More Star Trek Insights

I just watched "The Squire of Gothos" while exercising - you know, the one where the vastly-powered being in the frock coat turns out to be a bad little boy not being gentle with his toys. It is a memorable Star Trek episode, mostly due to William Campbell's characterization of the adolescent alien (which performance makes one less likely to notice that the whole thing smacks more of Lost in Space).

Trelayne's powers are not the result of normal abilities for his race, but are rather granted him by a machine, "instrumentalities", which allow him to change matter to energy at whim. It is abuse of those powers, and his childish inability to control his whims, which constitutes the danger to our crew. As Mr. Spock puts it, "intellect without discipline, and power without constructive purpose". Trelayne's parents show up to set everything right, and apologize to Kirk for the tribulations their wayward child has caused.

The show explores a theme which should give us pause. Power to change the world around one can quickly cause havoc, if that power is wielded imprudently and without consideration, not to mention when power is wielded spitefully in a moment of anger.

There is a scene later on in Charles Stross' book Accelerando where adolescent transhumans are in a fantasy space where all of their immature urges and angsts are played out on created beings. They hunt creatures from story books, and they hunt each other, and nothing they can imagine cannot be, however violent... It is a very sobering prospect.

One of the worst-case scenaria of nanotechnology is the "grey goo" outcome - a self-replicating nanoform which can duplicate itself using common materials is accidentally or deliberately released upon the world, and exponential growth of the nanofrom quickly crowds out all existing life. (A recent simulation indicated that the 'power bloom' from such rapid growth could be readily detected from orbit allowing time to respond, but it is still a chilling prospect.) Nano-engineers are aware of the possibility, and are careful to say that their designs for such self-replicators will require materials not easily available. However, these assurances are balanced by the knowledge that the most economically useful self-replicators will be those which use everyday materials as resources for new materials.

And what if, as some futurists project, nanotech becomes so everyday that anyone may be able to wield it at will, even designing their own forms to construct their own dreams? What if nanotech becomes so cheap and easy that anyone could whip up a self-replicating nano in a home lab? Is it a stretch of the imagination to think that someone might release such a form for the purposes of vengeance, or for extortion, or just to see what would happen?

It is nice to think that no human would so endanger their own environment like that. But we in fact have evidence, each day and today, that humans act in this way. What is a computer virus but a self-replicating form, which aggressively spreads to cause destruction? (Threatening, it might be added, the very host which makes its existence possible.) Aren't there people now who generate denial-of-service replication softwares to shut down websites, who release massively replicating forms on Second Life, just to see if it can be done?

It is sad to think that there are people who feel so insignificant in life that they stoop to initiating a disease just to get a reaction from the body politic. Or actually imitating a disease - flaming, that social disease I find so distasteful, cannot be separated from the flamer. One of the body's responses to disease is inflammation, and there seem to be people out there who are satisfied if such a response is all they can generate in others.

One way bodies fight disease is simply to be healthy - that is, by maintaining a balanced environment not hospitable to disease forms. Another way bodies respond to the attack of disease is antibodies - dedicated cells which surround disease forms, and attach to them, and crush from them the ability to do harm.

We have disease vectors aplenty - "intellects without discipline, powerful without constructive purpose". But we have no indulgent parents to show up just before the credits and put everything aright. It is up to us to maintain an environment not conducive to the growth of diseases. And it is time for the antibodies to come out and play.

Star Trek: Cautionary Tale About The Future?

I have been watching, over dinner and while pedaling the exercise bike, episodes from the original series Star Trek.

It is fun, to see them uncut and without commercials. There are also some memory jolts, and jolts of things which never went into memory, and some new realizations.

One thing which struck me in the first few episodes is the surprisingly anti-superlative tone taken toward human advancement. Surprising, given Rodenberry's generally-optimistic view of humans in the future.

We jump right in (after the first aired episode, "The Man Trap", perhaps better recalled by most people as "The Incredible Salt Vampire") with "Charlie X". Charlie Evans is a social infant in a teenage man's body, eager to be liked. In order to survive alone, he was granted powers to manipulate the reality around him by kindly aliens. But he has not learned to control his whims and the surging feelings of adolescence, and he spreads havoc. Then, if he can't be liked, he seeks at least to be respected and tries to take over the ship. But Kirk confronts him enough to let the aliens come and call him home.

In contrast to the baby-with-a-hand-grenade theme of that one, the very next episode (aired, not filmed) was "Where No Man Has Gone Before". In that one, passing through 'the barrier at the edge of the galaxy' gives an officer similar godlike mental powers. And even though the officer is mature, trained, and a friend of Kirk's, he too immediately sets in trying to take over things using his new powers.

