But I think the rates of
technical change are slowing.  Everyone complains, but I think that is
because the changes they have to make are unpleasant, like buying a
more expensive barbecue.  People do not complain about changes they
like.'

Vallen could not think of any ruling group that imposed only
limitations that were needed by everyone.  Rulers would, if they were
smart, impose limitations that were necessary.  He knew there had been
rulers, like those who had ruled in the Lebanon when cedars still
grew, who were not smart enough and didn't.  They vanished.

But in addition to needful limitations, rulers, whether of businesses
or countries, always imposed limitations that helped them, like higher
prices.  As a university student, Vallen had conceived the possibility
of the opposite, but he had not seen any like that in contemporary
practice.

He felt that by becoming disillusioned, he had grown up.

The test barbecue went off well.  The prime ribs tasted great.  He
even got to sit down for a moment.  Forestalling his son, who looked
to be preparing to say something, Vallen explained his understanding
of innovation.  He said it was important.  Because of innovation he
kept making a profit and this kept him being employed.

Vallen did not believe his words; he spent more time thinking of
people than of technology; but it was a good story.  And to some
extent he believed.  He certainly believed when he spoke.

Vallen thought that the leading man determined it all.  That meant
that a person who looked like a leading man received good pay.
Neither Vallen nor any one else in his world thought to support the
people his engineers depended on.  They had a movie view of
innovation.  Vallen saw the hero, whom he persistently called the
scientist, as critical.  That belief was false, but Vallen did not
deal much with engineers and people like them.  He did not understand
that he had been fooled by entertainment.

Vallen also thought but did not tell his son that technical progress
led to income disparities.  `Let Jeffrey discover that for himself,'
he thought.  `He will learn that many organizations and cultures fail
to adopt a more efficient method.  Those which do, those in control
which do, get more.  At least, they get more in a competitive market.

`Indeed,' he thought, `with technological advance, an economy might
help only some.'  He considered again a proud stone cutter, who worked
with hammer and chisel, and a programmer who worked with symbols.

He said to himself, `The unemployed poor lack income from ownership.
Tax transfers are small; welfare, that is what those transfers are
called.  Nobody likes them.  The unemployed poor simply lose.  Of
course, the unemployed rich differ.  No one refers to their not
working as unemployment.  A few stone cutters ended up owning
quarries; a few programmers gained from stocks.  But they aren't many
compared to the total population of the planet.'

He talked to himself quite a bit.  Well, it was useful.  And he
certainly could not talk with others.  Those that understood would
either be above him or below him or be competitors.

He kept thinking.  `The new technology only requires that it pay for
itself.  It is society that determines how benefits get spread around.
And if society is mostly extra-legal, like most societies on this
planet, no one can force the spread of benefits.'

Vallen knew the argument for taxes on people like himself -- to him,
an increment of benefit mattered less than such an increment mattered
to a poor man or woman.  He already had enough.  But he did not see
taxes levied fairly.  More importantly, he was not going to be a
sucker.  He did not like that idea at all.  He was not going to give
someone else a free ride.  He paid a tax lawyer and sought bribes.

He wanted more, but he had not got it yet.

The bigger barbecue succeeded, although Vallen did not get a chance to
sit.  He decided he worked harder than at his office, but that he was
at a level where he should give more barbecues, many more.  It was
good politics.


File: A_Better_Earth.info,  Node: Chapter 10,  Next: Chapter 11,  Prev: Chapter 9,  Up: Top

Chapter 10
**********

Someone came to speak at the university.  It was advertised as a talk
about `the current situation on the planet and what we can do'.
Filgard did not know anything about it.  Many speakers visited.  He
paid no attention.

But his graduate student Peter Dev went to the speech.  It was Eltis
Akthorn who spoke, a stranger.  Afterwards, Peter spoke glowing of her
and of the speech.  He spoke to everyone.  Peter even said that Eltis
mentioned their project!  Filgard heard.

Peter kept talking about Eltis -- Filgard noticed that Peter referred
to her by her first name -- so Filgard looked at a picture.  She was
young and beautiful.  `Hah!' Filgard thought to himself.  `He is
attracted to her as much as to her message.'  Filgard could not
imagine living with her.  He felt old.  Still, Peter had said that she
had spoken about the recorder.  Filgard decided he could scan the text
of her speech; it could not be more than six or seven thousand words
and most likely, he could skip major parts of it.  Maybe he would find
something useful, although probably it was not worth reading.  Why
anyone would go to such an event, he could not imagine, although they
did.

After an introduction and a poor section `to tell them what I am going
to tell them', Akthorn started with a short description of the damage
being done to the planet: how human actions were moving gigatons of
earth, over-cutting forests, over fishing, mining soil faster than it
was recreated, mining energy, and causing yet more climate change.

Filgard thought that people should know already about these actions,
but on the one hand, most acted as if they didn't, and on the other
hand, would nod when they heard.

`So ...', he thought, `maybe most act rationally.  After all, there
is very little anyone can do as an individual, in a family, or in a
small group.  At the same time, by employing a known theme, Akthorn
can introduce her ideas gently.'

Filgard thought to himself a bit longer.  `There are three things an
individual can do without needing to be part of a large group:  as a
scientist, he or she can discover; as an engineer, he or she can
invent new technologies to repair the planet; as a politician, priest,
or regular person, he or she can explain the situation.'

He laughed to himself, `the three Rs,' he thought, `research, repair,
and reveal.  They are better than doing nothing.'  As an engineer, he
was an inventor, repairing the planet.  Akthorn was revealing the
situation.  Maybe she was planning to become a politician.

Next, Akthorn said that the choice is to go forwards or backwards.
`This is right!' thought Filgard.  `Just what I have been saying.'  He
laughed again at himself.  `Because I agree, I think she is right.'

Moreover, Akthorn spoke of technology.  She did not hope for changes
in human character.  She said, "Fundamentally, I do believe, as has
been said for millennia, that `Man is Fallen', where the word man has
the old-fashioned, inclusive meaning of women, too."

She must have paused in her speech, because the next sentence started
a new paragraph.  "I am not saying that there cannot be changes in
human character; indeed, there have been."  She did not say anything
critical; instead she said, "What I am saying is that a political
movement should not depend on such hopes."  There was no pause in the
text, but there had to be in the spoken speech.  She said, "Like an
army or business, a political movement must go with what we have."
`But,' thought Filgard, `she has not yet talked about her political
movement; the speech does not make sense.'

"What we have are existing technologies."

