Agnostics From The United States

"Putting a monkey wrench in machinery is often the only way to force somebody to repair, replace, or redesign the machinery. Especially legal or social machinery."

"A ramrobot had been the first to see Mount Lookitthat. Ramrobots had been first visitors to all the settled worlds. The interstellar ramscoop robots, with an unrestricted fuel supply culled from interstellar hydrogen, could travel between stars at speeds approaching that of light."

"Matthew Leigh Keller sat beneath a watershed tree and brooded. Other children played all around him, but they ignored Matt. So did two teachers on monitor duty. People usually ignored Matt when he wanted to be alone. Uncle Matt was gone. Gone to a fate so horrible that the adults wouldn't even talk about it."

"The medical revolution that began with the beginning of the twentieth century had warped all human society for five hundred years. America had adjusted to Eli Whitney's cotton gin in less than half that time. As with the gin, the effects would never quite die out. But already society was swinging back to what had once been normal. Slowly; but there was motion. In Brazil a small but growing alliance agitated for the removal of the death penalty for habitual traffic offenders. They would be opposed, but they would win."

"From the beginning there had been a revolutionary group. Its name had changed several times, and Matt had no idea what it was now. He had never known a revolutionary. He had no particular desire to be one. They accomplished nothing, except to fill the Hospital's organ banks. How could they, when the crew controlled every weapon and every watt of power on Mount Lookitthat? If this was a nest of rebels, then they had worked out a good cover. Many of the merrymakers had no hearing aids, and these seemed to be the ones who didn't know anyone here. Like Matt himself. In the midst of a reasonably genuine open-house brawl, certain people listened to voices only they could hear."

"You look like a girl with a secret," Matt said. "I think it must be the smile." She moved closer to him, which was very close, and lowered her voice. "Can you keep a secret?" Matt smiled with one side of his mouth to show that he knew what was coming. She said it anyway. "So can I."

"The organ banks would be supplied for years. Not only would the crew have a full supply, which they always did anyway, but there would be spare parts for exceptional servants of the regime; i.e., for civil servants such as Jesus Pietro and his men. Even the colonists would benefit. It was not at all unusual for the Hospital to treat a sick but deserving colonist if the medical supplies were sufficient. The Hospital treated everyone they could. It reminded the colonists that the crew ruled in their name and had their interests at heart. And the Sons of Earth was dead. All but one man, and from his picture he wasn't old enough to be dangerous. Nonetheless Jesus Pietro had his picture tacked to the Hospital bulletin boards and sent a copy to the newscast station with the warning that he was wanted for questioning. It was not until dawn, when he was settling down to sleep, that he remembered who belonged to that face. Matthew Keller's nephew..."

"With all its horrors and all its failures, life was bearable where there were hot showers."

"Any citizen, with the help of the organ banks, can live as long as it takes his central nervous system to wear out. This can be a very long time if his circulatory system is kept functioning. But the citizen cannot take more out of the organ banks than goes into them. He must do his utmost to see that they are supplied. The only feasible method of supplying the organ banks is through execution of criminals.… A criminal's pirated body can save a dozen lives. There is now no valid argument against capital punishment for any given crime; for all such argument seeks to prove that killing a man does society no good. Hence the citizen, who wants to live as long and as healthily as possible, will vote any crime into a capital crime if the organ banks are short of material. Cite Earth's capital punishment for false advertising, income tax evasion, air pollution, having children without a license. The wonder was that it had taken so long to pass these laws."

"There were organ banks all over the world, inadequately supplied by people kind enough to will their bodies to medical science. How useful is the body of a man who dies of old age? How fast can you reach a car accident? And in 2043, Arkansas, which had never rescinded the death penalty, made the organ banks the official state method of execution. The idea had spread like wildfire...like a moral plague, as one critic of the time had put it."

"Geoffrey Eustace Parlette had evidently imitated ancient bad taste in hopes of getting something new and different."

"Jesus Pietro wasn't used to dealing with ghosts. It would require brand new techniques. Grimly he set out to evolve them."

"He was shaking. A mass verbal attack can do that to a man, can smash his self-respect and set up doubts which remain for hours or days or forever. There are well-developed verbal techniques for many to use against one. You never let the victim speak without interruption; never let him finish a sentence. You interrupt each other so that he can’t quite catch the drift of your arguments, and then he can’t find the flaws. He forgets his rebuttal points because he’s not allowed to put them into words. His only defense is to walk out. If, instead, you throw him out…"

"Jesus Pietro was worried. The Sons of Earth, if they got this far, would go straight to the vivarium to free their compatriots. But if Matthew Keller was his own agent... If the ghost of Alpha Plateau was not a rebel, but a thing with its own unpredictable purpose... Jesus Pietro worried."

"Our society depends entirely on its technology. Change the technology, and you change the society. Most especially you change the ethics."