What is interesting is, even allowing for the one-hour arc of the show, there is no examination of the benign or positive possibilities of his new powers. Only delusions (not so delusional, considering he can actually perform miracles!) of grandeur, and a growing threat to other humans he is coming to see as like insects compared to himself. The line "Absolute power, corrupting absolutely!" is even used.

Given Rodenberry's theme of humans continually perfecting themselves in the future, it is surprising indeed to be slapped in the face, right out of the gate, with these firm warnings that human beings would be unable to handle such powers. It may well be a carryover from the warnings about Krell hubris from Forbidden Planet (which film was so influential on the early design of Star Trek). But there still seems to be another focus at work. Was Roddenberry trying to assure viewers that, no matter how grand the technology in the ST universe became, people would still not dare to seek to become godlike? Was he perhaps even warning us about the dangers of becoming godlike?

Now that I think about it further, Kirk challenged "gods" in several other episodes, and proved that wits, determination, and sometimes just a good right cross were enough to keep up the human end. In "Who Mourns for Adonais?" the crew enounters the last of the Gods of Olympus, who tries to recruit them as worshippers until Kirk convinces him that humanity had grown past him. In "The Squire of Gothos" the crew is toyed with by immensely-powered Trelayne; Kirk keeps him busy until his parents show up and tell him it is time to come in now. In "Arena" Kirk fights the Gorn, but it is actually all to impress the watching vastly-powered aliens with humanity's level of progress. And even the "Gamesters of Triskelion", almost-disembodied entities jadedly wagering their kwatloos on the outcomes of contests between the bodied, may be considered godlike in their control over others but are ultimately shown reason by Kirk.

In each instance, it is human good sense, compassion, and, well, humanity which wins out over godlike abilities. A reassurance that, no matter how advanced we may become, humanity will out and still be the pre-eminent consideration for success. (And say - in one of the movies, didn't Kirk even confront "God" and punch him in the nose? The theme continues!)

It is interesting to consider some of the current discussions of possible human futures from this perspective. And it is not inappropriate; Star Trek is such a social force, so familiar to anyone following science or science fiction, that many of the people now discussing human futures had their views influenced, if not actually shaped, by the Star Trek universe.

Later incarnations of Star Trek explored the theme even further, stabilizing around the "Q Continuum" and its quirky representative, Q himself. Q's powers are indeed godlike, but the Q have in their advancement lost some of the things which are normal to humanity and have a grudging recognition of and fascination with that fact. In current discussional terms, the Q have "passed beyond the Singularity", but there are some elements/members of the Q who still have interest in "what they left behind" - the posthumans looking in on what those quaint humans are up to.

The more you examine it, the more you see the spoor of Star Trek in the projections discussed by many pro-Singularitarians. The holodeck, using a combination of technologies never fully elaborated in the series, becomes "fogspace". The transporter technology, able to completely scan the pattern of a living creature and restore it exactly, becomes the basis for body replication. The hinted-at but never fully-explored financial structure of the Star Fleet future is surely enabled by nanotech-powered factories, turning out endless material wealth. Sentient computers are commonplace in Star Trek, (though AIs seem to be a bit retarded).

The combining of human with machine intellect, so central to many transhuman manifestos, is however violently rejected in the Star Trek universe. In the form of the Borg, such a melding is viewed as the greatest conceivable threat to our humanity and survival as a species. It is all very well to have a Data for a friend, but not to become one with him...

We are warned, too, about the velvet trap of too much ease. The holodeck, nice for little vacations, is repeatedly shown to be a place in which you should not dwell too long. (Another indication of the greater level of advancement in the ST future - how many contemporary people do you know who, given the opportunity to hang out in a holodeck, could resist being there 24/7?) Even before that, in the original series episode "I, Mudd" we are warned that having what you think you want is not all it is cracked up to be - Harry Mudd, surrounded by willing android servants built to his specs, is still not happy and is in fact controlled by them. And in numerous episodes Kirk has to disrupt happy and peaceful cultures because they are, in Kirk's view, stagnant and controlled (often by machines).

I'll have to do more thinking on this. But it seems at this time that every element of what the transhumanist/Singularitarian types are talking about, both pro and con, may be found in the Star Trek universe. So was ST ahead of its time, in discussing these elements? Or did it help create these beliefs?

Addendum:

Working further through the episodes has brought up some other interesting points.

In "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" Dr. Corby has found the remains of an ancient culture, guarded over by Lurch (an ancient android) and himself becomes transferred into an android body. Then he creates an android assistant and girlfriend. This episode has not one but two cautionary notes. Though the doctor believes he has been transferred completely into the basically-immortal android body, our heroes prove that he in fact left his soul behind. And "Roc" (the Lurch-android) reveals that the androids had been forced to destroy "the Old Ones" who created them because the humans were frustratingly imperfect.

