Paranoia, Conspiracies and Surveillance

== Another summons to resigned despair ==

Conspiracy theories abound.  They erupt out of human nature, it seems, and your ethnicity or caste or political leanings only affect which direction you credit with devilish cleverness, secret power and satanic values. For sure, as a science fiction author I can concoct plausible schemes and plots with the best of them!  Indeed, let me add that some real life cabals are so blatant and proudly obvious that you just have to admit – sometimes “they” are completely real and up to awful mischief.

(Anyone who does not trace the ownership of Fox News, for example, and draw obvious conclusions, must already have succumbed to that particular mind control plot.)

And yet, I have a completely different take on this kind of paranoia. It helps to step back and realize that almost certainly the vast majority of wild-eyed conspiracy theories out there are hogwash. 

Moreover, underlying it all is the fact that most are all about flattery!  Each one caters to the believer’s inflated sense of importance: 

“Me and my pals are in the know, and the rest of you are sheep!”

Never once have I seen any conspiracy fetishist stop and admit the obvious, that every Hollywood film preaches not just suspicion of authority (SoA), but also the bovine nature of our neighbors.  (Neighbors who assume they are the knowing ones, while you are the braying, easily-fooled ungulate.)  

But okay, let’s put aside the fact that cabal-believers suckled their SoA milk from the most relentless propaganda campaign in human history. That irony is too rich for them (or even most of you) to fully contemplate. Nevertheless, is it possible that some of the “black helicopter” type scenarios contain a grain of truth?

More than a grain, I’ll avow.  Oh, not “government camps” and martial law or any of that crap.  If you ever met an actual civil servant, in one of those cryptic agencies, you’d know how hard such things would be to keep secret.  Edward Snowden blew the whistle on… what was at the time marginally legal meta-data mining, with not a single citizen being even slightly (physically or financially) inconvenienced.  There’d be 10,000 Snowdens if any of the Blofeld-style scenarios about real heinous stuff had even a glimmer of truth.

(That is my own take on Snowden, that he served as a canary demonstrating the threshold of “heinousness” at which civil servants can be expected to step-up.  And we can take some solace that the threshold is way, way, way lower than “black helicopters.”)

But no… the grain of truth has to do with surveillance. Watching us. Collating data from our phones and online searches and fitbits and phone calls.  The stuff that Snowden and his fellow “T Cells” are complaining about, and that serve as grist for this leap by Walter Kirn into gonzo paranoid-journalism in the Atlantic, entitled: “If You’re Not Paranoid, You’re Crazy.” 

Mr. Kirn begins with a very leading question: 

“As government agencies and tech companies develop more and more intrusive means of watching and influencing people, how can we live free lives?” 

Tabulating a series of worst-case scenarios and semi-warranted extrapolations, he weaves a pretty darn entertaining-scary tapestry of “we might as well give up now, because Big Brother is already here.” (My (accurate) paraphrasing.)  

Oh-kaaay.  But then, Mr. Kirn, even if you are right in every respect, what’s your prescription, sir? And why do you never once even try to answer the question posed in the title of your screed? 

Of course there’s no solution offered. As we saw above, jeremiads are easy.  Cynical, snarled rants flow, by pure momentum, no different than the ones you wrote as a college sophomore. 

 Oh, don’t get me wrong. We need shouted warnings that we are about to lose our freedom to tech empowered hierarchs – whether the elites in question are new-lord aristocrats, faceless corporations or faceless government bureaucracies.  The real reason that our myths nearly all preach Suspicion of Authority is because the danger is very real!  

We are revolutionaries.  And outside of the last couple of centuries in the west, no other experiment in freedom or in flattened social orders ever lasted more than a generation. I utterly share a deep, grinding worry that some privileged few will regain the kind of obligate power over our lives that kings and priests exerted, nearly everywhere for 6000 years.  

Only, I'm not satisfied to smugly point and shout denunciations. As said in part 1 (above), I want to look at how we got the (imperfect/threatened) window of relative freedom we currently have. Only by understanding this will we be able to prescribe solutions and pass the imperfect gift on to future generations.

And this Atlantic article only makes me sigh. Mr. Kirn, like almost every other privacy pundit, is so ensorceled by dudgeon that he cannot – even briefly – glance at what has worked so far. Nor at the possibility that these new technologies might empower us and our will-to-freedom… 

...as they have already done, recently, in the Black Lives Matter Movement. A perfect case of technology making more of a difference than anyone wants to admit.  Making the difference, in fact.  And that difference was technology empowering the People, and not the Man.

By dismissing that - even as a passing thought - Mr. Kirn and other Jeremiahs show that their interest does not lie in solutions, or even revolution. It revolves around the number two lesson suckled from Hollywood flicks – right after suspicion of authority.  That all my neighbors are sheep.

== From the battlefront for freedom, transparency and privacy  ==

Which is a pity, because the Big Brother trends are, in fact, very real!  For example, Singapore has established Social Credit Scoring and China plans to follow suit.  From a western perspective it seems spectacularly chilling, that civil servants at a monolithic government agency should track every aspect of your life and tabulate in a single number how fine a person you are being? How much “credit” you have to be trusted with things like passports and visas and even childbearing?  

It is the ultimate manifestation of top down methods of governance.  Whether implemented in order to smoothly deliver services in an all-swaddling nanny state or else to create the ultimate Orwellian enforcement machine, most of us over here, across the political “spectrum” would deem the whole approach to be utterly loathsome and doomed to devolve into stifling tyranny.

And yet, the author of this piece suggests that even the US cannot help but evolve, at least somewhat, in this direction.  Elements of this judgment-and-reward system already exist in the U.S. private-sector credit scoring infrastructure, in our college scores, and in the United States TSA’s airline passenger “whitelist” system. Indeed, many futurists (including yours truly) have talked about Reputation systems replacing currency.

