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  Cover image courtesy NASA

  Cover design by Victoria Green

  CONTENTS

  Reader's Department: EDITORIAL: THE TWISTED ART by Stanley Schmidt

  Novella: OF ONE MIND by Shane Tourtellotte

  Science Fact: ISOTOPY by Stephen L. Gillett, Ph.D.

  Short Story: ENCOUNTER IN A YELLOW WOOD by Bud Sparhawk

  Short Story: LOCKED IN by Brad Aiken

  Reader's Department: THE ALTERNATE VIEW: THE NICE WAY TO MAKE A SOLAR SYSTEM by John G. Cramer

  Reader's Department: IN TIMES TO COME

  Department: BIOLOG: CHRISTOPHER L. BENNETT by Richard A. Lovett

  Probability Zero: TEN THOUSAND MONKEYS by Tocho Ligon

  Short Story: DR. SKENNER'S SPECIAL ANIMALS by by David A. Simons

  Novelette: THE HUB OF THE MATTER by Christopher L. Bennett

  Novelette: NARROW WORLD by Carl Frederick

  Reader's Department: THE REFERENCE LIBRARY by Don Sakers

  Reader's Department: BRASS TACKS

  Reader's Department: UPCOMING EVENTS by Anthony Lewis

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  Vol. CXXX No. 3 March 2010

  Stanley Schmidt Editor

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  Reader's Department: EDITORIAL: THE TWISTED ART by Stanley Schmidt

  As I watch the debate over proposed health care reforms, both in Congress and among people of all sorts throughout the country, I marvel again at how easily something as elegant and potentially useful as the American political system can be turned into a dysfunctional travesty of itself. And it's easier than ever now, thanks to relatively new technologies that, like any powerful tool, can do either a lot of good or a lot of harm, depending on how they're used.

  What we have in my example is a health care system that many (likely most) agree has serious shortcomings, and an attempt to replace it with, or modify it into, something better. I must emphasize that this is only an example that happens to be current as I write this (in August 2009). My purpose is not [despite the misguided accusations I will surely get despite this explicit disclaimer] to advocate for the Obama health plan, any variant or counterproposal advanced by any member of either party, or the status quo. That question may be moot by the time you read this, anyway. By then, quite likely, something will have been decided—after prolonged and heated debates having astoundingly little to do with the actual content of any of the competing proposals. My fear is that it will have been decided for reasons having far more to do with lies, distortions, and simple misconceptions than with anything that anybody on any side of a controversy actually said.

  So I emphasize again that my topic is not what kind of a health care system we should have, but the process by which our country is trying to decide on one, and the ways many of us are shooting ourselves (and each other) in the foot by abusing that process. That question will surely not be moot by the time you read this—because we have a long history of making similar mistakes, and will probably continue to do so in a wide variety of areas.

  But we can now make them far more efficiently, and with farther-reaching consequences, than ever before. And efficiency is not a virtue when what you're doing would be better not done at all.

  In principle, the system is supposed to work like this. Somebody makes a proposal, spelling out in detail what it would provide and how its proponents think it would work. Others read the provisions and try to think of things that might go wrong and how the proposal might be improved. They question specific points and make counterproposals. After some back-and-forth, everybody comes to a reasonable semblance of agreement on a compromise that everybody can accept. Naturally the process will take time, because there will be many points of view and both reason and diplomacy will be required to achieve a meeting of minds. But with patience and diligence, it should be possible.

  In practice, it seems to work like this. Somebody (on “either” side*) makes a proposal and others attack it for a wide variety of reasons having little to do with what it actually says. Some simply don't read carefully or think logically, so they really believe their farfetched misinterpretations—e.g., that a provision for encouraging doctors to discuss end-of-life care with their patients implies the creation of “death panels” or the institution of euthanasia. Some are politicians in one party who simply can't bear to be seen endorsing something put forth by the other party, so they look for ways to attack it simply because it came from the other party. If they can't find a logical objection to what the proposal actually says, they invent lies about what it says, designed to provoke knee-jerk opposition. That's regrettably easy to do, because legislative proposals are typically written in such dense legalese, and accrete so much legislative moss, that hardly anybody can actually read the whole actual text even if they want to. So even wildly extravagant lies may spread rapidly and be unquestioningly accepted as truth, because few will bother to check them.

  Such behaviors are not, of course, limited to any one side of a controversy. Just as opponents of a proposal will lie about what it says to make people fear it, proponents will put the best spin they can on its provisions, sometimes to the point of misleading and putting something over on potential supporters. So anyone being asked for support must be wary of all sides in the discussion.

  Furthermore, not all the rumormongers are politicians who will do anything to win points for their party and make the opposition look bad. Some aren't politicians at all, but ordinary citizens who read with an all-too-common sloppiness. They read a sentence that says one thing, form a hazy impression of what it sort-of says, and leap to the conclusion that it means something wildly different from what it actually says. Or perhaps they're happy with what they have and are so afraid of losing it that they deliberately invent distortions of any proposed change, to try to make sure it will face so much opposition that it has no hope of success. Major changes are hardly ever promoted by those content with the status quo (and there are always some). They already have theirs, and they're most interested in making sure they keep it, regardless of what happens to anybody else.

  Similarly, but on the other side of the coin, those
who don't have much under the current system (of health care or anything else) may be so desperately eager to get some that they seize on any proposal that offers them hope. They invest themselves in unrealistically high expectations, refusing to think about possible problems or glitches in how the tempting proposal might really play out if adopted.

