Chapter 21 Chapter 19 Human Madness

Miss Prinkle Folder - Indira Dear Indira - sorry I didn't even send you a voicemail - the excuse is of course the same as usual so I won't bother to say it. To answer your question - yes, I'm currently quite comfortable in the big three hotels and spending less and less time there, but I'm happy with the view of the sky I'm getting in my suite.Last night there was a great show on the Io magneto - a sort of electrical discharge between Jupiter (I mean the moon) and Europa.Much like the aurora on Earth, but much more spectacular.Radio astronomers discovered this phenomenon before I was born.

Now that we are talking about ancient times—do you know that there is a sheriff in Langshen City?I think they've gone a little crazy with their pioneering spirit.Reminds me of those Arizona stories my grandpa used to tell... I must tell some of them to Wei San... It might sound silly to say one thing - I'm not used to being in the Bowman suite.I can't help but keep looking back... How do I pass the time?It's about the same as in the Tower of Africa.I met with local intellectuals, although you might expect that they were fairly rare (hope no one eavesdropped).And I've also interacted with the education system (both real and virtual) and it seems to be pretty good, although a little more tech oriented than you'd agree.This is inevitable, in such an unfamiliar environment...

But that made me understand why anyone would want to live here.That's a challenge I don't see very often on Earth—a sense of purpose, you could say. Indeed, most of the Weisan were born here, so they don't think there is any other hometown.Although they were—usually—too polite to say so, they felt that Mother Planet was becoming increasingly decadent.Are you?If so, what are you "locals" (as the locals call you) going to do?I met a class of high school students hoping to wake you up.They even drew up a top-secret plan to invade Earth, but don't say I didn't warn you...

I took a walk outside Langshen City, to the so-called "secret place", where I would never see Tai Kai.A group of ten of us - Chandler, two Goliath crew members and six guards - went into the "dark place" and chased the sun until it went down to the horizon, so it was real night there, it was amazing- — Much like winter in the polar regions on Earth, but the sky is pitch black... makes me almost feel like I'm in space. We saw all of the Galilean moons without incident, and Europa "eclipsed" Io -- sorry, "obscured" Io.Of course, the trip was well timed so we could see...

I just saw several smaller planets in the solar system, but the "Earth-Moon Binary Star" is still the most eye-catching.Will I be homesick?Honestly, no - but I miss my new friends there... What I'm sorry for - haven't met with Dr. Ted Khan, although he's left me several messages.I promise to see him in a few days--Earth Day, not David's Day! Give my regards to Anderson and Danny - do you know how Danny is doing now?Have you turned back into a human?Enclosed is my love... store send In Poole's day, a name would say something about a person's physical appearance, but 30 generations later, that is no longer true.As a result, Dr. Ted Khan turned out to be a blond and blue-eyed Nordic man. Instead of letting him gallop on the grasslands of Central Asia, it would be more likely to put him on a pirate ship.He won't be too successful in either role, though, since he's under 150cm tall.Poole couldn't resist a bit of amateur psychoanalysis: Small people are usually performance-seekers—which, judging by Indira's hints, was obviously very interesting to Ganymede's only philosopher. good description.Khans may have needed these qualities in order to survive in such a functionally oriented society.

Wolfshen City is too small to accommodate a proud college campus—although some people believe that the communication revolution has made college campuses a thing of the past, such luxury still exists in other worlds.Instead, Wolfshen City has a more appropriate academy that is also centuries old.There is also a small grove of olive trees in the Academy, which even Plato would have believed unless you tried to walk through the grove yourself.Indira's joke that "a philosophy department needs nothing but a blackboard" obviously doesn't apply in this sophisticated environment.

"It's designed for use by seven people," Dr. Khan said proudly as they sat down in deliberately uncomfortable chairs, "because that's the maximum number of people who can interact effectively. And, If you count the soul of Socrates, that's the number of people Phaedo delivered his famous speech..." "The lecture on the immortality of the soul?" Dr. Khan's surprised expression made Poole couldn't help laughing. “When I took a crash course in philosophy before I graduated—when I was arranging the class schedule, some people thought that we rough-handed engineers should receive a little cultural baptism.”

"It makes me so happy to hear that, it makes things so much easier. You know, I can't believe my luck yet. You've almost made me believe in miracles by coming here! I thought about going too. Earth sees you - did dear Indira tell you about my - er - obsession?" "No," replied Poole half-heartedly. Dr. Khan seemed rather pleased, apparently delighted to find a new audience. "You've probably heard me called an atheist, but that's not always true. Atheism is unprovable and not interesting. We'll never be sure, no matter how improbable, that God ever existed and now flies to infinity Where no one can find it... like Shakyamuni. I am not in a position to comment on this subject, my field is in abnormal psychology commonly known as 'religion'."

