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When I read More Than Human during my teenage years over forty years ago it was a murky novel too adult for me to understand.  I’ve just finished listening to the Blackstone Audiobooks edition read by Stefan Rudnicki and Harlan Ellison, and at age 57, the story now feels crystal clear.  There’s a reason why More Than Human shares the #1 spot with Dune and The Demolished Man on the Classics of Science Fiction list.  The book is powerful and deeply psychological and reminds me more of Faulker than science fiction.  Theodore Sturgeon wasn’t you typical science fiction writer, he explored inner space rather than outer space.

More Than Human is a fix-up novel comprised of three related novelettes that cover several years of action.  They are “The Fabulous Idiot,” “Baby is Three” and “Morality.”  The novel is about several abnormal kids with paranormal talents that struggle to form a single being which they call homo gestalt.  I don’t want to describe the novel in detail, those can be found through the links I provide, instead I want to analyze the novel for what it says.

Theodore Sturgeon was interested in psychiatry and the inner landscape of the human mind when he wrote this book.  More Than Human came out in 1953 at a time when literature and film were obsessed with psychotherapy.   We had just gotten over a monstrous world war that killed tens of millions of people and left us with technology that could end mankind.  I think a lot of people were afraid of the future.  This is also the time of Joseph McCarthy and his witch hunt for reds, the Korean War, A and H bomb testing, the Rosenberg trial, childhood diseases, birth defects, polio scares, juvenile delinquency and other troubling stories filling the news.

The early 1950s represented a shift in science fiction publishing from the golden age pulps to the higher status of hardback and paperback publication, and Hollywood movie productions, pushing science fiction into the public eye just when everyone was thinking about the end of the world and hoping for a brighter future.  This time also coincided with the rise of many superhero comics, an interesting psychological expression of the times in itself.

From these influences, Sturgeon works to imagine what the next stage of homo sapiens will be like, but he comes up with the most bizarre origin for his new homo gestalt: damaged and rejected children.  Instead of a handsome Übermensch, Sturgeon assembles a group body made up of kids with wild talents and its head from a supercomputer like brain housed in a baby with severe birth defects.  The children’s group mind is tied together with ESP powers.

This is another reflection of the 1950s, when concepts of psi-powers thrilled the public and even overwhelmed the science fiction magazines.  Why was the generation just before the baby boomers so into psychic powers?  I think More Than Human is a very impressive novel, but hugely flawed philosophically.  The desire to be Slans begs for psychoanalysis.  I think all of 1940s and 1950s science fiction that dwelt on this topic culminated in 1961 with the publication of Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein.

Why does every imagined homo superior have psychic powers?  And are not psychic powers the same powers that gods have in myths and religion?  And in many books about Human 2.0 they also predict an indifference to killing members of Human 1.0 species, another god-like power.

Sturgeon leaves us thinking we need homo gestalt to solve the problems of homo sapiens, but the one specific example that occurs in More Than Human of homo gestalt helping a single poor man goes neglected.  I admire this novel for its writing, but I don’t like what it says.  I just don’t believe the next stage of human development involves gaining psychic powers.  Decades of science has shown there is actually zero ESP ability in human beings.  Nor is there any reason to believe we will evolve ESP abilities.  About the closest we’ll ever get to telepathy is the cell-phone and look what people do with that ability.

I think there’s a reason why Slan and More Than Human are not well known novels, and why Stranger in a Strange Land caused a lot of controversy.  I think the average person doesn’t believe in psychic powers and they don’t want to live in a world where those powers exist. 

The TV show Heroes is exploring this topic now, but the writers and producers don’t know how to deal with it topic philosophically.  They understand that the general public would probably want to exterminate those with abilities, but they want to make their Heroes acceptable, but their Heroes are like the crazy Greek gods fighting amongst themselves, seeming capricious and petty.  They save themselves and not humans.

I can’t think of any novel that explores homo superior ever coming up with a believable future in which psychic powers makes things better.  In the over half-century since More Than Human was published we have made the world much better.  Sure, we have mountains of problems, but we don’t have many of the terrible problems we used to have.  And none of these problems were solved with psychic powers.  Supermen can’t stop war, they can only oppress us.  Sturgeon knew this at the end of More Than Human.