"I'm no historian," said Harry. "But morals are morals. What's unethical here and now is unethical anywhere, anytime. "Kane, you're wrong. It is ethical to execute a man for theft?" "Of course." "Did you know that there was once a vastly detailed science of rehabilitation for criminals? It was a branch of psychology, naturally, but it was by far the largest such branch. By the middle of century twenty-one, nearly two-thirds of all criminals could eventually be released as cured." "That's silly. Why go to all that trouble when the organ banks must have been crying for — Oh. I see. No organ banks."

"Parlette, if you have something to say, say it. If we jump to the wrong conclusions, please assume that you’re expressing yourself badly, and don’t try to shift the blame."

"Parlette spoke slowly and evenly. "I am trying to prevent a bloodbath. Is that clear enough for you? I'm trying to prevent a civil war that could kill half the people in this world.""

"2) Never be embarrased or ashamed about anything you choose to write. (Think of this before you send it to a market)"

"1) Writers who write for other writers should write letters."

"19) Think before you make the coward's choice. Old age is not for sissies."

"17) No technique works if it isn't used."

"16) There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it. To prove a point, one may seek out a foolish Socialist, thirteenth century Liberal, Scientologist, High Frontier advocate, Mensa member, science fiction fan, Jim Bakker acolyte, Christian, witch, or fanatical devotee of Special Interest Lib. It doesn't really reflect on the cause itself. Ad hominem argument saves time, but it's still a fallacy."

"11) There is a time and place for tact. And there are times when tact is entirely misplaced."

"10) Anarchy is the least stable of social structures."

"9) Ethics change with technology."

"8) History never repeats itself."

"7) Any damn fool can predict the past."

"6) It is easier to destroy than create. Bin Laden tore down the World Trade Center? Let's see him build one. If human beings didn't have a strong preference for creation, nothing would get built, ever."

"5) Psi and/or magical powers, if real, are nearly useless."

"4) Giving up freedom for security has begun to look naive. Even to me. Many of you were ahead of me on this — Three out of four hijacked airplanes destroyed the World Trade Center and a piece of the Pentagon in 2001. How is it possible that those planes were taken using only five perps armed with knives? It was possible because all those hundreds of passengers had been carefully stripped of every possible weapon. We may want to reconsider this approach. It doesn't work in high schools either."

"3) Mother Nature doesn't care if you're having fun."

"2) Never fire a laser at a mirror."

"1a) Never throw shit at an armed man. 1b) Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man."

"Here is where the predictions failed: We didn't take Cargo Cult mentality into account: "if somebody has something I don't, he must have stolen it." We didn't understand how good we could get at communication — when you have something that someone else doesn't, the whole damn planet knows it."

"Cheap superconductors imply maglev trains everywhere. Computers could get big again, with RAM/ROM rising by powers of forty and fifty, if superconductors shed the heat. Laser handguns against superconducting armor. I'm not predicting; I just love playing with superconductors."

"We've fallen way behind. Building one space station for everyone was and is insane: we should have built a dozen."

"The wealth of the universe is all over your head. We need to take command of the solar system to gain that wealth, and to escape the sea of paper our government is becoming, and for some decent chance of stopping a Dinosaur Killer asteroid."

"We follow the scientists around and look over their shoulders. They're watching their feet: provable mistakes are bad for them. We're looking as far ahead as we can, and we don't get penalized for mistakes."

"“It’s a joy,” she said, “watching you keep your mouth shut.”"

"What’s intelligence for if not for seeking knowledge?"

"Sex was a game nobody lost."

"“I copied it.” “Sure you did, joker, but they drew what they thought you wanted and you copied what you thought you saw—”"

"Cooking was creation itself; It seemed to put the universe in perspective."

"Avalon was neutral. The children of Earth might die, they might thrive. Avalon would embrace their bones or the progeny with equal warmth."

"The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of cause."

"“I couldn’t sit here and tell you that I’m sorry it happened.” “Even with the death…?” “Everybody dies. The obstetrician slaps you on the ass with one hand and hands you a postdated death certificate with the other. What’s important is that our children have a better chance. It’s always been about the children. Always. Women have never loved being kept from education and treated as second-class citizens. Men have never enjoyed having their balls shot off in wars. Men and women didn’t fall into their roles accidentally, and each side doesn’t hate the other. It happened because for a thousand generations, that was the best way we knew to build a civilization, to build a better future for our children. The industrial revolution doomed slavery—racial, sexual, social. Civilization is worth fighting for.”"

"“They should give medals for this, Martinez.” “By the time the paperwork goes through, we’ll both be dead and gone.” “Too true.”"

"“Turning into a tradition, isn’t it?” “Around here, anything that happens twice is a tradition.”"

"Sometimes you just have to be satisfied with what you are."