The visceral reaction is basically correct. Take an interesting experiment in militant transparency:  The Open Source Party is a political movement that derives both inspiration and methods from Open Source software principles. The crux: political processes are seen as a body of code. That code, and any changes to the code, must be visible and understandable and modifiable by a free and agile user-citizen population.  And I am there… in principle.  Let’s discuss the principle… while pushing ahead with the practical.  

== Biometrics… Schmetrics… ==

The sad thing is how many of our brave and righteous paladins of Freedom - for example at ACLU and EFF are right and righteous in their overall dedication to prevent Big Brother, yet wind up recommending the same wrongheaded prescription that cannot possibly work:

"Everybody hide!"

Over the years, I've given an insane number of examples. Here's another: in September, the Office of Personnel Management admitted that the number of federal employees’ fingerprints compromised in the massive breach of its servers revealed over the summer has grown from 1.1 million to 5.6 million.  OPM adds that it’s mailing letters to all affected victims, and notes that it’s also offering them free credit monitoring.  And it goes much farther. 

In The Transparent Society I talk about the difference between a unique identifier and a verifier.  Your Social Security number is an example of the former.  It correlates with a unique person and say, "this conversation or transaction is about this particular John Smith and no other."  It does not prove that the person using the SSN actually IS that John Smith!

A password is the very opposite of an identifier. It can be changed! It can be replaced with a more secure one!  Fingerprints are like SSNs.  They establish who is being discussed.  It used to be, when only the FBI had a database of them and they were hard to copy, a fingerprint might be used also as a verifier.  That is no longer true.

In future, almost any single biometric that is unique to you might be sniffed or snooped or recorded. So we will adapt.  You'll visit your local bank branch monthly or weekly and there the whole suite of biometrics will confirm who you are and you and your banker will then clean up and establish that month's (or week's) passcodes.  Again we will adapt!  I didn't claim it would be easy or problem-free.

But we must start by looking at fundamentals.  And understanding the difference between an identifier and a verifier.  One of dozens of things explained carefully in The Transparent Society.

 == A philosophical aside: Principles vs Outcomes ==

We should hold in suspicion any and all proclamations of pure and enraged principle, unless those stances can also point to:

1. correlation with positive real-world outcomes over long time spans, and 

2. an inherent ability to keep re-evaluating, adjusting and backing out of errors.

Purist declarations have been used so often to justify self-serving oppression of others and/or cheating or simple insanity, that we must deem this kind of rationalization to be one of humanity's greatest sicknesses.  

That is not to say that all declarations of principle are wrong! But let's take one example -- Freedom of Speech.  A core principle that most of us deem quasi-sacred, without ever pausing to ponder how the vast majority of our ancestors would have called it crazy.  

FoS seems "good" to us.  But that appearance is backed-up by a solid correlation with our civilization's spectacularly better rates of innovation, wealth-generation, problem-solving and fun, all of which are direct outcomes of FoS.   Which must be defended with zeal AS IF it were holy, though the deepest reasons are pragmatic.  

Especially the end to 6000 years of societies wasting most of their available human talent.

Likewise, Freedom of Speech is the best way to detect errors and flaws, even in our own principles -- even in our most-sacred principles, like Freedom of Speech!  Allowing us to make guarded, minimal but practical compromises that make sense to each generation.  But above all, allowing later generations to fluidly argue, re-assess and back out of mistakes. That ability to keep up a diversity of viewpoints that are not repressed by either hierarchy or conformity is a palpable and inarguable strength that FoS fosters.

Am I saying we should never passionately propound principles?  Not so!  FoS must be shouted zealously, even religiously, or we'll not have the fervor it will take, to overcome the world's cheaters and would be oppressors (including those on our "side.") But over the long run, there must be a grounding in objective reality, or all our subjective screaming will not suffice to make a false "principle" true.

== And finally ==

A fascinating article on Cold War intelligence shows how a KGB official was able to glean patterns  from the simplest details in order to uncover CIA operatives, so effectively that the CIA went crazy for years, searching for nonexistent moles.  This sort of thing, by the way, is why I roll my eyes over “crypto” fans who declare that encryption of online data is all they need in order to be free forever from meddling by the oppressive State.  

I have yet to meet one cypherpunk who has ever studied the 4000 year history of cat and mouse games by spies and resistance  cells and secret police, dating back to Hammurabi.  Of the dozen or so general types of methods used by czarist and Nazi and Communist and imperial and modern agencies to pierce underground movements, crypto can only – even theoretically – inconvenience maybe three. 

Such blithe, willfully trusting fantasy and ignorance would be charming, except that these techno-romantics style themselves as our best defense against Big Brother. Fortunately… there are others. 

  

Paranoia has many roots and levels

As one who nurses a few conspiracy theories of his own -- but only ones that fit the Seven Secret Rules of Plausibility ;-) -- I actually find most of the run-of-the-mill-kneejerk stories, concocted by modern loonies (not only on the far right, but also plenty on the far-left and even far-out) to be just plain dumb. They are nearly always based on several self-flattering premises:

1) that the powers who are supposedly performing the conniving-nefarious activity are nearly all-powerful, nearly all-knowing and have unlimited supplies of eager, willing, compliant, conscience-free, yet staggeringly competent henchmen, who somehow commit their acts with perfect timing, without a glitch, hiccup or anyone deciding to blab... and

2) that somehow, in a world filled with skilled scientists, cops, investigators, journalists. intelligence agents and dedicated enemies of the (purported) conspirators, somehow it is the believer and his or her close-aligned pals who are the only ones smart enough to see through the smoke and mirrors to the truth... and

3) that lots of people on this planet can be delusional crazy while vigorously denying it, yet nevertheless the True Believer proclaims, in serene confidence -- "I'm not one of those nuts!"

Days after Osama bin Laden's death, a wealth of conspiracy theories have been spun, claiming that Osama was actually a U.S. agent, that he had actually been dead for a decade, frozen in some super-secret location. Or that Osama is actually alive and well, being interrogated by U.S. officials. Or possibly that President Obama invented Osama's death to boost his re-election campaign, or as a distraction from Trump pushing the "birther" conspiracy (one conspiracy to kill another)...