A later episode, "Shore Leave", addresses yet another angle. The Shore Leave planet constructs and makes available anything anyone is thinking about, a la the mighty Krell device from Forbidden Planet. But our human crew is unable to sufficiently control their thinking, and their background thoughts turn deadly. This is essentially the later holodeck made real on a planetwide scale. (I seem to recall that in the James Blish written version of the episode he includes the idea that there is also a "happy gas" in the atmosphere, which kindly explains why the crew seems to be so slow on the uptake that whenever they think about something it turns up, no matter how unlikely.) (I think one crewman got too much happy gas - he is in a garden paradise, a lovely and eager lady by his side, and instead of wooing her he tells her about WWII aircraft. And while Kirk is chasing his old nemesis Finnegan, his subconscious mind pops up his old flame Ruth - hmmm..... And Sulu chases off after Don Juan and is gone for a long time - with what we now know about George Takei, pretty humorous.)

And another addendum:

In "Errand of Mercy" the Organians seem to be placid pastoral stagnant humans, but are actually placid omnipotent posthumans "as far above us evolutionarily as we are above the amoeba". The Organians regretfully but firmly impose peace between humans and Klingons, then return to their realm of pure thought. And our crew is left to ponder what it will be like in a few million years when humanity might become godlike. (Though answer me this - if the Organians were so anti-violence, why did the faux village they cast up for visitors have a sturdy dungeon ready at hand?)(And why is it that, with all the high-tech warp-speed zipping around the universe our crew did, they always seemed to end up imprisoned in medieval dungeons?)

Synergy

I forget our wedding anniversary, a while back. Totally spaced it. My wife had to (gently) remind me of it.

Stereotypical male, eh? Forgets the anniversary. Luckily, my wife is not the matching stereotypical female, and does not bring retribution into play. She knows that I value and try to celebrate our marriage every day, and doesn't lay a trip on me because I didn't make the connection with the date. (She also knows that I often have an only passing acquaintance with day and date, that if I am not at work with the date in front of me I might have to stop and think what month it is, that I have only a vague idea of when holidays fall, and that I have been known to overlook my own birthday. I deal in seasons, not markings on a calendar.)

Still, I should have twigged to it and made a small fuss. Our partnership is worth celebrating. Sorry, dear.

Thinking of our relationship makes me think about other couples I have known, and what it means to be part of a couple, and how so many societal expectations of couples are carried over from olden times. Being married is a balancing act, not only between the expectations and needs of two people, but between the couple and the expectations of society. The societal "rules" have to be taken into account. And they often have to be overcome.

Another "stereotypical male thing": when people ask how long we have been married, I have to stop and think about it for a while. But my wife often has to do the same thing, because we were together for years before we were married, and "how long have you been married?" is the same question as "how long have you been together?" if you consider the term 'married' by its truest definition of 'joined'. We were a couple, joined, long before the formality which said we were married.

But it's funny - even some people who knew us as a couple before we married starting treating us differently after we got the certificate, as if the ceremony and the piece of paper changed our relationship or who we were. Especially who we were as individuals, as though we could no longer operate independently, as though there had been a dependence shift and some diminution of ourselves.

This has always puzzled me, and I have made a point of watching how other couples interact, and how people treat couples. And I have concluded that many people work from definitions and labels, and once a label has been applied they pop in their expectation tape bearing that label. But those tapes often come from a collection which was handed to them from a previous age, and they have never questioned their content. "So-and-so are now a couple, so they should act in such-and-such a way." The tapes play out, like obsolete software which has never been revised.

There's a hierarchy of relationship, in sociology, which considers the pinnacle of interpersonal relationship as being "interdependence" - a state where the couple is balanced, serving each other's needs, strengths countering each other's weaknesses. I understand what the developers of this theory were trying to achieve. But even when it was presented to me I thought it did not go far enough, and now (more than 20 years later) I feel even more strongly that this is so. "Interdependence" is too close to "codependence", and I have seen enough codependence in others to last a lifetime. I think we should rather speak of "interindependence" as being the pinnacle for relationships in the modern age.

Interdependence is more of a functional consideration, but interindependence verges on the philosophical. To be interdependent is to recognize that each has roles and duties to fulfill in the relationship. But to be interindependent is to recognize that while you are each perfectly capable of being complete people on your own, you are happier and better off in your relationship with your partner. Interdependence smacks of neediness; interindependence implies a judicious choice.

The idea of interdependence arose from an earlier time, when marriage more typically occurred earlier and people did not so often live together before marriage. Too, the average age at time of first marriage has climbed; people have more time to develop themselves as individuals before they marry (or experiment with other relationships first). Thus, interdependence is a carryover from a paradigm which no longer exists. (If it ever existed at all - did anyone ever marry their highschool sweetheart right after graduation and live happily ever after, except in Ozzie-and-Harriet Land?)