Akthorn repeated herself:  "We can go forward or we can go backward.
Those are the only two choices.  We cannot stay where we are because
we cannot continue to damage much longer a finite ball, this Earth."

She spoke of the `Meldon recorder' as a great invention.  Filgard had
to agree with Peter, he liked that.  Akthorn said that in combination
with spray-droplet devices, another existing technology, the two could
enable humans to live well and longer.  That is what Peter had said.
Filgard thought it was true, not simply because the `Meldon recorder'
was named after him and he liked the praise for his portion of the
technology, but because the claim was objectively true.  He still had
not learned anything.

Akthorn also spoke of yet another invention, a cheap but fast
propulsion system for vehicles in space, a mini-magnetospheric plasma
device.  "This does not work," she said, "without a big vacuum,
plenty of nothingness."  She provided a few more details, "Even
though it can provide more thrust than an ion engine, it cannot push
hard enough in the normal course of events to escape a large
gravitating body."

Filgard had to look up the invention.  He had not heard about it.  It
existed.  Indeed, `mini-magnetospheric plasma propulsion' had first
been described in the 20th century.  Still, no one had developed it.
Akthorn blithely ignored possible technical failings.  Filgard
wondered how much it would cost to get one to work.

But, as Akthorn said, it enabled the use of space resources on human
terms.  "It means that with existing technologies, we can manufacture
inexpensive light-to-microwave-to-electricity systems from nickel-iron
planetoids.  But all this is opposed by many who would personally
lose, although others favor long term safety."

Filgard decided she sounded familiar.  "The alternative is to go
backwards," She detailed examples, "Food and fuel will cost more.
Ocean transport will still be cheap," she said, "but it is expensive
to grow food in a desert.  Old farmlands will become new deserts,
either because people have extracted fossil water from aquifers or
because of continuing climate changes.  That is what going backwards
means."

She talked about poorer heath.  "No one will pay drug manufacturers
to develop new antibiotics to defeat bugs that have grown resistant to
the old.  Neither the money nor the capability will be there."
Filgard wondered about that.  He thought there would be a little
money.  The necessary changes were small and the new techniques
dramatic.  But it was not his field and he did not know the answer.
He did not think that very many in the audience knew either.  He
figured that even though they too did not know, they would agree with
Eltis.

She said there would be a few who were not much hurt at all by going
backwards, "... not immediately," she said.  "The powerful will not
be; others will be hurt."  However, by going backwards, the powerful
would lose, too.  She said, "Nonetheless, they will not know how much
they lost.  After all, inventions will not be made and few dream
about what no one knows."

She asked the audience to press for the future.

So far, Filgard noted with a little irritation, that was the only
action she had asked of her audience.

It might be rational for an individual or a person in a small group to
do nothing, or to engage in one of the `the three Rs', to research,
repair, or reveal.  Still, Akthorn spoke politics.  Yet so far, it was
more a report, an analysis, than anything else.  He wondered whether
administrators, politicians, and the friendly rich would see the
implications, or would they just pass them by?

It was obvious to him that knowledge would benefit all, that research
should be funded, especially long term and apparently useless
research.  He also saw that governmental restrictions on knowledge
transfer, like patents and copyrights, should be reduced.  They should
not be treated as if it were the divine right of owners to restrict
knowledge.  But the understanding was not necessarily obvious to those
who had the power and the interest.

Either way, going forwards or going backwards, Akthorn said, the
planetary human population had to reduce.  In going backwards, this
would be more painful than in going forwards.  "Countries," she said,
"with a low total fertility the past quarter or half century, and
with little immigration, are already experiencing the difficulties of
decreased population.  Yet this is a benign form of the catastrophe!
It will be harder if they go backwards and easier to go forwards.
Going forwards provides hope."  As far as Filgard was concerned, this
was another commonplace report.

Finally, she spoke of the farther future.  She said, "We have not
learned enough from the Disaster.  Our success in running a planet,
our success in this spaceship Earth, does not require new inventions.
But they would help.  They do not yet exist, but might if funded."
Akthorn said that invention was helped by an encompassing project, at
least so long as the proposed project did not require anything
impossible.

As a good project, she suggested interstellar travel and colony.  The
inventions would be difficult, she said, but could be and would be
made.  Filgard agreed; for a politically acceptable expedition, as far
as he knew, the necessary inventions were not scientifically
impossible, but were hard, very hard.

In particular, Akthorn said, interstellar travel required a duplicator
that works with individual atoms and a way to copy living organisms
and have them live again.  "We need atomic duplicators," she said,
"because a future colony will have to build things from scratch once
it gets to a distant planet.  An interstellar spaceship will not be
able to carry anything big.  And we need to be able to copy living
organisms because we will not have the space to carry them live.  The
information recording them will have to be compressed."

"Such a duplicator would help this planet, too.  It would cut the
costs of production, especially of computers that are made of small
parts.  That means what we humans need could be produced off planet
and brought down in computer controlled aeroshells.  We could survive
well on this spaceship of ours."

Filgard noted the speech's structure:

        - current situation dangerous

        - existing solutions

        - fight with existing evils

        - result of fight unforeseeable

        - distant hope

Akthorn ended with a `told you what I was going to tell you' section.
As far as Filgard remembered, the speech did not quite follow
Aristotle, but came close.  He agreed with its contents.

As for the structure, it came across as `warning, solution, danger,
hope', bad, good, bad, good.  Filgard thought that Akthorn made a fair
statement; but as far as he was concerned, it was not very useful.

Still, Peter's attraction stuck by him.  He showed a video of the
session to his wife, Fairta, and offered her a transcript although, as
he expected, she did not bother with it.  She said, "Eltis is
attractive.  I bet she would make Peter a good wife.  Let's host her
next time she comes."


File: A_Better_Earth.info,  Node: Chapter 11,  Next: Chapter 12,  Prev: Chapter 10,  Up: Top

Chapter 11
**********

Not much time passed before Eltis Akthorn came again.  As Fairta
planned, they hosted her.  Eltis came in for a late dinner; she would
stay the night and speak the next day.

At dinner Eltis asked Fairta how she occupied herself, "besides
cooking this wonderful meal," she said.

Fairta explained that, among other things, she was a violinist.  She
played in the university orchestra and spent hours practicing.
Filgard said, "The time is almost too much, although I am usually at
work, so I don't know how much time she spends."

"I do not practice enough!" was the retort.  "I like playing, but I
have other things.  I have you!" she said to Filgard.

"To be very good," Fairta said, "I would have to be more dedicated.
I am not.  Also, I would have to be a bit more talented.  Still, music
is a good hobby."