  Hardly anybody, on “either” side, ever shows much real interest in listening carefully to what the other side is saying, trying to figure out what the actual implications are likely to be, and working toward a solution that will be the best possible for the system as a whole (which means most of the people who live in it).

  None of this is new; people have always tended to act like this (though I suspect there's more interest in actively trying to make democracy work among people who can remember not having it than among those who've always had it and take it for granted). What is new is that it's now far easier than ever before for a small-minded hot-head who goes off half-cocked to have too much influence, too fast, on too many others. In the past, such people have typically had limited impact because they could only spread their views by such means as letters to the editors of newspapers, or the small number of handbills they could afford to print and distribute. Now, the internet and associated technologies that keep spinning off around it can spread information very cheaply, very far, very fast (the current buzzword is “virally"). And it matters not one whit whether that information consists of facts that everybody needs, or blatant lies calculated to mislead millions. Both are out there, and there's no easy way to tell which is which.

  But wouldn't it be refreshing if that system could be used to spread the idea—the deep-seated belief—that it's worthwhile to actually listen (critically) to what everybody in a discussion is saying, think about what it means, how it might work out in reality, and how it might be improved, and so work gradually toward a solution that might be good for practically everybody? If we can learn to do that, we might occasionally come up with solutions that are actually beneficial in a widespread and long-term way.

  And if we can't—we'll just keep digging deeper holes for ourselves.

  Copyright © 2010 Stanley Schmidt

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  * I put “either” in quotes because it implies that there are only two sides, which is seldom true.

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  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Novella: OF ONE MIND by Shane Tourtellotte

  Consensus makes it easier to get things done, but how much is it worth?

  I

  The truck slowed to a stop. Sign or light, it didn't matter. Lucinda crept to the back gate and peered out. She didn't see any pedestrians or other vehicles. This was her chance.

  She clambered out of the truck bed and onto the road. With only a fast precautionary glance for side traffic, she crouched down and half ran, half crawled to the roadside ditch. She kept down until the truck drove away, peeked, then hunkered back down as a few cars passed.

  Lucinda climbed out of the ditch, trying to brush mud spots off her legs. She looked back at the compound, a couple thousand feet down the road. There was no obvious activity, no sign of alert or of a search party forming. She was lucky things were still in such flux there, security still not locked back down.

  She found herself at a four-way intersection. The compound was south; the truck had driven off north. The country looked empty west, while east showed habitation, the outskirts of the large town a couple miles off.

  It's easier to hide in a multitude, Lucinda told herself, and started walking east in the gathering twilight.

  A car came driving toward her. She felt exposed before its driver. Her clothes were, if anything, a little too good for walking the shoulder of a road. She ignored the twisting in her stomach, acting inconspicuous until the car was well past her.

  Then she picked up her pace.

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  When Dr. Lucinda Peale began her work on the neurological rehabilitation of violent criminals seven years ago, she hadn't imagined it would lead to her teaching neural overlay techniques in the depths of a government bunker. She was not so surprised to find that she was a fairly good teacher. It was more of a revelation that she could get through these classes without surrendering to the urge to run from the room.

  "Neurotransmitter cascades produced by the overlay can spill beyond the areas intended to be impressed with the new neural pattern. When programming the overlay sequence, it's wise to create a buffer area a few neurons deep. Here, you would have the stimulator actually reinforce the pre-existing pattern of neurotransmitter release and uptake within the neurons. That will block any unintended spread."

  As her scientist pupils took notes, Lucinda displayed images from magnetoencephalograms of a brain as illustration. The subject's name was expunged, but Lucinda knew him quite well. Mohsen Abdi had been part of the nuclear terrorist plot that had destr
oyed Washington. When she was brought here to help uncover the terrorists, she had helped overlay the remorselessly monstrous portions of his frontal cortex with patterns from a more placid and moral brain. Thus treated, Mohsen became eager, indeed desperate, to give up his co-conspirators.

  Lewis Burleigh, the treasury secretary until Washington's incineration made him president, leaped on the practical possibilities of overlay. He began the crash program to expand drastically the number of scientists trained in the procedure. Lucinda had joined his program, though after seeing the scope of what Burleigh intended to do, it came with the greatest reluctance, and coercion.

  "Of course, when altering something as complex and interconnected as the human brain, the least effect is the best. That's why it's so important to segregate areas of the brain unrelated to the overlay from areas being altered. It's why, when planning your overlay, you should avoid as many redundancies as you can, the same way a computer programmer does when writing code. By concentrating your—yes, Ms. Madsen?"

  The young woman lowered her hand. “Isn't this being too fastidious, Dr. Peale? Don't we risk being less effective if we try too hard to limit the overlay's scope?"

  Lucinda felt a prickle of affront, having a grad student talk back this way. She didn't mind a good scholarly give and take, but this felt different. She looked at Madsen, while sensing the other eyes on her. “Any good surgeon wants to cut as little tissue as possible, especially healthy tissue. The same principle applies here. The guidance descends from the Hippocratic Oath itself: first, do no harm."

  "How is that relevant here?” Madsen said. “You have a diseased brain, just another kind of organ. The more of its diseased cognition you replace with a healthy one, the better."

  Lucinda felt like her ribcage was squeezing her. “It isn't the whole brain that's diseased."

  "If the brain is an interconnected whole, why not?"

  As Lucinda gathered herself to reply, she grew aware of the student behind Madsen. Dr. Garritty was much closer to her age, and a very attentive student. Right now, his attention was all on her, his dark eyes peering deeply, measuring her, gauging her reactions and responses. It felt disturbing, but maybe she was being paranoid. This place bred that.