JWH – 3/15/9   

I work in a College of Education and our students go on to become teachers, so we get Apple sales reps visiting every year and I met with a couple yesterday.  Apple Computers tries hard to own the K-12 market, but I don’t have any figures to show how successful they are.  We have three computer labs in our building and two are filled with Macintosh computers, with the assumption that teacher education students need to train on the type of computers they will see in their future jobs.  Actually, the PC lab is the most used.

My day job involves programming, web development, server management and computer support.  I’ve been working with computers since 1971, and I began working with Apple II computers in 1978 and Macintosh computers in 1984.  I admire Apple.  The Macintosh is a fantastic computer, but I just don’t know if it belongs in the school systems.

Every time I meet Apple reps I feel like I’m talking to two clean cut Mormons that have come to my door to sell their religion.  Apple people believe in their Macintosh and feel all kids should have one.  Apple Computers got a beachhead in the school systems with the Apple II machines and it was natural that teachers wanted Macintoshes when they came out.  The trouble is students leaving K-12 schools end up in colleges and businesses where Windows reign supreme.

Despite Apple’s excellent computers, the exposure to kids to Macintoshes throughout their school life, the overwhelmingly cool marketing campaigns, Apple has only gained about 1/20th of the market.  Why is that?  Macs cost too much.  I mention that to the Apple reps yesterday and they pooh-pooh that belief, but it’s true.  Several times in my life I was determined to buy a Mac but after pricing them at the Apple Store, and even considering my education discount, I always faced too much sticker shock and walk out.  I then go elsewhere and buy a Windows machine for half as much money.

The last time this happened I wanted to buy an iMac, but only the $1799 version was practical because of memory, DVD burner and 20″ screen.  I left the story and bought a HP with more memory and hard drive space for $498, and then bought an excellent Samsung 22″ LCD monitor for $222 and was completely happy.

Which makes me wonder why cash strapped school systems buy Apple computers?  And now with the economy the way it is, really, why do they buy Apple computers?  If schools bought parts, taught their students to build computers, and accepted Linux, they could have 3-4 times as many computers for their money, or just save a lot of money.  Isn’t the idea of going to school to learn?  Wouldn’t building computers and using open source software inspire a lot more learning than getting the easy to use expensive computers?

When the Apple II came out schools justified expending enormous amounts of money on computers because students would learn about programming and computer literacy.  They don’t universally teach programming in schools anymore, and computer literacy is a moot point since most tykes pick up computer skills before they start school.  Hell, if I ran a school I’m not sure I would have computers in the schools at all, but that’s a different rant.

Another issue about computers in schools is compatibility.  If 95% of society uses one kind of computer, why have kids study on the one that gets 5% of the market?  Of course, I wonder why 100% of everyone isn’t using the same kind of computer.  Can you imagine what our society would be like if Sony TVs got some stations and Samsung TVs got different stations?  Or if Fords had to drive on different roads than Toyotas.  Or if you bought a toaster and it only worked with wheat bread.  Or if you have a telephone that only got calls from telephones of the same brand?  I could go on and on with the examples, but I’m sure you get my point.

But if my point is made, why should Windows be the universal computer OS, even if it has already gained 95% of the market share?  We’re pretty close to having 100% hardware standardized on Intel chips and its clones, and it’s just the finicky OS that’s giving everyone fits.  You’d think the open source folks and Linux would have won the war by now, but they haven’t.  The momentum is with Windows.  It’s a shame we can’t (inter)nationalize Windows 7 and take it away from Microsoft and make it open source and give it free to the world.

And what’s so technologically hard about building a computer OS that everyone can write programs for, that wouldn’t crash, that wouldn’t get infected by viruses and malware, that would be easy and elegant to use, and be universal across all the countries of the world.  I mean, Unicode has already been invented, why not UniOS?

When I saw the Apple reps yesterday I told them I would find Apple more acceptable if their OS was sold to run on any Intel box like Windows and Linux.  I just can’t get behind endorsing one company as a universal standard.  Hey, Bill Gates, make Windows 7 open source.  Windows is less elite than Apple because it runs on computers made by anybody, but it still can’t be a world-wide universal standard if it’s sold by one company.

I think schools should buy components and build computers that can run any OS that the students want to put on them.  Make Windows 7 and OS X open source and let them compete with Linux.  Let the OSes battle it out for 10 years and then let’s pick the UniOS for the world standard starting in 2020.