Her eyes lit up.  She smiled.  "I am a good writer, too.  Both of you
only pay attention to the content of what you say."  She directed her
attention to Eltis.  "I listened to your speech.  I listen to how
words' sound.  You don't.  That is a flaw.  The contents are fine."

Looking at Filgard, she said, "I know that engineering has not been
around since the birth of language.  I mean as a profession.  It has
been around.

"Engineering as a profession lacks the long history of traditional
subjects.  You would have a hard time sounding well at the same time
you write precisely about building a complex device.  But Eltis is
doing something different; she is explaining how things are and what
to do.  She needs to pay attention to her rhythm.  I have some
ideas."  She looked at Eltis.  "We can try them out on Peter
tomorrow.  Besides knowing many non-engineering topics, he is an
engineer's engineer.  If I ask the right questions, he will be honest.
He will tell us what we need to learn."

Then she shifted.  "On another topic," she continued like an imp,
"not engineering, not violins, not sound -- but it will intrigue you,
both of you."

"What is this?" asked Filgard.

"It is an extension of what I suggested to you before you went on
that trip to try to raise venture capital, an extension of the notion
of Galen's temperaments," she said.

"Over a generation ago, the anthropologist Alan Page Fiske talked
about four social structures.  They come from the way people perceive,
although I don't know whether Fiske said this.  How people perceive
is, I think, wired into how the brain works.  A half century before
Fiske, a fellow named Louis Guttman claimed that all forms of
measurement belong to one of four types of scale, four types of
measurement:  categorical, ordinal, interval, or ratio, or are
conflated into one of those four.

"Guttman was talking about measurements.  Fiske extended that to
social structure.  My claim is that people perceive those four
patterns.  Everything else, the details, are different.  There are, or
were, huge numbers of different cultures on this planet.  People act
differently from one another.

"Fiske claimed that his four patterns fit different primary
mathematical structures.  (He may have proved the discovery, so the
claim does not depend on his say so; but I don't know.)"

She stopped for a moment, to let them consider that only four patterns
supported everything, then she continued.  "It is easy to understand
the four patterns, categorical, ordinal, interval, or ratio:

   - "One animal is a cat and another one is a dog -- a cat fits a
     different category than a dog.

   - "In an army, a captain is superior to a lieutenant but you
     cannot say by how much he is superior (and indeed, the
     `how-muchness' is irrelevant).  Soldiers follow orders; ranking
     is `ordinal'.

   - "You cannot meaningfully say that one Fahrenheit or Celsius
     temperature is twice another.  That is because those temperature
     scales have an arbitrary zero; they are `interval scales'.
     However, you can add ten Fahrenheit degrees to a Fahrenheit
     temperature.  You can subtract twenty Celsius from a Celsius
     temperature.

   - "Finally, you can say that this stone weights twice as much as
     that stone.  Weighing requires an ratio scale.

"Fiske claims that from these four patterns, we can construct all the
types of human social pattern that we see: that from the categorical,
we get all the ethnic and religious conflicts, us or them, we get
nationalism, as well as the goodness of being in a family.  From the
ordered, we get corporations and empires, as well as being a child
taken care of by parents.  From the interval, we get voting and civil
rights.  From the ratio, we get complex societies and free markets.

"My notion is that the four Galenic temperaments reflect preferences
for one or the other pattern.

"My temperament is optimistic; I prefer the present time and want to
make beauty.  Galen called my temperament Sanguine.  It fits the
first pattern, the categorical.  Maybe a third of the world is like
me.

"That pattern is not practical for a complex society.  I am talking
about a pattern of perception, of society that I prefer.  That does
not mean I cannot see other patterns, it is about what I prefer."
Then she repeated herself, but it was new to Eltis:  "Some people do
well in many different ways and older people gain skills, too."

Fairta continued.  "In any case, for a society, a more practical and
extensible pattern is the second, the hierarchical.  My hunch is that
the people who do well in that kind of social system are the
Melancholic."  Again, she said much of what she said earlier to
Filgard but this time to Eltis.

"Such people work hard.  They have common sense and are conventional.
They want to perceive the more and the less.  In a society, a
hierarchical format fails when you need to make rapid changes; but
when you don't, in a changeless world, the pattern works fine.
Somewhere between a third and a half of everyone fits this
temperament.  It is the biggest."

"We are not in a changeless world," said Eltis.  "No, we are not,"
said Fairta, "but that is neither here nor there.  I am trying to
link four preferred modes, which are four mathematical forms, with
four possible temperaments."

"OK, I understand," said Eltis.  "Please go on."

"The third pattern fits the Choleric.  It is like a Fahrenheit or
Celsius temperature scale.  That is where you get the same in return
for what you put out, like a dinner invitation.  Well, not in this
case; we are hosting you.  But often.  Or if you enjoy doing the same
as another, like vote.  This temperament has fewer than one in ten
people in it.

"The fourth pattern is yours," she looked at Eltis and then at
Filgard, "both of yours.

"That temperament is the Phlegmatic.  You, and people like you, love
discovering things, love making things.  So does everyone else, but to
a lesser extent.  You love being consistent.  Fewer than one in ten,
perhaps fewer than one in twenty match this pattern."

"The portions do not add up to 100 percent," said Filgard.  "No, they
don't," said Fairta.  "Maybe there is something else, maybe not;
maybe the measurements are wrong.  This is all vague."  She stopped
but Filgard did not say anything more.

"I am being Phlegmatic now, although I have an easier time with and
prefer the Sanguine."

"What do you mean," asked Eltis, "you prefer the Sanguine?"

"I can talk as you do, abstractly, be consistent, and all that.  I am
adaptable, but it is not me."

"You make more sense to me than when you talk about other things,"
said Filgard.  Fairta looked smug and at the same time happy.  "That
is because you don't pay much attention; you don't value other things
much, although you will agree that two fried eggs on toast is a
necessity for breakfast.  That is the sort of thing I especially
notice.  You get involved in something else.

"In any case," she addressed both of them again, "much progress in
science and engineering comes from changing the perceptual pattern.
For many centuries, people said `it is cold outside'.  Cold was a
category distinct from hot.  Then people came to say `it is colder
today than yesterday'.  This is an ordinal scale.  After the invention
of the thermometer, it because possible to say `it is 10 Fahrenheit
degrees colder today than yesterday', making use of an interval scale.
Finally, after Kelvin and Boltzmann, an engineer could say `the
thermal energy content of this piece of iron is 0.6% less than it was
yesterday', making use of a ratio scale."