There are powerful psychological drivers behind conspiracies: A need to explain one’s own poverty and failure. The allure of enticing pattern recognition. Above all, the warm feeling we get from being in the know…from being part of the “elect group” that can see what’s going on! There are no richer mental drug-highs than self-righteous indignation, resentment, and contempt for fools. See my article on Conspiracies and Wishful Thinking and my videos: Ten Super-Secret Rules of Conspiracy Theories.)

Self-delusion is the greatest of all human talents.

This is not the time or place for me to get into intense detail, in a formal essay appraising all the types and species of human paranoia... and why my own particular brands just happen to be the ones that are smart, on target and sensible! Alas. Lacking both the requisite energy and spare-expendable lifespan, I'll just offer a few enlightening tidbits below, and save all-encompassing wisdom for another time.

=== IS IT ALL A MATTER OF PERSONALITY? ===

This seems especially pertinent, given America’s recent swerve down Kookoo Lane. Aha! Belief in Conspiracies linked to Machiavellian Mindset -- a firm belief that "they did it" is linked to the concept that "I would do it". It's exactly what I would have written, if they hadn't systematically stolen my ideas. Wait, am I confusing conspiracy theorizing with paranoia? Easy to do... except when the conspiracies are real, but only a few can see them!

Or might it all be chemical? In work that gives cranky teenagers another reason to blame their parents for all life's woes, researchers have uncovered a genetic link to happiness. The study of more than 2,500 Americans revealed two variants of a gene that influenced how satisfied – or dissatisfied – people were with their lot. Those born with two long versions of the gene (one is passed down from each parent) were more likely to declare themselves "very satisfied" with life than those who inherited two short versions.

=== TECHNO PARANOIA? ===

Your GPS-enabled cell phone allows your location to be tracked at all times. Even the photos you take on such a device have a location-coding attached when you upload them to the internet, pinpointing the precise coordinates of your home or where you had that weekend tryst.

Can arresting officers search the arrested person's cellphone, downloading everything from address books, photos and websites to thousands of texts... plus everything the phone touched in the Cloud... all without a warrant, because the phone was on your immediate person, and thus "like" a pocket or a purse or a set of keys? Or is the phone something much more? A "portal" into your whole life, meriting a warrant to rummage through?

And now -- they lied to us! Was The Last Typewriter Factory Closed? Not Really.

==== UPLIFT-RELATED? ===

Elaine Walker (lovely voice!) wrote and performed two songs based on my novels, Sundiver and Earth. This was 1992.. but they still sound amazing. Elaine’s songs are linked from here.

I’ve been honored with musical interpretations (http://www.davidbrin.com/games.htm) of my work by composers Brian Carroll, Richard Stoops and Katherine Gilliam, by the groups Matucana and Treebeard, by Tom Smith and at least two others whose CDs I seem to have missplaced ;-( Then there are the works by amatueur and semi-pro artists ... and tributes and riffs by fan writers. Terrific stuff!

Uplift has already begun... Birds that prosper on the city streets have larger brains than their pastoral relations. So it seems that novel environments, including urban landscapes, may select for street smarts—at least for birds that flock toward the city lights. Heck we already knew that about rats...

A new page all about the Uplift Universe..

=== GENERAL COOL STUFF -- (with a hint of paranoia) ===

Former planet Pluto may have grown a comet-like tail -- a wispy trail of Carbon monoxide stretching fourth of the way to its moon Charon

Robotic probe measures methane trapped on seafloor -- the first time measurements made in situ. Observations support larger estimates of methane stored in world's oceans: 10,000 gigatonnes of carbon, twice as much as in conventional fossil fuels.

Folks referred me to an article on "io9" entitled "Are we surrounded by Dyson Spheres?" - -the notion that much of the missing Dark Matter that may bind the galaxies invisibly might be made of great big macho habitats completely surrounding stars. Tho I show this in Heaven's Reach, I'm very skeptical. I was mentally gathering half a dozen big refutations - then read the article. Dave Goldberg did a great job analyzing the idea himself. Great science reporting!

Can we blame our crazy ancestors? New research suggests that says Homo heidelbergensis is the common forebear of both humans and Neanderthals.

Even not knowing a word of Serbian, you should enjoy this animated science fiction film! Seriously. Serbia? There have been great amateur animators there for years. But this is CRAZY! These guys deserve major studio. support. Who's been keeping talent like this squashed? Do I need to ask?

===Miscellaneous But Important! ===

Ethanol blamed for record food prices worldwide

One leaf could power a house?

Nautilus X is getting renewed aerospace news media attention. NASA suggests using Bigelow Aerospace inflatable modules to assemble Nautilus X, and the spacecraft can incorporate propulsion systems to enable high delta-V missions.

Going back to paranoia on a larger scale! From the Washington Times: How the U.S. Treasury Department froze Libyan assets. They expected $100 million, but found over $30 billion -- mostly all in one bank. To put it in perspective: In 2009, Libya had a gross domestic product of $62 billion. Anybody remember the “Helvetian War” from my novel EARTH?

=== AND FINALLY, BACK TO UNDERLYING REASONS FOR PARANOIA ===

"Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things." -- Douglas Adams

Calm down. Remember, the thing that you are trying to defend... against those who are conspiring to bring it down... is a calm, enlightened, pragmatic civilization filled with smart problem-solvers, who appreciate knowledge, wisdom and skill... and who negotiate with one another.

See also: Conspiracies and Wishful Thinking

Conspiracies and Wishful Thinking

To what extent is the world filled with conniving villains and dastardly plots... and how much of it erupts from our fertile imaginations?  It may not surprise you much that I take both sides on this matter.

On the one hand, history is rife with schemers and secretive meddlers.  You don't need cryptic societies and Illuminati, just your run-of-the-mill feudal aristocracy that ruled almost every society that ever lifted itself to the level of agriculture.  The mythology of inherited lordship - assisted and promoted by priests and bards - was the great scam that got pulled off on every continent, in every age.