JWH – 3/12/9

I recommend Audible.com all the time, but I forget not everyone is a Geek like me that loves technology.  I figure I need a warning page to refer folks to if they are interested in trying Audible.com.  Most people think of CDs and cassettes when they think of audio books, and there are plenty of Amish like 20th century bookworms still needing something to hold when they purchase an audio book, but to really appreciate living in the 21st century you need to use a MP3 player, like an iPod, and get into buying invisible digital audio books.

If you are old fashion you can join Audible and burn CDs, but it takes a certain level of tech savvy to even do that, and it can be frustrating if the CD burning software doesn’t run well on your computer.  No, the real ease of use is in switching to digital files, and giving up physical media like CDs and cassettes.

Most books at Audible.com are $10-15 depending on the buying plan you sign up for, or $10-100 if you buy as you go, or get the same books from iTunes.  This can be considerable cheaper than buying 22 CD sets from your local bookstore or even Amazon.  I pay $9.56 a book because I buy 24 credits at a time that I take about a year to use.  The savings come from the publishers and sellers not having to manufacture a product to ship and warehouse.

Kids and cool oldsters who have iPods and buy digital music will have no trouble with getting audio books from Audible or iTunes.  I mention these two companies together because iTunes sells Audible.com books.  Audible.com is like a book club where you sign up for 1 or 2 books a month buying plans (or 12 or 24 packs).  You can go to iTunes and pay more and buy the same books one at a time with no commitments.

There are two skills involved with switching to digital audio books.  The first is getting a player that accepts Audible.com books, and most do, setting it up to buy and download books, and copying the books to your players.  Audible.com pretty much works with either iTunes for people with iPods, and Audible Manager or Windows Media Player 11 for all the other MP3 devices, and these include MP3 players, phones and PDAs that play MP3 songs, the Kindle and all the other odd digital devices that are Audible.com compatible.  If you wonder why the new ebook wonder, the Kindle is Audible compatible it might be because Amazon.com owns Audible.com.

The second skill, and often this is the harder one, is learning how to carry a player around and integrate listening to audio books into your everyday routines.  I’m afraid most people equate listening to audio books with playing CDs or cassettes in their cars on long trips, and that’s a great way to listen to audio books.  I carry my Zune in my shirt pocket all day long.  I’m never without it.  Having a small player like a Nano or Zune is better than having a heavier hard disk MP3 player because you want to learn to carry it everywhere.

When I see that the dishes need washing I think to myself, “Hey, it’s time to listen to my book.”  If I’m eating alone I listen to my book.  If I go for a walk or grocery shopping I listen to my book.  If you do anything physical that doesn’t involve words it’s possible to listen to audio books.  So filing bills doesn’t work, but my wife loves to cross-stitch and listen.  I can’t program computers and listen, but I can when I do software installs that involve a lot of tedious waiting.  You develop a knack for squeezing in reading.

The trick is to get past learning those new skills.  It is very futuristic to carry a 2 ounce device that can hold two dozen unabridged audio books.  Listening to audio books has transformed my reading habits too, because I’ll listen to books I’d never had the patience to read.  Who knew how much I’d love Edith Wharton’s fiction, or how intellectually stimulating it is to listen to the Bible, and I’m an atheist.  Philosophy and history books comes alive for me on audio books.  And listening to fiction with a great dramatic reader is like going from analog to high definition TV.

But, it can be a frustrating experience to get into.  Audible.com does have wonderful 1-800 support staff.  And there’s a Yahoo discussion group devoted to Audible that offers a lot of friendly help plus has great book chats.

Like I said, the easiest way to just try a digital audio listening is if you already have an iPod with iTunes set up is to just buy an audio book from the iTunes store to try out the concept.  It’s more expensive than Audible.com, but you don’t have to make a commitment.  I highly recommend that you listen to the sample audio passage before buying because some people do not take to all narrators.  And don’t give up if you have one bad experience.  Learning to listening to audio books takes practice like learning to read.