"Abnormal psychology? Such a judgment is extreme." "It's well documented. Suppose you're an alien intelligent being, concerned only with verifiable truth, and you discover a species that splits itself into thousands—no, millions—by now, with All kinds of beliefs about the origin of the universe and the code of conduct. Although many ethnic groups have the same idea, and even 99% of them overlap, the remaining 1% is still enough to make them believe in dogma. At the end of the day (it makes no sense to outsiders), they killed each other. "How to explain these irrational behaviors? The ancient Roman poet Lucretius said it well when he said that religion is a by-product of fear—a response to a mysterious and often hostile universe. For the prehistoric period of man, this A necessary evil perhaps. But why more evil than necessary? Why is it handed down when it is no longer necessary?

"I said evil - I am not exaggerating, because fear leads to cruelty. As long as you know a little bit of the history of the Inquisition, you will be ashamed of yourself as a human being... The most disgusting book in history is "The Extermination of Witches", a few perverts Written by a fellow, describing the prisons authorized and even encouraged by the Holy See - to extract 'confessions' from thousands of innocent old women, and then burn them alive... The Pope himself even wrote an approving preamble! "But most other religions - with a few respectable exceptions - are as bad as Catholicism... Even in your day, little boys were chained and whipped until they remembered the bullshit , deprived of childhood and youth, to become a monk...

"Perhaps the most baffling aspect of the whole thing is that guys who are clearly lunatics have been claiming for centuries and centuries that they - and only themselves! - receive messages from God. If all the messages agree , then the world will be at peace; but of course the messages are wildly different, and that doesn't stop a self-proclaimed savior from gathering hundreds, sometimes even millions, of believers to a slightly different but equally misguided Other denominations are desperate." Poole decided it was time to challenge Ted. "When you say that, it reminds me of an incident that happened in my hometown when I was a child. A saint—in quotation marks—opened a shop, declared that he could perform miracles, and almost immediately gathered a cult. Also, his followers are neither stupid nor illiterate, and usually come from the best families. Every Sunday morning, I see some fancy cars parked by his -- er -- shrine." "It's called 'Rasputin Syndrome', and there are millions of examples of it in history, all over every country. About one in 1,000 of that kind of cult can last for several generations. What happened to this?" "Well, his opponents were pretty upset and tried to discredit him. Wish I remembered his name - he used a long Indian name, Swami or something. Turns out the guy was actually from Alabama Come on. One of his tricks is to conjure holy objects out of thin air and give them to worshipers. Coincidentally, our local rabbi happens to be an amateur magician and publicly demonstrates how to do that trick. But it doesn't work at all , believers say that the magic of the saint is real, and the rabbis are just jealous of him. "I'm sorry to say this, but my mother was serious about that rascal for a while, not long after my father ran off, and maybe that had something to do with it. She even dragged me to hear him preach once. I was maybe ten years old, but I don't think I've ever seen such a nasty-looking person. He's got a beard that's big enough for birds to live in, maybe!" "Sounds like a typical example, how long has this guy been doing well?" "Three or four years. Then he left town in a hurry; because he was caught throwing teenage sex parties. Of course he said he was doing occult soul-saving. You wouldn't believe—" "tell me the story." "Even at that time, there are still a bunch of idiots who believe him: their gods can't be wrong, so he must have been woven." "Luo Zhi?" "Sorry, that means convicting people with false evidence. That's what the police sometimes do when nothing else works." "Hmm. Well, your Swami is so typical, I'm so disappointed. But it does help to prove my point that most humans are always crazy, at least sometimes." "This example in Flagstaff is an unrepresentative sample." "True, but I could cite a thousand of the same examples, not just in your century, but in all ages. No matter how absurd it may be, there are people who are willing to believe it, usually fanatically, and would rather defend it than defend it. Willing to let go of my own misconceptions. That, to me, is an excellent operational definition of insanity." "Do you think people with strong religious beliefs are crazy?" "On a strictly technical level, yes - if they're all really religious and not hypocrites. But I would estimate that maybe 90% of them are hypocrites." "I'm sure Master Bernstein is sincere. He's the most sane and best person I've ever met. How do you explain that? The only real genius I've ever met is Dr. Chandra, The guy who leads Project Hal. I went into his office once to find him, and when I knocked on the door, there was no answer. I thought no one was there. "He was praying to some strange bronze statuettes with flowers in front of them. One of them looked like an elephant... and the other had more than two arms... I felt very embarrassed, but luckily he didn't see it, so I tiptoed out. Would you say he was crazy?" "Your example is bad, geniuses are usually crazy! So let's put it this way: they are not crazy, but mentally impaired, and that is due to childhood conditioning. The Jesuits declare: 'Give a child to I have six years, and he will be mine for the rest of his life.’ If they catch young Chandra in time, he’ll be a devout Catholic, not a Hindu.” "Possibly. But I'm puzzled. Why are you so anxious to see me? I'm afraid I've never been religious about anything. What have I to do with all this?" With obvious relief, Dr. Khan told him exactly.