Fairta smiled again.  "As for me: I prefer a categorical scale.  I
like something to be true or false.  I play a piece of music right, or
I play it wrong.  It is hot out or cold out.

"In horseshoes, the closer shoe wins.  I notice that it wins.  It was
thrown right."  She spoke an aside to Eltis, "The game of horseshoes
is similar to quoits; it is, or was, common in America."

Then she spoke directly to the two of them.  "In horseshoes, you do
have to measure.  You, that is to say, all Phlegmatics, would notice
that.  But I don't.  For me, the salient question is whether you won
or not.

"Traditional logic presumes a statement is either true or false.  I
guess this is why I prefer it over the more modern kinds, the fuzzy
logics.  The metaphor for my kind of logic comes from early experience
with a cup.  Either your proposition is contained, like water in a
cup, and is true, or it is outside, spilled, and is false.  The
categories are inside, true, or outside, false.  There is no third
option."

Both Eltis and Filgard started.  They ducked their head.  Each
independently thought of drops on the edge of a cup.  But neither said
anything.

Fairta stopped for a moment, then went on.  "It just occurred to me:
do people with a Choleric temperament create the rituals that the
others of us follow, at least sometimes?  Some one has to have created
the rituals that lead to numinous experiences.  Obviously, especially
in pre-agricultural societies, rituals are emergent.  But someone had
to do the job.  Me, I don't care, although I can contribute to what
others have created.  Geniuses can compose music; I can play it.  The
Melancholic can make sure that cathedrals do not fall down ...  But
who cares enough about people, and at the same time, does not care
about the lack of falsification implicit in sacred postulates?"  Her
eyes glinted.  "... at least, the lack of falsification for sacred
beliefs you don't believe in."

She let everything go for a moment, then returned to her subject.
"Who likes actions being the same, whether a group of people all do
the same together or one person repeats over time?  The Choleric,
that's who.  Rituals all involve swaying together or singing together
-- or different people repeating the same activity at different times
-- well, maybe not _all_.  My point is that these features of a
ritual do link people together.  They help people feel a `time out of
time,' feel the eternal."

She made sure she had the attention of both of them.  "In your terms,
the evidence for ancient temperaments is faint.  Sure, some people fit
them.  But do enough fit them for those categories to be useful?"

She laughed, "People often categorize others.  You know the old joke,
`there are two kinds of people, those who categorize others and those
who don't.'  Everyone understands, although some prefer not to put
people into categories."

Fairta went on.  "My evidence linking Fiske's social structures and
Galen's temperaments is essentially zilch."  She grinned.  "I think
they fit because they feel right, but that does not help you at all.

"Why," asked Filgard, "if they are true, have we forgot the
temperaments?  Their truths must be determined before we can even
consider a link to Fiske's social structures."

"Maybe," Fairta said, "the new institutions of the latter 19th
century required people to focus on another category."

"Yes," said Filgard, "new types of corporation and new types of
university became common in the 19th and 20th centuries.  They needed
to recognize people with analytical skills, whether they be cognitive,
utilitarian, or both.  That would be a good reason to ignore past
concepts then.  But what about the present?  Why don't we know?"

Fairta liked that.  Filgard had always known more that simple
engineering.  "Maybe, the notions were truly false and best forgot,"
she said.  "Or maybe the concepts are becoming important again."  She
smiled.

"Anyhow, the claims will intrigue you.  You will mull them over as
you fall asleep.  I am sure of that.  I know that you both think of
yourself as different from each other, one more a teacher, a builder
of objects, the other more an organizer, a builder of political
parties."

"I'm an organizer," said Filgard.  "Compared to Eltis ... ?  It is
true, I am not into politics."  Fairta's eyes danced.  "You are both
very similar.  You both focus on producing, you both organize what
you need, you both consider the long term.  And ... you both prefer
to forget our guest room, even though you agree it is important."
She looked towards Eltis, "Let me point you to it."

The next morning, after a breakfast of fried eggs and toast, an
`English breakfast' even though they were not in England, Fairta said
to Eltis, "Abstraction is not right.  It is not the right concept."
During the night, she had been mulling things over, too.

"What is this about abstraction?" asked Eltis.

"It is often said," Fairta explained, "that Melancholic and
Phlegmatic people are better at abstraction than Sanguine or Choleric
people.  Yesterday, I said, `I can talk abstractly.'  As a practical
matter, I think the notion is irrelevant."

She was sitting with a cup of coffee.  Eltis drank tea.  "Some of
what I do with music seems abstract to those who do not play the
violin or piano.  But to me the notions are concrete.  To me, a chord
is something I do on a piano with my hands.  Specifically, I think of
a major chord in C.  I think it has to do with practice."

Eltis caught on immediately, but spoke to make sure she was right,
"You are talking about concrete words.  You are saying that people
like you prefer what you can point to or pantomime.  You are
suggesting that people like me prefer the abstract."

"Yes," said Fairta, "except that I don't think the distinction
between concrete and abstract is useful.  Everyone learns to conceive
of abstractions.  Everyone talks about heaven and hell, love and hate.
You cannot point to those notions.  They are definitely abstract.  You
can only point to people in love or full of hatred, people going to
heaven or going to hell."

Eltis nodded her head.  "I see what you are saying."

"Suppose," said Fairta, "that what you think of as an abstraction is
the base for an example.  Then, the issue is what examples come to
mind.  What are the referents?

"Some categories have fewer intrinsic referents than others.  When I
think of birch, I actually think of white birches with a paper-like
bark.  That is a type of birch.  There are birches whose bark is not
white.  But as far as I know, there are fewer types of birch than
there are hells.  But a discriminator that depends on fewer and more?
That is no good.  No two people will agree on the boundary.

"Maybe the distinction should be between words as direct signals of
an entity and of indirect signals, metaphors.  But some think of hell
as a metaphor, and others think of it as a definite place."  She
stopped for a second, but Eltis did not say anything, so she
continued.

"Most people," said Fairta, "treat what are called `abstract words'
as `exemplar words'.  They handle them as words that carry examples.
They may not be conscious of the distinction they are making.
Phlegmatics like you make sure the definitions are consistent and
complete.  Everyone else, more than ninety percent of the population,
treats them as they do other kinds of word.  You would say `vaguely;'
I would say, `relevantly to the conversation.'  That is key.

"To be more precise," Fairta nearly laughed; she understood Eltis
well, "two groups will care for consistent and complete definitions:
one group are people with your temperament; you care naturally.  The
other group consists of people who are forced by law or logic.
Everyone else goes for examples.  That is what is relevant most of the
time.