Most libraries now offer their patrons Overdrive or NetLibrary digital audio books.  This is another good way to try reading with your ears and learning to use digital media players.  This is a case where iPods aren’t the King of the Hill.  A low-cost Sandisk Sansa or Creative Labs MP3 player can be a good starting device – but check with your library first for compatibility issues.  Some digital players will work with Audible, Overdrive, NetLibrary and even music subscription services like Rhapsody and Napster.  A Zune 3.0 will work with Audible and Overdrive.

Low cost players can be had for $30 on sale, but you need to make sure it’s compatible with the audio books you want to buy or get from your library, and I highly recommend you get a player with a screen.  There are low cost players without screens, like the iPod Shuffle, and they can be used for audio books, but they can be tricky to use.  Audio books come on multiple files and if you don’t know which file is playing it can be hard to find the one you want without seeing the filename on the display.  Some of my friends have recommended the Sansa Clip as a good starter player.  Make sure it has the latest firmware because older versions had some quirks.

Just work through the techphobia and go digital.

JWH – 6/11/9

The greatness of a novel depends on the reader.  Any novel you read that you heavily identify with increases its chance at being a gripping yarn.  The Naked Sun was a page turner for me because I have a touch of agoraphobia.  Asimov imagines a future Earth of 5022 AD of being so overcrowded that people live underground and this conditions our descendents to be afraid of open spaces.

  

The Naked Sun is a murder mystery about a detective from Earth, Elijah Baley, who fears open spaces, visiting the planet Solaria, where people fear contact with other people.  Solaria only has 20,000 inhabitants, each supported by thousands of robots.  Citizens of Solaria live on grand estates separate from each other by thousands of square miles.  Even marriage is traumatic to Solarians, with most spouses choosing to live apart in their large mansions, and they consider the topic of children to be vulgar.

To everyone on Solaria it is obvious that the only person that could have killed Rikaine Delmarre is his wife Gladia.  They all fear contact with each other so much that they know deep in their heart only a spouse could have gotten close enough to bludgeon Rikaine to death.  Baley can’t accept this.

Elijah Baley is once again partnered with R. Daneel Olivaw, an android from Aurora that he first met in the book The Caves of Steel.  The challenges that detective Baley face on a strange new world are many.  He must overcome his fear of the outdoors, find ways to to escape his overly protective robot partner, R. Daneel Olivaw, who may have different political motivations for working on the case, while most of all, convince the murder suspects that they need to meet with him in person, an act of perversion from their point of view.

Normally I don’t like mysteries, and I really had no interest in who  murdered Rikaine, but for three days I was always anxious to get back to this book.  The story grabbed me because of its psychological issues, and although their extremes were unbelievable, I found it very believable that humans could create such diverse cultures that would alter the thinking of their people.

Strangely enough, Asimov didn’t explore the psychology of his robots.  The only fear he gave to robots was of seeing humans come to harm.  And except for Daneel, I was never sure if the robots were intelligent, conscious and self-aware creatures, or just machines that talked.  Asimov has Elijah Baley call the robots “Boy” which is offensive to modern reader because of its racist connections.  Was he drawing parallels to their condition, implying the robots were slaves?  Was he suggesting that humans couldn’t deal with robots as equals, even though Daneel actions and thoughts were often superior to Baley.

In early Asimov robot stories, the role of the robot and their deeply programmed Three Laws of Robotics is usually just a plot device for creating a story gimmick.  Asimov doesn’t really explore the philosophical implications of intelligent machines.  Asimov, a writer of space travel stories, was afraid of flying, and so he used his knowledge of phobias to create the heart of The Naked Sun.  This story explores human nature rather than robot nature.

If Asimov would have studied the nature of his robots more, he probably wouldn’t have had a murder mystery.  Robots have perfect memories and robots in this story are all connected by radio, so in a society like that of Solaria, no human activity should have gone unrecorded.  Asimov shows us incidents of individual robots going insane from seeing a human harmed, but Asimov fails to explain why all robots don’t go bonkers when one robot sees a human murdered because of their instant communication would create a hive-like mind.

Even though Asimov presents the world of Solaria as seriously flawed I have encountered a number of readers that would love to live on a world like Solaria.  At first this shocked me, but I’ve discovered to what extent some people really don’t like other people, at least hordes of other people, and they would find great comfort living on a pastoral world populated mostly by robots.  I don’t have that phobia, and I was surprised to find it in some of my friends.  Since writing The Implications of Sexbots, some people I know have expressed just how much they don’t like people, and how comforting they find the idea of robots.  I find this revealing and shocking.    