People who come from the framework of interdependence are often confused and sometimes challenged by interindependence they witness. It is as though they signed away their individuality when they became part of a couple, and believe that others must inevitably do the same. And they often act as though those who retain their identity as an individual are Breaking The Law. These are the people who are often "joined at the hip" with their couple-other, who are seen without them only in narrowly-defined circumstances. (And even when the couple-other is not present, the tether joining their hips, though invisible, is so evident that one may trip over it.) These are also the people who, if they see a person in public without their couple-other, will often start whisperings that There Must Be Something Wrong.

What these people need (besides a heaping dose of mindyourownbusiness - I have nothing but contempt for busybodies, gossips, and rumormongers) is to be exposed to the concept of synergy:

The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined
effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.

It is wonderfully romantic to speak of one's soul-mate, "the one who completes me", someone "without whom I am nothing". But the actuality is that I existed as a person, as a someone, before my marriage and without my partner, and could do so again. And that is true for my wife as well. We are both perfectly capable of being on our own, complete people who can deal with the world as such.

But we are both happier, and better off, and I think have a whole lot more fun, as part of a synergistic couple. Not driven together by feelings of incompleteness, but brought together by a desire to get more out of life than we can get by ourselves. And having someone who helps you experience life more fully, and helping someone else experience life more fully, is the secret ingredient which makes synergy more than simply the sum of the parts.

Sages & Prophets, Part 2 - Ted Sturgeon

Theodore Sturgeon, besides being the author of some of my favorite science fiction works, is also famous for giving us the "law" which bears his name.

You may encounter various versions of it, but it all started with a speech he gave at a con way back when, in which he said -

"People come up to me and complain that ninety percent of science fiction is crud. To which I reply that ninety percent of everything is crud. It is the remaining 10 percent which is important."

The word "crud" is often changed to "crap" when cited, and the percentage seems to vary in relation to one's pessimism - I have heard it stated as anywhere from 80% to 98%. And Sturgeon's Law is sometimes referred to as Sturgeon's Revelation.

But whatever you call it and whatever percentage you assign (I usually hover around 85%, myself), it is hard to push the Law out of your mind once you have heard it.

Remember, when Sturgeon came up with this revelation science fiction was often being criticized as not being "real literature", and both writers and fans of the genre were often faintly on the defensive. Sturgeon was reminding us that, as a subset of the popular culture, the merits of SF were no lesser than in the culture as a whole. If 85% of SF is crap, so are 85% of TV offerings, 85% of mass market publishing, etc.

But in the Internet era, the Law takes on a whole new power. And a big part of the reason for that is that digital information is infinitely and easily reproducible, which means that in a digital world, it is easier than ever to spread crap around.

It is easier to shovel crap than it used to be. (Trust me, I've moved tons.) Digital crap has no weight, no inertia to overcome. Digital crap does not require laboring over the typewriter/mimeo/photocopier/word processor (choose your era). Digital crap can be distributed (or, more pointedly, re-distributed) basically at no cost. In fact, digital crap has no real existence at all. Only stink. The stink remains, and is all too real.

One thing fostering the spreading of crap around the 'Net is the fact that there is very little original content in most Internet postings. Scrutinize web offerings with an objective eye and you will see that most things you receive or are directed to are multi-generational copies, far removed from what may be archaically called "the original" - we need a new term, since digital copies are essentially identical with no generational loss or accumulated noise. (Perhaps we should speak rather of the point of origin, rather than make any reference to some actual original "document".) You get forwards, chain letters, "check this out" alerts, quotes and excerpts - and that is just from people you know, even before the quintessential crap which we call spam.

I stated above that my particular version of Sturgeon's Law is:

"85% of everything is crap."

Some would call that generous, but I tend to the optimistic (while having my feet firmly anchored in realistic soil).

But that is for everything - talk about that subset of everything which we call the Internet and my assigned percentage boosts well above 90%. Far above ninety percent, and approaching 100% in some areas. Ease of reproduction and lack of originality has made the Internet the biggest repository of crap in human history. (Anonymity in throwing crap around is another large contributing factor - give someone a mask to hide behind, and their crap output triples.)

I remain optimistic. I believe that the Internet will mature, and by association mature its users. I support this belief by reminding myself yet again that the computer-facilitated communications which we utilize are in their infancy, and this infantile technology sees lots of infantile usage. And producing crap is one of the major things infants do. But infants are also busy absorbing, and learning, and growing toward adulthood.

And maybe someday the big crap-meter will creep back down toward 85% for the Internet.