"Those people who are forced by law or logic -- they will hate the
pressure.  That means they will dislike law and logic."  She grinned
at Eltis.  "They are not like you are all.  You like logic.  And you
like sensible laws, those that preserve personal autonomy.

"As for an example, when you talk about `hell', I see people burning
in a fire.  That is what the word brings to mind.  The meaning of the
word is abstract; no one can point to hell.  But I can talk about it.

"I know that some hells involve cold, people frozen in ice, not
burning.  That does not matter.  As far as I am concerned, the image
brought up by the word is just an example.  The notion is familiar.
That means that even if it is abstract, I can use it readily.  That is
what counts for the vast majority of people.

"My point ... "

"You have a point?" asked Eltis, interrupting and smiling.

"Yes," said Fairta.  "My point concerns what you suggest."  Eltis
looked startled.  "It is," said Fairta, "that it would be useful to
spend time in school on concepts like `faintly suggestive evidence'
and `strongly suggestive evidence.'  You could show examples and kids
could work with them.  Then the concepts would become familiar.

" `Practice, practice, practice.'  That is the answer to the old
joke, `How do you get to Carnegie Hall?'  The critical point is that
those who go to Carnegie Hall not only are talented but they enjoy
practicing more than the rest of us.  They are willing to practice
longer.

"People will learn when they are forced; they learn poorly -- we
frequently force school kids; they learn, but not very well.  As a
practical matter, most will not learn about differing degrees of
evidence very well.  Who cares?  That does not mean the concepts are
useless.  They are useful.  That is why the concepts and examples
should be in school."

Eltis looked thoughtful.  "What about saber-toothed tigers?" she
asked.  She was trying to think of an entity that could be pointed to
before language.  It was not the immediate issue, but she had been
thinking.  "They were important; they killed many people when our
species was young."

"What about cars?" said Fairta, who was accustomed to back
references.  "They are also dangerous.  It takes a while for kids to
learn to avoid walking unexpectedly into roads.  The word `car' is a
general one; the word `saber-toothed tiger' is specific.  I could talk
about the danger of specific types of car, a type you could point to.
Our ancestors did the same.  They pointed at saber-toothed tigers.
Dangers exist now just as they did then.

"Obviously, many things were and are important as entities to which
you can point.  Saber-toothed tigers were only one of them.  The foods
you eat are others.  What I am saying is that heaven and hell, love
and hate, are also important.  As far as we know, people have always
discussed them.  They have always have been important.  Nonetheless,
the concepts are abstract.  You cannot point to heaven.  You cannot
pantomime love, yet everyone talks about it."

"Yes," said Eltis.  She paused and looked quite fierce.  If Fairta
had not known that face was just a thinking expression, she would have
been scared.  "Yes," Eltis repeated.  "Everyone talks about love,
even though it is an abstract notion.  That is true.  ...  I have got
to reorganize my life."  "You mean, your thinking life," said Fairta.
"Yes," said Eltis a third time, after only a momentary frown.  "My
thinking life."

She had not said anything about school.

Peter listened to Eltis practice.  The speeches were better.  He said
so.  He never realized that Fairta was putting him together with
Eltis.


File: A_Better_Earth.info,  Node: Chapter 12,  Next: Chapter 13,  Prev: Chapter 11,  Up: Top

Chapter 12
**********

As for `needful limitations' in a society: Vallen thought about them
one weekend as he was getting ready to go to the beach.  He was still
bothered by the barbecue.  Buying it stuck in his mind.

More people living together meant he, as one of them, had to have his
impact limited.  The more opportunities to act, the more people, the
more energy each had, the worse it got.  A straightforward analysis
made limitations evident, at least once someone discovered them.  The
theory of conflict and cooperation was quite practical.  The impact of
the barbecues' smoke, the total losses, did not become relevant until
many people lived together.

Vallen liked the theory's notions; he had learned something after
kindergarten.  You could decide what a society should do.  You added
up the total of losses and gains.  (Vallen did not think about the
difficulties of measurement.)

A society had to adopt a stable course.  It could not be negative
forever.  It would collapse.  A total might go negative after a period
in which society was unstable in a positive and desired direction.
Vallen thought all that.  Costs and profits depended on the number of
people, their impacts, and their locations.  In this case, the
solution was to control barbecues in a built up area.  That made
sense.  Cities needed sewers.  Controlling barbecues was similar.

Vallen wondered whether he got ahead in his work because of his study
of game theory.  That is what the theory of conflict and cooperation
was called.  Most people below him did not think of it everyday.  They
did not live the concepts.  They were not looking for `stable
strategies.'

They did not make multivariate analyses either.  They depended
strictly on their human connections and on confidence.  They acted as
if the whole world could be understood as human action, not just parts
of it.  They treated the inhuman world as if it were the human world.

Vallen was not like the other kind of person, an engineer or scientist
who focused entirely on the non-human world.  He did not look only on
those parts of the human world that could be predicted in an inhuman
way, like electrons or like the rate of suicide in west European
countries in the late 19th century.  Indeed, he did not like the
non-human world.  He had had enough of it in school.

He packed several more towels.  His family always needed them.

He had to admit, however, rates of warranty return, rates of sale,
rates of profit -- they were all predicted more or less correctly by
non-human means.  He had to understand those predictions so he could
set expectations.

He selected strategies that would succeed even when events went
against him.  He thought of them as coming from his studies, but they
were rather conventional:  make backups; always expect the unexpected;
but don't expect too many of them.  Fly during the good years.

As a practical matter, Vallen was in a division that produced
specialized car parts.  What if their sales went down?  Well, then he
could switch to other specialized parts.  If the whole economy went
down, then he would not be doing worse than others, so it wouldn't
matter.  But if it was just him ...

If he knew a need to switch and knew what he wanted, he could switch
quickly.  That is why he insisted on daily sales reports and why he
kept learning more about various trades.  It was vital insurance.

It was a good reason for Vallen to keep his eyes peeled.  Another
product might be useful.  He never thought that in a different, more
senior job, he would end up supporting Filgard Meldon.

His two kids got into the back seat, his wife, the front.  He thought
of his two children as `kids' even though they were getting older; and
he thought of everyone by their roles.  He grunted.  It was not an
unpleasant noise.  He was telling everyone he knew they were there.
But at home, he often was not social.  He kept on thinking.

`As for corruption,' Vallen thought, `rulers could make it more
difficult.  That went without saying.'  It would cost more, but he
knew that two cops or other investigators could patrol together.  Or
more than two, since the payments for corruption could be very high.
That is why Vallen split up his fortune.  He might lose -- he did not
expect to, but he might lose.  An anti-corruption drive might hurt
him.  He wanted to be resilient, like the planet should be, but
wasn't, at least, not in any duration relevant to humans.