I have even heard from people that want to live as solitary as the Solarians, even to the point of avoiding sexual contact.  This makes me wonder if Asimov hasn’t tapped into a deep rooted psychological desire that makes this novel far more successful than just a simple murder mystery.  This is probably the real reason why the book is still in print fifty plus years after its original publication.

Most people fear AI and intelligent robots, and picture robots from movies like the Terminator series, or television shows like Battlestar Galactica.  These people especially worry about the coming technological singularity.  Other people love the idea of robots and expect them to be cute like WALL-E, or Number 5 from Short Circuit, or even the very human like Commander Data.  Read the Wikipedia entry on Robots to see just how complex and real robots are now, and read robots in fiction and literature to see how far ranging we’ve explored this topic.

I listened to the excellent audio production of The Naked Sun from Tantor Media, read with wonderful dramatic flair by William Dufris, and available through Audible.com, Amazon.com and iTunes.  I highly recommend the audio edition because I believe the subtleties of the story come through so much better with this fine reading that expresses so much emotion.

I also recommend reading the customer reviews at Amazon after you have finished the novel.  They show a kind of enthusiastic love that few novels get and reveal that The Naked Sun isn’t just a simple science fiction novel.  I read the book first as a kid and really didn’t get it, mainly because my bouts of agoraphobia were in the future.  And I’m curious if people without phobias will really get into this story.

JWH – 3/8/9

Our economy is a ship that’s hit an iceberg and we’re all passengers on its deck wondering if we’re going to sink.  Most of us are economic bystanders.  We’re not part of the crew manning the engines below decks nor are we officers on the bridge.  Few people are economists, so we have no idea of how to navigate.  Few people are bankers, so we have no idea if our ship is still seaworthy.  Most of us just clutch each other and pray we don’t drown.

I don’t like being a powerless bystander.  To me it feels like a horde of greed driven souls have hijacked our financial system and done far more damage than any terrorist.  The economic gurus and conservative politicians have preached that we should all be independent, and manage our own money and give up on ideas like social security.  We can only be independent if our economic system is sound and trustworthy.  I always expected banks to be conservative, to be the bedrock of our monetary world, but it seems that the conservatives have changed banking with liberal ideas about making money.

What I want from our banking system is what the New York Times reports about how the Canadian banking system works.  Why are so many Americans caught up with the glamour of being billionaires?  Why do time and again a small group of people seeking tremendous wealth lead millions of investor lemmings over the cliffs?  We can blame the CEOs flying in their corporate jets but they are only the leaders of vast armies who worship wealth.

Financial disasters teach us how important the science of economics is to our daily lives.  Religion and politics, which most people normally look to for guidance are of little importance.  Politicians will grab the helm in bad economic times, but their captaincy is illusory.  The real power is with us economic bystanders.  The economy is the hive of all human economic activity.

Economic well being is primary about jobs.  If everyone has a job we have a much better chance for political and social stability.  In the last hundred years, the secondary purpose of the economy is investments because people want to spend part of their lives not working, or they want to attain quick riches.

In a world of 7 billion people it’s very hard to create enough jobs for everyone who needs one.  By all of us consuming vast amounts of natural resources we put billions to work.  But there’s a new goal.  People want to be rich enough not to work.  Wealth is theoretically unlimited, but there seems to be limits to how many people can be wealthy.  Somebody has to wash toilets, drive trucks, fly airliners and sew shirts.  Everyone can’t succeed through gambling with stocks and commodities.

Our current economic catastrophe is due to greed on the part of a very small portion of the population that convinced so many of us we could have double-digit interest on our nest eggs.  We can’t just blame Wall Street and the big banks, because anyone who owned stocks or put their money in 401k plans loved seeing huge growth rates.  For the last twenty years Wall Street has convinced the financial world to buy into fantasy investment schemes that were not based on real world economics.

The economy works because people sell goods and services, or they invest in people who sell goods or services.  What we’re learning from these bad economic times is we can’t sell slight of hand goods and services.  As the economy slides downward and unemployment rises, we’re learning just how many jobs we have that are based on real production and actual services.  Because all of us economic bystanders are holding our breath in fear and slamming our bank accounts closed, we’re causing many jobs to be lost.  Until people feel safe and spend normally, we won’t see normal growth.