On the other hand, we often see conspiracies where they are not.  The psychological drivers are many and powerful. A need to explain one's own poverty and failure. The allure of enticing pattern recognition, even when the patterns aren't really there. And, above all, the warm feeling we get from being in the know. From being part of the elect group that can see what's going on!  While our foolish neighbors go about their business, bleating like ignorant sheep.

There are no richer, more voluptuous mental drug-highs than self-righteous indignation, resentment, and contempt for fools. 

IS THERE A SYSTEM FOR RECOGNIZING THE DIFFERENCE? 

In the latest issue of Scientific American, Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic Magazine, has an excellent article, “The Conspiracy Theory Detector", in which he categorizes the characteristics of conspiracy theories. I’ll summarize a few of his points:  

   1. -- The conspiracy only emerges by “connecting the dots,” linking events that are unrelated except through the allegation of conspiracists.

   2.--The agents behind such a conspiracy would “need nearly superhuman power to pull it off.”

   3.--The conspiracy presumes that a large number of people have maintained total secrecy, often for a substantial period of time.

   4. --The conspiracy involves a grand struggle for control of a nation or economy, or even world domination (the larger the issue, the more likely it's a conspiracy).

   5.--The conspiracy “ratchets up from small events that might be true to much larger, much less probable events.”

   6. –The theory assigns evil, sinister motives to events.

   7. --The theorist mixes facts and speculations, probable and improbable events, is consistently suspicious of all government agencies, and refuses to consider alternative explanations, typically rejecting any evidence that fails to confirm such theories. 

I must add that just because a notion has all these warning signs, that doesn't mean the conspiracy theory is wrong!  In fact, would not the conspiring geniuses fake some of these very traits, in order to discredit the idea and divert smart people away from it?

Still, Shermer's article offers some tools, for you to use as a free mind. 

JUST REMEMBER... YOU ARE THE EASIEST ONE TO FOOL...

Richard Feynman said that. And I'm the one who said that self-delusion is the greatest of all human talents. 

See my videos: Ten Super Secret Rules of Conspiracy Theories and Part 2 as well.

Indeed, recent science shows how good we all are at psychologically ignoring all evidence against our tightly clutched beliefs. Even when those beliefs are simply wrong. ”New research suggests that misinformed people rarely change their minds when presented with the facts — and often become even more attached to their beliefs. The finding raises questions about a key principle of a strong democracy: that a well-informed electorate is best.”

       

While we’re on the subject, here is a systematic taxonomy of logical fallacies. No one should graduate high school without knowing these. Seriously, you are ignorant if you aren't at least glancingly familiar with them. 

  

(Hang on a month or so, and I will supply you with an even more important tool: the paraphrase challenge!  Impatient scholars can dive into it here.

    

Dang, how has the species even survived to get this far?  Obstinate, delusional... and desperately clinging to our delusions. 

 

If this sort of thing is common among intelligent species, across the galaxy, then ah, the Fermi Paradox is no paradox.

THIS GOES WAY BACK, OF COURSE, EVEN IN SCIENCE

Controversies and public battles over science are nothing new, particularly when politics enters the fray. An article in New Scientist, “Einstein’s skeptics: Who were the relativity deniers?” begins, “When people don't like what science tells them, they resort to conspiracy theories, mud-slinging and plausible pseudoscience.” Einstein’s battles to defend relativity were reminiscent of today’s climate deniers and creationists. 

See my article carefully making this distinction between deniers and skeptics.

In 1920, five years after he published his general theory of relativity, Albert Einstein wrote, "This world is a strange madhouse, Every coachman and every waiter is debating whether relativity theory is correct. Belief in this matter depends on political affiliation." 

Einstein’s publication provoked opponents across Europe and the U.S. who set out to prove that relativity was wrong. Objections were raised not just in scholarly journals, but in letters, newspapers, pamphlets and public lectures.  Some groups promoted anti-semitic conspiracy theories; others raised theological arguments. Their tactics had much in common with those used by creationists and climate-change deniers today. The Academy of Nations, an international network of Einstein’s opponents, published polemics against relativity, which they believed symbolized the incomprehensibility of modern science, and its break from classical physics. The New York Times declared in 1919, that relativity was a theory that could be understood by “only twelve wise men.” 

Arguments continue to this day. The website Conservapedia lists 32 reasons why the relativity theory is wrong, and allows users to document counterexamples to relativity theory. 

===

See also: An Open Letter to Researchers of Addiction, Brain Chemistry and Social Psychology

Disputation Arenas: Harnessing Conflict and Competitiveness for Society's Benefit

Paranoia has many roots and levels

 

World Cultures Compete (as memes) Over Human Destiny

MEME WAR REDUX

This will be one of my super-wide perspectives on cultures in conflict, comparing confrontations of the past (the Cold War) to our present North-South crises, and continuing through what may be (I predicted, long ago) the final, East-West struggle over the ultimate shape of human governance, across the centuries to come.

But it all begins with something much closer to home. Please be patient, because it will all tie together, I promise!


“SOCIAL MOBILITY” AS A WAY TO ENSURE THE DISCOVERY AND GOOD USE OF TALENT

One of my ongoing themes has dealt with the plight of our professional castes, as they are harried from above by incompetent but super-empowered politicians...while also worrying about competition from below, amid a rising Age of Amateurs. In a period of transition that appears to have gone completely unnoticed by any other pundits or commentators, it appears that those who most benefitted from the 20th Century -- the professionals -- now seem to be caught in a squeeze of transforming proportions.