Vallen knew there were a whole bunch of techniques for controlling
corruption, standardly written up.  `Fortunately,' he thought, `mostly
the powers engage in evasion or excuses.  They do not try to prevent
corruption, even when it harms themselves.  Nor does anyone else.'

Vallen figured that evading or excusing the practice was crazy for
rulers -- he remembered that Ferdinand de Marcos, a dictator in the
Philippines, had not done that; he wanted the money for himself.

The issue was what a society's components would do.  Most of the world
did not have governments as strong as his.  There were too many
corrupt people.  Or maybe the governments were corrupt.  Vallen
considered that dangerous.  When governmental organizations were
corrupt, rulers would not be able to enforce needful limitations, no
matter how smart.

Vallen wanted to survive; he wanted his children to survive and to
live well.  He wanted the same for his wife and friends.  Incapable
rulers could be more dangerous than letting the powerful charge high
prices.

But Vallen went along with higher-ups' craziness.  It helped him
personally.  As far as he was concerned, these men, they were mostly
men, did not know they were evading or excusing the issue and hurting
themselves in the process.  They were skilled fools.

Or maybe, he thought differently than before, they were like him:
skilled, knowledgeable, and excellent actors.  Maybe they were corrupt
and that is how they ruled.  They hired people who were corrupt, who
took bribes, as he did.  Either way, he enjoyed a bigger chance to
become rich.

`If they plan for a long enough time, if they think ahead far enough,
the rulers of a country can do well for their society, too.'  Vallen
kept thinking of those in Japan who kept the country forested.  He
could not remember who did it or when.  Still it helped Japan.  He
also remembered that they, too, presumed an unbounded Earth, a flat
Earth; that is to say, when they had the opportunity, they had trees
cut down elsewhere.  They exported deforestation; they would hurt the
other countries first.  Eventually that practice would hurt everyone
on Earth.  It was a ball; it was not flat.  But in the meantime, a
time that might last many lives, a few benefited.

The whole family arrived at the beach.  Vallen had not been aware of
the drive at all.


File: A_Better_Earth.info,  Node: Chapter 13,  Next: Chapter 14,  Prev: Chapter 12,  Up: Top

Chapter 13
**********

Eltis Akthorn came again.  This time she planned to focus on
traditional social and political technologies, but with a difference.
She stayed with the Meldons.

Fairta partly rewrote Eltis' speech.  Together the two invented and
introduced the four `Ps' and the five `Rs'.

These lists, they were lists, would not work in many other languages,
or they would not work as well.  The leading sounds would not be the
same.  But as Fairta said, "You are not writing an engineering
treatise that you know is going to be translated into another
language.  You are speaking in English to an audience of English
speakers."  Eltis had to agree.

Fairta knew the substance of what Eltis should talk about:  "You need
to talk about degrees of evidence and determining them.  Most people
like me will not like what you have to say.  They won't know what you
mean.  You need to introduce appropriate examples very early on.

"You can take an old example, one that led to legislative action and
is not controversial any more:  thinning of bird's eggs.  That was
seen in the 1950s.  In the United States, the national bird, the Bald
Eagle, was going extinct.  You cannot look at just one nest.  Even a
stretch of several years is no good.  A single nest may bias you one
way or another.  It is not like you are eaten or left untouched by a
saber-toothed tiger.

"So you need to talk about degrees of evidence and how to determine
them.  Evidence tells you what is real.  Then, you can say that after
gathering evidence, our representatives must be responsible for
considering reliably, with rigor and reason, the reality of their
decisions."

Eltis practiced her new speech.  "Those are the five `Rs'.  They are
memorable: _responsibility_, _reliability_, _rigor_, _reason_, and
_reality_.

"That does not say anything about evidence," she said to Fairta.
"Yes, it does.  It talks about _reality_.  You can only approach
reality through evidence.  Otherwise, it is easy to be confused.  But
you are right, it is not direct."

"That evidence tells you reality, that makes sense," said Eltis.
"Unfortunately, I have not figured out how to fit all this together
into a speech.  Let me keep trying with what we have got."

She went on, "Political decisions must always _protect_, _preserve_,
_prepare_, and _provide_ for us."

In English, each topic started with a `pr' sound.  Eltis wondered what
the sounds would be in other languages.  She hoped her speech would be
translated.  At that point, the alliteration might fail.  She
continued.

"Politicians must protect us against inhuman enemies, like snow
storms, typhoons, and climate change."

She was aware of following Fairta, at least in part, going from `snow
storm', which everyone in her immediate audience would have
experienced, to `climate change', which might be somewhat vague.  She
wondered about that part of her audience that was not immediate.  Many
would not have experienced snow storms.  She did not know how to talk
to them.

Eltis went on.  "Politicians must also protect us against human
enemies, especially as the technologies of destruction become more
efficient.  When many people among your enemy believe in a `plausible
promise,' in a cause that excludes you, you are in danger.  Warfare
becomes or can become more asymmetrical.  Defense requires more
thought."

She stopped for a second.  For many listeners, the notion of a
`plausible promise' would be new.  On the one hand, maybe she should
not mention it; she did not want to confuse people too much.  On the
other hand, a plausible promise convinced people.  However plausible,
the promise might be false.  Certainly, that is what people thought of
their enemy's beliefs.  Fairta was right, more emphasis should be
placed on evidence.  It was not simply that people had made judgements
for centuries, but they had to learn to judge everything; or they
would not know whether they believed a true or false promise.

She did not know what to say.  So she said simply, "Defense is
_protect_, the most fundamental action."

She stopped longer and finally said at normal speed,  "That last
sentence is good.  As for more of my speech ..."

She spoke again at her slower, speech speed.  "Most politicians will
be conservative.  That includes many who appear radical.  In the
United States in the 1930s, President Roosevelt was like that.  Many
thought of him as radical, but he acted to preserve American society.

"As we humans gain more power over nature, we are going to have more
impact.  That means that to preserve us, our governments will need new
tools.  The old mechanisms, like the old notions of what you can do
with real estate, they will have to go."

Fairta spoke up, "You are not conservative, not in the political
sense.  You are acting to conserve humans.  You will do that even when
it costs current society.  You think, as I do, that our current
society cannot be protected and preserved, that attempts to do so will
fail."

Eltis listened as Fairta said, "What you are doing, and what
politicians must do, is prepare us."