The history of the United States is also a history of periodic recessions.  In each one we learn something new about the science of money.  We oscillate between caution and greed.  Good times bring risky investments and that too many unwise people pursue.  As much as we loath men like Bernie Madoff, we have to question why people would believe in him?  Investing is like poker.  If you don’t lose some hands the game is rigged.  The desire for yachts and jets drove Madoff and his marks.

We live in a world where the extremes of wealth and poverty make the novels and the news, and the stories of average folk seldom appear in the movies.  The glamour of money will always warp economic sensibilities, which is why we always need regulations.  Most economic tsunamis are caused by the greedy bending the laws of investment gravity.  2008 was our 1929, so this year is 1930, but what will our 1932 be like?  Or will this recession be more like 1975 or 1980?  If it is, we’ll be damn lucky.  Why are all the pundits telling us those scary stories, and why is the government spending trillions to bail out the economy?  Are our leaders creating more fear or do they really know something?  I don’t know.

President Obama’s stimulus package might create real jobs or it might just prop up a false economy.  Everyone hates to pay taxes, but tax money really does make up a large chunk of our economy.  Everyone wants a smaller government, but our large government creates millions of jobs.  It appears, and this might be honest economics, that the government should grow when the private economy shrinks, and shrink when the the private economy grows.  Other than inventing a whole new economic system we don’t have any other way to steer the economy.

Or do we?  We classify jobs as a 40 hour a week standard.  In bad economic times we lay off a portion of the population when we can’t create enough jobs.  Instead of laying off people, why not just lower the number of hours in a work week.  So in bad economic times everyone earns less, and in good economic times everyone earns more.  Personally, I’d much rather have my salary cut to 30 hours of pay, than lose my whole job and get paid nothing.

In every worldwide economic crisis the rules of how the economy runs gets changed.  Is it really practical to retire and spend 20-40 years not working?  Was one of the impossible economic fantasies of the last quarter century the idea that private individuals can save enough to not work for a third of their lives?  That idea was based on investments with 10 percent annual growth.  Can economic reality really support that?  Is there a limit to the number of people who can live off the interest of their investments?  We know we can’t have 100% idle rich with no one working unless we create some kind of science fictional world run by robots.

Can you imagine what life would be like now without social security, medicare and unemployment insurance?  What if our retirement system had been shifted to private investments?  Thank God for social security – we better fixed it after all.  Our goal should be conservative banks and practical social systems.   Sure, we have to leave enough leeway for get-rich-quick believers to play with Wall Street, but we need to isolate their game so they don’t put the entire economy on roller coaster rides.

This crisis is occurring at the same time as when we need to restructure the economy to save the planet for ecological reasons.  In rebuilding our economy and creating a new one out of the ashes of the old, we need to rethink so much.  Should the work week be 40 hours.  Should people loaf for decades?  Should tax payers fund the medical bills of the elderly, or even all people?  How many jobs would be created by a universal healthcare system?  If a large portion of our population retires and spends less money, do they reduce total jobs, and if so, how does the remainder of the population support them?  Or, do retired people create enough jobs to support the concept of retirement?

Would it help the economy if people moving towards retirement age spend a length of time working part-time, with retiring becomes a long phase out process?  Or instead of having 10 percent unemployment, have everyone work 10 percent less and cut their paychecks by 10%?  Or would that cause a downward spiral of economic activity?

We’re all economic bystanders on this economic ship, but what we do and think influences the whole of the economy.  If we all went out and made a major purchase this year, like buying a car, refrigerator, high definition television set, or remodeled a bathroom or built a garage, we could put a lot of people back to work.  Everyone suddenly becoming a penny pinching miser is bad.  You can kill two birds with one stone.  Last year I spent $9500 to replace my HVAC.  In some months I’m only using 1/3 the energy as the same month of the previous year.  And I can think of many goods and services to buy that would make my home more environmentally friendly and stimulate job growth

Even though we’re all economic bystanders, some of us are armed with dollars that could be spent.  Those people who live paycheck to paycheck need to spend these bad economic times getting their act together, but for those folks who have a few extra bucks, they should think about spending a bit to create economic bystander stimulus packages.

JWH 2/28/9