One has to sympathize with these skilled men and women, especially, in government service, who have slowly come to realize their quandary. For example, those in the intelligence services, who seem to finally have found the courage, in their recent National Intelligence Estimate about Iran, to stand up and tell the truth, instead of what they were ordered to say. Why have they obeyed - till now - political masters who were clearly stupid and monomaniacal, if not outright mad? Recent years have re-taught a valuable lesson -- that people are people. Though sworn to protect constitutional law and an open society, each member of the civil service can be expected to do the human thing, drifting toward some comfortable or safe path. Toward safe or reassuring assumptions. Especially protecting his or her career. This can affect not only their actions, but what they are able to perceive.

It’s not a new phenomenon. So, it might be a good time to do one of our trademark “step-backs” in order to seek perspective... from the land where the entire concept of meritocracy was invented, more than a thousand years ago.

Indeed, it seems time to link this topic to another theme of mine -- that of “meme war”.

To start off, have a look at an excellent op-ed piece by David Brooks - “The Dictatorship of Talent” - which illustrates how the present leadership caste in China tries to blend the needs of a modern industrial state with the traditions of merit-based professionalism, all under a pyramidal hierarchical system of authority, with a heavy gloss of Confucian tradition. The article is fascinating...

... and, of course, only scratches the surface of what will surely be the major, determining conflict of the middle decades of the 21st Century. A rivalry not only of two cultures and two models of governance, but of entirely contradictory visions of how to run an advanced civilization.

It can be hard to see the forest for the trees. So let’s do that step-back for perspective.


PHASE ONE OF MEME WAR: THE LONG, PATIENT “THERAPY” OF PARANOIA

During the Cold War, people found it difficult to look below superficial layers of communist rhetoric, to understand something basic -- that the Soviet Union was never really all that much about communism at all! Historians could tell that, underneath the change of name and nomenclature, that “evil empire” was essentially just another manifestation of old-fashioned Russian hedgemonism, propelled by a paranoid tradition that stretched all the way back to Mongol and Tatar invasions of long ago. (If anything, communist ideology probably softened, rather than hardened, the ferocity of the Cold War standoff, since it preached against calling adversaries inhuman, a habit that the czars indulged in, all the time.)

Was the Communist Revolution of 1917 much more than a cosmetic change of surfaces, a shift from one paranoid Russian clique to another oligarchy of obsessive overcompensation? A nomenklatura that touted a different catechism, but behaved almost exactly the same as the one it replaced? Indeed, well before the revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville, H.G. Wells, and several others had predicted that the latter 20th Century would revolve around two poles, in a tense rivalry between a pragmatic-open Enlightenment America and a despotic-romantic Imperial Russia.

In a 1989 speech and article, I predicted the shattering of the USSR and the fall of the Iron Curtain, because of a partial but significant shift in this psychological rigor. I forecast that it would happen when -- for the first time in centuries -- a new top clade of Russian leaders took command, who had never known desperate privation or a struggle against foreign invaders.

Coaxed, also, by an increasingly open world culture and the questioning attitudes of science, the paranoid fever would finally break, at least enough to let satellite nations split off without brutal repression -- thus proving the wisdom of George Marshall’s long term strategy of “patient strength.”

There was a lot more to the Meme War concept, but a key point was that our Cold War enemy had never been communism, per se (which was always a bit goofy and earnest, for a militant-imperial religion), but rather, the psychological state of mind that lay beneath. One that used communism as a convenient and pliant surface rationalization, just as the Czars would have kept using traditionalism and religion to push the very same aggressive policies, if they had stayed in power.

Paranoia has many forms, but on a national scale it can manifest in a perpetual yearning for the Strong Leader. In clear, xenophobic divisions of us-vs-them. In a fierce and prickly inferiority complex and in an insatiable need to demonstrate strength. As a cultural frame of mind, paranoia is utterly incompatible with enlightenment thinking. And crucially, over the long run, any solution would have to be as much psychological as based on military or economic strength.

Let’s not be rosy-viewed. Back when Francis Fukayama was calling the fall of the USSR the “End of History,” I said that Russian Paranoia had not finished its long and tenacious run, nor would a swing from communism back to older Russian incantations ensure profound change. Culture is dogged and there will be a yearning for strong leaders over there, for a long time to come. Witness Vladimir Putin. Who could have been worse.

Still, my point is that the paranoid fever did break, largely for the reason I forecast, at least enough for that most dangerous phase of that confrontation to pass. Just in time for the ensuing one.


THE SECOND PHASE: A STRUGGLE BETWEEN WEST AND SOUTH

Likewise, today we are transfixed with what I forecast in 1989 to be our next major adversary -- not so much a particular nation or superficial dogma, but one brand or another of cultural machismo. One of the hot-belt cultures, that have long revolved around male-dominated memes, tribal loyalties, deeply suspicious religiosity and prickly, short-tempered pride.

Back in that 1989 speech and essay, I predicted that one of these memic realms would have to dig in and resist - often violently - the cultural changes threatened by Western influence. Especially the influence that our culture might have on their womenfolk.

I suggested, then, that it would likely be some of the Islamic macho nationalities, that led a violent and angry rejection of neo-western values. But I left open the possibility that Latin or Hindi versions of machismo might lead the way, instead. In any event, we do seem to be in the full flux of that era, exacerbated by our own leadership’s counter-productive strategy of pouring gasoline on every fire.

Among all of my successful “predictive hits,” this is probably the biggest... and one where I’d most like to have been wrong.

Our long range hope? Shall we wage physical and confrontational “war” against something as slippery and massive as a cultural meme? And who shall we bomb, then? Shall we kill faster than doing so will recruit even more angry young men, filling the pipeline until some of them really get their act together? Isn’t that, well, imitating the macho bluster of the enemy?

How fortunate that we were much wiser, less rash and more patient (despite lapses like Vietnam), during the Cold War!

No, George Marshall’s wisdom still applies. Strength and assertiveness are vital, but only when combined with savvy, stamina, and a willingness to study the arts of cultural jiu jitsu. Those cultures that are now opposing us will change when a generation of women arises among them that is able to assert themselves. (And, if we help, subtly, how could they not?)