Fairta went on, "In particular, they must prepare us for the long
term.  I do not handle the long term well.  No one does; not anyone
like me who thinks short term.  On the other hand, many who think long
term, like Filgard, fail in the short term.  They are stupid.  Only a
few do both well.  A politician succeeds in multiple short terms.  If
he or she fails just once, he or she fails.  A politician is like a
person descending a chain; if any link breaks, the politician falls.

"But politicians have to prepare us for the long term.  That is their
duty.

"I have to say, my preference truly is short term.  But that does not
mean it is impossible for me to think otherwise.  As I grow older, it
gets easier.  And in any case, I never was extreme.

"My point," said Fairta, "is that the four `Ps' of politics can be
remembered by English speakers.  They are _protect_, _preserve_,
_prepare_, and _provide_."

Fairta returned to a point she had made on an earlier visit.  "School
children need examples for determining the quality of evidence, weakly
suggestive, strongly suggestive, that sort of thing.  That fits into
the `reality' part of the `five Rs,' responsibility, reliability,
rigor, reason, and reality."

"How am I going to do that?" asked Eltis, speaking more to herself
than to Fairta.  Then she said to Fairta, "You mentioned the idea of
exemplars in that dinner where you got us thinking about traditional
temperaments.  Or maybe it was the next morning.  You were saying that
most people think in terms of examples, or at least that is how people
think when the object designated cannot be pointed to or pantomimed.
You said you thought of white birches, to which you can point, when
anyone mentioned birch trees.

"You suggested that children learn examples of differing degrees of
evidence just as they learn examples of the notions of heaven and
hell."

"Right," said Fairta.  "Schools should teach examples for thinking
about degrees of evidence.  Obviously, people have thought about those
degrees for generations.  Children learn them.  I am talking about
making the examples formal, fully spelling out the criteria."

"But it is not only evidence that needs formal examples," said Eltis.
"The other of the five `Rs' and four `Ps' all need them."

"Yes, that is true," said Fairta.  "You need many examples."

She went on.  "You can show failures in each of the five `Rs' and
four `Ps' through history.  Failures tend to be more memorable than
successes.  They make dandy illustrations.

"Thus, in the 1770s," said Fairta, "the English government did not
consider reliably the reality of the asymmetrical war that George
Washington led against them.  They did not investigate with rigor and
reason why they were winning battles and losing the war.  They were
not responsible.  They did not apply the five `Rs'.

"Each of those notions, reality, rigor, reason, reliability, and
responsibility, is worth an essay.  That way children can be forced a
little, as I was."

"Maybe kids should not be forced at all," said Eltis.  "After all, as
both you and I know, they won't learn much except to hate you and the
concepts."

"That is true," said Fairta.  "But how do you guide kids so they want
to learn these particular items?  The whole point of an education is
that children don't have to go down false trails.  I don't know how
you could meet the challenge."

"You are not that kind of teacher," said Eltis.  "I don't think it is
a temperament issue; I don't think any of those things you talked
about have anything to do with this.  I think there is a sequence that
you don't know but that some professionals do -- not those who think
of themselves as higher in a hierarchy than they and who force
children, and not those who figure that children are as good as they
and let them happily walk over cliffs, but others."

"Hmm ...," said Fairta, "you used the word `think' three times in
your last statement.  You are not certain of your conclusion.  By the
way, it is a temperament issue.  The largest group of teachers are
like the largest group of people, Guardians.  They are full of sense
and hard work; but they also think of themselves as higher in a
hierarchy than children.  The next largest group are like me, who know
that children are as good as we are.  But I will let the claim go.  I
hope there is another method.

"Back to history:  Napoleon's government failed to protect most
French against his rule or against the notions of the eventual
winners.  That failure came at a time when bourgeois businesses were
burgeoning."

Eltis did not say anything about Fairta's comments regarding
uncertainty, although she kept it in mind.  Instead, she laughed.
"You are being carried away by alliteration:  `bourgeois businesses
burgeoning.'  But I am taking your point.  The Napoleonic government
did not protect people.  It did not preserve itself.

"Presumably you are going to say that persons' incomes must be
seized, that is what taxes are, after all, a seizure of others' income
-- or you can say that they are a necessary fee -- to pay for a
public education that prepares children for adult work.  The character
of work changes when bourgeois businesses boom.  Traditional learning,
as peasants, fails."

"Yes," said Fairta, grinning, "... and prepares them to pay the fees
necessary for emergencies and for their retirement ... that prepares
them to provide.

"The four `Ps' ... _protect_, _preserve_, _prepare_, and _provide_."

Eltis thought for a moment.  "None of these criteria, the five `Rs'
or the four `Ps', determine particular directions or beliefs," she
said.

"Yes and no," said Fairta.  "On the one hand," she shook her left
hand, "they do specify what a responsible government must do.  They
do determine.  Powerful people can be irresponsible for quite a long
time -- far longer than anyone lasts in government, even hereditary
rulers.  So this criterion does constrain individuals.

"That is why the Japanese government, in coming out against
deforestation, acted responsibly in the Eighteenth Century.  Its
actions took and lasted generations.  So yes, these criteria do
specify particular beliefs, or maybe a better word is habits.  When
you use the word belief, the vision that comes to my mind is that of a
fundamentalist preacher arguing with a quantum physicist."

"When I hear the word `habit'," said Eltis, "I think of a woman in a
Catholic religious order, wearing old fashioned clothes, a `habit.'
But I take your point.  The criteria tell people to act in certain
customary ways."

"On the other hand," Fairta shook her right hand, "so long as beliefs
are not falsifiable -- and here I am using the word `belief'
intentionally -- and so long as beliefs' applications serve the
society, anyone can believe anything.  Thus, the Earth has people with
Buddhist, Moslem, and Christian beliefs all at once; and none of them
will contradict those who consider those beliefs all too limited."

Eltis frowned.  "What if your belief system is too limited?"

"Well then, it won't work," said Fairta.  "There are some people in
every religion who think too small.  For success, a system must be
able to handle different kinds of people and different situations.
That is why the great religions survived the collapse of old
civilizations.  They were big enough.  Some of these old religions may
even survive our civilization.  No, the criteria do not point to one
or other religion."

Eltis worked to incorporate Fairta's ideas into her talk.  She started
talking about a `Melior Movement', where `melior' was the old Latin
term meaning `better.'

Regarding evidence, Eltis said the goal is to improve on what people
had done for ever and ever, which is to make judgements, to decide
reality when it is not obvious.