THE FINAL CONFRONTATION OVER HUMAN GOVERNANCE AND CULTURE: WEST VS EAST

What does all of this have to do with David Brooks’s excellent article about Chinese meritocracy?

Well, assuming that we do succeed in weathering the present storm and thriving, somehow regaining our confidence and pragmatic common sense, enough to help lead a vivid and confident Enlightenment West... and assuming that the Macho Belt calms down enough to accept modernity’s inevitable progress... then (according to my model) we would see a final, mid-century tussle over which model of human governance should gain favor among future generations.

How will Earthlings, who are eager to get on with planetary -- and interplanetary -- life, settle their issues, allocate resources, and generally handle the problems of running a complex civilization?

The crux: with the fading of both the empires of paranoia and male frenzy, we’ll be left with an East-West dichotomy ... one that ought to be settled peacefully, since both of these final “sides” recognize the inefficiency and cost and inherent uncertainty of violence.

Non-violence sounds great, for a change. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be a struggle. Because a whole lot will be at stake. In fact, just about everything.

Elsewhere, I talk at length about the essential difference between two fundamental modes of governance. One of these dominated the vast majority of past human societies -- at least those that achieved metals and agriculture -- traditional, pyramidal human cultures ruled by hierarchies of fiercely-protected privilege. Under these ruling oligarchies, wealth and investment and ownership were all controlled under the notion of GAR, or Guided Allocation of Resources.

Despite operating under diverse superficial mythologies and doctrines, from theocracies to feudal kingdoms to empires to nomenklaturas, the deeper system has tended to be the same, as if arising out of basic human nature.

Indeed, the emerging Chinese pattern that Brooks describes would appear to be among the most flexible and fair versions of pyramidal authoritarianism ever produced! One that was first crafted in postwar Japan, then refined into a high art, in Singapore, by the ingenious Lee Kwan Yew. On a much more vast scale, the rulers in Beijing are trying to combine Chinese traditions of civil service meritocracy, plus Confucian notions of noblesse oblige, with carefully unleashed market forces... along with some dollops of residual Communist-egalitarian catechism ... toward a single bold ambition. Making their emerging power-pyramid about as well-run and decent as any structured oligarchy can be.

There is even a strong likelihood that the top ruling clades in China see - with intelligent clarity -- the advantages offered by freedom of speech and open criticism! At least, as these corrective forces might apply to lower and more local administration levels. They know that only transparent, enlightenment processes can reliably staunch systemic corruption among corporations, provincial and urban chiefs, or the civil service. You can expect experiments in local investigative journalism and civic activism to continue. But these tools-of-light will be carefully limited and prevented from focusing upon society’s top tiers. There will be no more Tienanmen Square democracy festivals.

Without any doubt, this plan is an ambitious, complex and difficult arrangement. That is, assuming they can succeed at making such a blending work, at all. Can an increasingly educated and technologically-empowered citizenry be prevented from eventually turning their gaze -- skeptically and critically -- upward, at the top elites? Forever?

We in the West would tend to answer, no. But we are not imbued with some powerfully tenacious cultural memes -- of conformity, group loyalty, and tradition reverence -- that (let’s admit) have the momentum of both human history and human nature on their side. (And, even without those cultural influences, a drift back toward elite/command leadership is always possible here; there are forces always pushing in that direction.)

If the Chinese leadership clade does succeed at translating Lee Kwan Yew’s method into a successfully stable mode for a billion and a half Chinese, then humanity will be offered a genuinely interesting choice, by mid-century. On the one hand, the very best version of oldstyle, oligarchy-led governance possible.

On the other hand, Earth citizens will be offered an updated version of the Western Enlightenment. One that has weathered the trials of a Cold War, a Machismo Meme War, and (we can hope) a successful self renewal, after years of despoliation by the recent Neoconservative Putsch.


THE NEOCONFUCIAN PYRAMID HAS SOME ADVANTAGES

Let’s take a closer look at the neoconfucian governance model, and see how it attempts, with great agility, to incorporate many Western tools, while maintaining a core fidelity to older ways.

Within the great pyramid of authority, there will be countless small sub pyramids of authority, nested together, some of them based on corporate structure and others representing a myriad layers or sub agencies of government. But all of them constantly on the lookout for talent. Whenever some anomalous son or daughter of peasants displays real promise, he or she will be found, nurtured, taught the right combination of assertion and obeisance and then put to work. Because skill and talent in an underling can help to make the lord of any local pyramid more successful.

Note that one of the great failings of past feudal societies was their incredible waste of human resources, by consigning women, minorities, under-castes, and the children of the poor into predestined subservience, with cauterized opportunities to get education or show what they could do. Oligarchs and lords did this in order to prevent competition from below. It happened on nearly all continents, in nearly all eras. But, significantly, the invention of civil service process did offer up a primitive counter current. An incentive for oligarchs and elites to foster talent, rather than repress it. Only in a manner that remained under tight supervision and control.

Yes, it remained inefficient and unfair, all through the centuries of Chinese Imperium -- only a partial improvement over other nations. But now ponder a system of nested pyramidal fiefdoms, in which this process is given fresh vigor by universal education, technology and a rapid modern economy. Not only would any local lord keep looking for the next “find” to nurture, he may even pass this talented one upward, to the next layer, to his own equivalent of a feudal overlord, thus helping the next-larger pyramid and receiving credit for the find.

Thus, a form of social mobility will be possible, even encouraged, under this advanced form of neoconfucionism. Though not of a kind that most of us in the West would like. Not one that rewards truly bold or revolutionary ideas. Never individuals or ideas that are outright rebellious, or pushy, or disrespectful. But when did that ever happen?

Well, it did happen, once. In the Enlightenment West, where the ideal version of “Horatio Alger” social mobility often rewarded the delivery of goods, services or ideas in proportion to their startling, forward stepping value. At least, that was the idea, honored at least often enough to make us feel disappointed, when it wasn’t. Even more important than the inherent justice provided by social mobility, this new mode offered dramatically non-linear benefits, whenever markets, science, and democracy managed to stay open, filled with both spontaneous cooperation and vibrantly fair competition.

Culturally, this Western Enlightenment process focused on the individual, a fixation that other cultures have accused of fostering anomie, selfishness, greed, alienation and even a sense of cruel, solipsistic detachment from the needs of others. On the other hand, those other cultures had few linguistic or conceptual correlates with our word “fun.”

(A fresh note that I hadn’t thought of, before: the civil service concept appears to have begun in China at about the same time as democracy glimmered, in pre Periclean Athens. Different responses to the same essential need? To overcome the problem of wasted talent, in cruder oligarchies? If so, both of them only improved social mobility by a nudge, not a leap.)


THE ULTIMATE CONFRONTATION

Imagine a possibility -- that the forward movement of the Enlightenment West were to resume, after its dismal, turn-of-the century hiatus. Picture our democracy, markets, science, law and knowledge-empowered citizenry improving once again, perhaps by as much as they did in the Progressive Era, or during the fecund, egalitarian and reform-minded time after World War II. If we tuned up this Great Experiment by one more big notch, by as ambitious a degree as the Chinese seem to be tuning up their ultimate version of pyramidal oligarch, then what a choice the people of this planet will be offered!

A choice between the best of the East and the best of the West.

Let there be no doubt. The alternative, to be set before the world, is either-or. A dichotomy that can only be resolved in favor of one governance mode, or the other.

I am not saying there cannot be compromises! Or that each side cannot learn from the other. Indeed, from Lee Kwan Yew to Deng Xiaopeng, all the way back to the earlier master planners of the Japanese Ministry of Industry and Trade, the founders of Neo-Confucian governance have striven assiduously to study and incorporate every Western process that might be of use...

...so long as it does not threaten their fundamentals. Fundamentals that include an emphasis on respect rather than impudence, on communal serenity over individual exuberance, on predictability over risk-taking, on hierarchical permission-seeking, on some degree of inherited privilege, and on the right of revered elders to pick their own heirs. These things are basic. And they take precedence, even when tools of democracy and capitalism are incorporated at the surface level.

Likewise, the Enlightenment West, especially in its most-brash American form, has also shown a willingness to incorporate and absorb good things from elsewhere -- such as art and music and cultural forms that enter a fermenting stew, providing raw materials for individuals to combine and re-mix at will. This stewpot method has its faults, producing a much lower ratio of good things to utter crap... but it also produces more brilliance, more creativity, more nonlinear leaps, by far. A fact that leaders of the East readily acknowledge.

If the matter were to be settled simply on the basis of fun, or appeal to individual desires, there would be no question of an ultimate outcome. In an open choice, arrived-at calmly by world citizens who have relaxed access to every factor, without fear or pressure or tension, I believe people will drift toward demanding ever-greater personal autonomy. The gradualist-libertarian option (Which, to be honest, resembles the ultimate, utopian Marxist destination!)

On the other hand, if our next century proves rife with innumerable dangers -- as some of our own best and brightest predict -- including potentially awful technological breakthroughs that might empower small groups, or even individuals, to wreak great devastation, then one could see the people seeking comfort and protection in communal attitudes, and, especially, opting for a system that revolves around a core, paternalistic elite. Not a new idea, in fact, but a prescription as old as Plato.

A persuasive argument, indeed... though probably also mistaken. Because, inherent in this choice that I have laid out, is an incentive for one side to foster feelings of fear. Clouding the argument over future-dangers, by exaggerating them, and thus offering rationalizations for power.


A HAZY CRYSTAL BALL

In any event, that is how I see it, as one who tries to show the yin-yang advantages and faults of each side...

...while admitting that I believe passionately in the further potential of the Enlightenment. Not because it is “good” so much as because it, and it alone, ever found a methodology for dealing with humanity’s worst fault - rationalized self deception.

In theory, there is no limit to the power of open, reciprocal accountability to ensure both the benefits of freedom and the safety of early error discovery... far better than protective, paternalistic groups could ever manage. It is a win-win phenomenon that explains all the success of the West, so far. The very notion that we can rise up from zero-sum games and forge into a civilization that is prodigiously positive-sum.

Of course, past performance is no indicator of future success. Indeed, the Enlightenment West -- and the American great experiment - have shown signs, lately, that its citizenries lack the maturity to take things forward the next notch, and then the next. The swing away from delegated legislatures toward executive power. The widening wealth gap. The plunge away from discourse and negotiation, toward dogmatic positions, all of these are danger signs.

There have been falterings before. They were overcome through rising education, satiation, perspective and awareness. Citizens clambered up and adapted, from illiteracy to crude newspapers, to urban libraries, to mass media, to internet mediated access to all the world’s knowledge in an instant. May our neighbors rise to the present challenge, as well.

Still, if the Enlightenment has reached genuine limits, if humans simply aren’t up to the task, or if on-off calamities can only be stayed by paternalistic power, then maybe the Eastern Model would be best. At least, then, our great-great grandchildren will exist. They would survive. I expect this will be the rationalization. Indeed, we are already hearing it from many quarters.

But I will not, cannot, swallow it. Across at least 400 years, the citizens of the Enlightenment have surprised every doubter and surpassed every declared limit to human powers of self-governance. As de Tocqueville pointed out, midway through that span of time, the process is not elegant or serene, or dignified, or efficient... it simply performs miracles. Bona fide, unquestionable, overwhelming and astounding miracles.

For a people to doubt this, having learned to race faster than cheetahs, to fly faster than birds, to walk on the Moon, to peer at atoms and singularities, to cure themselves of bigotries, to begin tending creation...

...to have done all those things and so many more, and fail in confidence? Well, that would be the strangest and most tragic accomplishment of all.


==I discuss this in my short story collection, Otherness.

.

Ironies Compounded by Ironies...

The political lamp is lit

Larry Brilliant says: Here is a really scary poll of 93 countries, on their view of US leadership: "Do you  approve or disapprove of the leadership of the United States of America?"