She reminded everyone that courts traditionally operated to put the
accused in one or other category, innocence or guilt, `beyond a
reasonable doubt.'  That meant people added up degrees of evidence,
slightly, faintly and strongly suggestive.  At the same time, Eltis
said, a good many actions are truly binary or are categorized that
way.

As for the five `Rs': she spoke of them as what people in government
should do.  "Responsibility and reliability as determined by reality
with reason and rigor."  She also said that most of the time, most
people would not care or know what their government was doing.  But
occasionally, they would judge their government.  The five `Rs' were
no more than an aid.

Likewise, the four `Ps', to protect, preserve, prepare, and provide:
for most people, they would be another occasional aid.

People in government could remember, Eltis decided they ought to
remember, the four `Ps' and five `Rs'.  They would justify themselves
according to them.  So long as people judged the evidence for those
claims and decided whether they agreed or disagreed with politicians'
and civil servants' values, society possessed a more or less
accountable and lasting system.

Eltis could see why Filgard married Fairta.  Even though she was
different, the woman had ideas and knew how to express them so that
someone like Filgard or Eltis herself paid attention.

Several months later, Fairta fell sick.


File: A_Better_Earth.info,  Node: Chapter 14,  Next: Chapter 15,  Prev: Chapter 13,  Up: Top

Chapter 14
**********

The fellow acted somewhat subservient when Vallen arrived.  He knew
Vallen had not traveled half way around the world to praise him.
Vallen thought the contractor showed considerable spunk.  Clearly, he
thought Vallen was going to take away just about everything he had
built up.

"Our production people," Vallen said, "reject sixteen percent of the
air intakes you send us.  Those castings do have to guide the
incoming air exactly.  They must be exact to five microns."

Vallen knew that for generations, expensive machinery had enjoyed
twice that precision, to two and a half microns, to one
ten-thousandths of an inch.  Casting to that precision was new ...
not too new ...  Selling widely, that is to say, cheaply -- that was
somewhat new.

"We are selling a product that boosts acceleration in cars," Vallen
said.  The man knew that, but Vallen repeated it anyhow.  "The extra
acceleration is not much but is enough to notice.  And we do it
without increasing the fuel needed, without increasing liters per
hundred kilometers traveled, or as Americans like to say, without
reducing miles per gallon.

At this stage, Vallen was remorseless.  "The air intake is only one
part of what is a fairly complex device.  The air must be filtered
before it goes to the intake ..."  Vallen did not say, but he implied
that he could not afford higher costs or complexity.  "The device is
not part of the car as it comes out of the factory.  It is not
necessary or wanted by enough people.  That is why we sell it.  So
long as the part is not too expensive ... and it works ... we succeed.

"We do not have to order from you," he said.  "You have competitors.
It is not as if just a few companies do precision casting."

Then Vallen changed his tone and his expression.  "We could regularly
order more from you, rather than do it when necessary.  We would
return those that do not fit.  Before assembly, we test each part.
But I am not certain how long you would last with a permanent fifteen
or twenty percent return rate.  It is a good deal cheaper to do it
right the first time.

"After assembly, we test the whole.  That is why we have a good
reputation technically.  What we sell, works."

He grinned, "You are thinking almost entirely of people.  You are
just like me, most of the time.  However, I have discovered that I
have to think of machines, too.  So do you.  That is the key."

The man asked, "What do you mean?"  This is what Vallen wanted.  He
did not want to shift to another supplier if he could help it.



                                 ---


Vallen was on the road, or in his case, in the air, even more.  A
competitor swallowed the main company that assembled various parts,
one of which was the device for which he needed the well-cast air
intake.  It's new management felt strong enough to raise prices.

Vallen did not think so.  He could handle six smaller organizations at
once.  They could assemble the parts.  After picking them, they would
make little or no extra work.  In total, they would produce as much.
He felt sorry for the people in the big company.  They faced huge lay
offs within four years.

For each of his new contractors, the general manager had to be like
Vallen, a person who mostly liked and thought of people, but who could
understand technology.  He had to be able to think long term and
strategically, too.

The factory bosses had to work hard.  They got parts from suppliers
that Vallen listed, had them assembled, and shipped them.  They should
not want to look too far ahead; most of their problems would be short
term.  As a practical matter, they would be hierarchical.

The research people had to think technically, long range as well as
short.  Their leader had to think both technically and about people.
He would connect to the general manager and to the accountants.  He
would speak to outsiders.

Vallen knew how hard it was to find anyone with those capabilities.
Very seldom could you promote a technical person away from his
laboratory and expect him to be a good interface to people.  Few
people thought technically.  In a large enough organization, you could
find people and train them.  But Vallen was looking at smaller
companies.

Regardless of difficulty, Vallen figured that even though the largest
of his new companies would be only a quarter the size of the previous,
it should have a research department.  At least two more should employ
research people, too.  With ideas more and more restricted, and public
research receiving less and less support, only by funding the work
themselves, and sharing it with allies, could any company succeed.

He laughed to himself.  Patents were a way to turn help into harm.
Except that he gained income from several, none of which he had
invented or sponsored.  But he had seen, early enough, that they could
be used to move resources from others to their owners; and he
purchased shares in companies that owned them, so he became an owner.

He enjoyed patents as a help to him.  Nonetheless, their current
existence was another disillusionment.  He knew that in countries
which enforced law, patents restricted.  It was not simply that they
forced up prices; with the help of governments, they prevented
competition.

Vallen remembered as a youth being told that patents `promoted
innovation'.  He remembered reading that in the mid-19th Century,
`Scientific American' printed new patents as a way to spread
knowledge.  No longer.

Determining whether a company had a research department was easy.
Determining whether the fellow in charge of it was good or not, that
was harder.  Vallen's people could exclude companies whose head of
research failed to publish reasonably good papers when young.  That
excluded the incompetent and a few of the competent who had not been
smart enough to make sure their papers got into the data bases his
people investigated.  They could look at recordings, too, and exclude
those who badly handled contemporary public relations.  He chuckled.
Outside of the companies themselves, only his people might care enough
to look.

Of those left, Vallen had to meet them face-to-face and ask technical
questions as well as `human interest' questions.  It was the only way
for him to determine what they were like.

Well, he had to meet the general manager, too, and the factory bosses.
From Vallen's point of view, factory managers were the simplest.
Likely, they would never have got to the positions they held unless
they were smart and hard working.  Incompetent relatives would be
pushed elsewhere.

In a large company, the head of research would be higher in an
organizational chart, but not in any so small.  Vallen figured the
factory managers would treat him as one of the boys.  Or her.  A woman
who knew how to be `one of the boys' ..