Percentages who Approve / Disapprove

Average              44 / 56
Lebanon              42 / 58
Saudi Arabia       14 / 86
Jordan                  20 / 80
Turkey                 30 / 70
Indonesia             45 / 55
Bangladesh          26 / 74
United Kingdom  35 / 65
France                  15 / 85
Germany              23 / 77
Netherlands          25 / 75
Belgium               17 / 83
Spain                    15 / 85
Italy                      35 / 65
Poland                  59 / 41
Hungary               44 / 56
Czech Republic    48 / 52
Romania               77 / 23
Sweden                24 / 76
Greece                  11 / 89
Denmark               35 / 65
Iran                       28 / 72
Singapore             88 / 12
Japan                    20 / 80
India                     57 / 43
Venezuela            38 / 62
Brazil                   28 / 72
Mexico                 33 / 67
Nigeria                 82 / 18
Kenya                  80 / 20
Tanzania              66 / 34
Israel                    75 / 25
Palestine              16 / 84
Ghana                  89 / 11
Uganda                85 / 15
Benin                   64 / 36
South Africa        70 / 30
Canada                30 / 70
Australia              30 / 70
Philippines           81 / 19
Sri Lanka             73 / 27
Vietnam               59 / 41
Thailand               59 / 41
New Zealand       30 / 70
Angola                 43 / 57
Botswana             59 / 41
Ethiopia               81 / 19
Mali                     82 / 18
Mozambique        78 / 22
Senegal                68 / 32
Zambia                 66 / 34
South Korea         29 / 71
Belarus                 28 / 72
Georgia                71 / 29
Kyrgyzstan          42 / 58
Moldova               62 / 38
Russia                  22 / 78
Ukraine                30 / 70
Burkina Faso       74 / 26
Cameroon            68 / 32

Comments international economic pundit Mark Anderson: “Thank God for Burkina Faso, the Philippines, Mali, and, uh, let's see, Ethiopia. I wonder if there is a way for the ever-victorious Ms. Rice to formulate a new U.S. foreign policy with these key supporters as a cornerstone?”

May I add something? Scan the list to see which country MOST disapproves of US leadership.

Now contemplate this irony. It is the same country that has - at one time or another - either employed or contracted or subsidized a majority of senior members of the current US administration, including nearly all of the Bush/Cheney political appointments to head up Defense, Homeland Security and the CIA. Nearly every single one.

Now at first, that may seem contradictory. How can a country that has such deep and broad influence, throughout today’s US leadership, also be the country that most disapproves of that leadership? A leadership that, one could argue, it effectively OWNS?

The answer is as obvious as it is frightening. In that country, where textbooks are state secrets, children have been relentlessly taught about the utter corruption of Western Civilization -- the desirability and inevitability of its total downfall. Is it any surprise, then that common citizens in that country answer such a poll with loathing, not distinguishing between America in general, and its leadership caste? After all, it is only the narrow elite that knows how thoroughly they actually own the Great Satan.

What it does suggest is that we consider something far deeper and more disturbing even than the Iraq War.

Consider a mental experiment. If YOU came out of such a culture, and also found yourself with a bottomless well of funds with which to express your hatred.... don’t you think you might spend lavishly, in order to corrupt and suborn your hated foe. Are you saying there’s even a chance you wouldn’t?

Is anything on Earth more obvious?

Look across the last one hundred years for the very worst mistakes that America made. An era of many successes, punctuated by a few deadly errors. If YOU had the power to control our policy, through paid or suborned surrogates, and you wanted us to fail, would you not use the list of those past mistakes as a template?

Drive away America's friends, destroy its cultural cohesion, provoke inner dissension, wreck the military, demolish science, and - above all - get us into a lose-lose land war of attrition in Asia.... and that only begins the list.

Yes, I am suggesting a very provocative theory... the paranoid-sounding that it has all been deliberate.Not an epic extravaganza of loony incompetence, but an actual and competent and well-executed plan.

No, I do not hold this view officially. I know I stand alone and I admit (and hope) that it can be proved wrong. Hey, it is my JOB to come up with lavish and dramatic scenarios!

Still, when a pattern is this consistent, shall we not at least consider malice as a possible explanation?Not at all?

Find one -- even one -- way in which the pattern does not fit. Only then should you call me paranoid.


-- On Science Fiction and the Future ---

Finally, some fascinating non-political points

I’ve just returned from the World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles. It was a lavish show, in some ways well-done. I need to point out that I start out positively inclined, since the LACON in 1984 helped to “make” me in my own home town. It was also the greatest science fiction convention in history.

Still, this time I was appalled. The con committee deliberately (not by oversight) eviscerated nearly all panels about education or outreach to a new generation -- even though everyone was talking about the decline of science fiction, the drop in sales, the disturbing swing in favor of anime and feudal fantasy. Still, despite the fact that all fan organizations have charters that dedicate them to outreach and spreading the positive messages of SF, very few of them are interested at all in doing anything about it.

Above all, they avoid discussing the ageing of fandom. But one observable stood out at this convention.

The number of elderly people, riding scooters and wheel chairs, at least equaled the number of teens and tweens that you could see wandering the halls. As for children? My own three kids made up a large fraction of those attending. And yet, nobody seems to notice or mind, in the slightest.

The literature of youthful, forward-looking openness... is graying and (in many ways) dying, even as its tropes and glossy surfaces have been embraced as never before.

Ah well. If we are to save sci fi, it will have to be done outside of fandom. So subscribe to Analog and especially Baen’s Universe Magazine (online) !! I mean it. Even if you read none of the wonderful stories (including my own!) or view the resplendent art, or scan the wondrous articles... consider it a tithe.... and investment in tomorrow.

I've posted some resources for using Science Fiction in the Classroom

Oh! Have I mantioned that I am author guest of honor at the NEXT World Science Fiction Convention, to be held in August 2007 in Yokohama? Consider coming!