They Were Themselves Concerned with Getting from the Darkness to the Light

Although universities go back very far, the university as we know it, in its content and its aim, is the product of the Enlightenment. To enlighten is to bring light where there had previously been darkness, to replace opinion, id est, superstition, by scientific knowledge of nature, beginning from the phenomena available to all men and ending in rational demonstration possible for all men. All things must be investigated and understood by reason, id est, science or philosophy (the distinction between the two is of recent origin, coming to currency only in the nineteenth century). Knowledge of the nature of all things is Enlightenment’s goal. The past was characterized not by ignorance but by false opinions. Men always had opinion about everything, but those opinions were without ground and indemonstrable. Yet they governed the nations of men and were authoritative. Thus the problem of Enlightenment is not merely discover of the truth but the conflict between the truth and the beliefs of men, which are incorporated into the law. Enlightenment begins from the tension between what men are compelled to believe by city and religion, on the one hand, and the quest for scientific truth on the other. To think and speak doubts about, let alone to propose substitutes for, the fundamental opinions was forbidden by every regime previously known to man. Doing so was thought to be, and in fact was, disloyal and impious. Of course, the men of the Enlightenment were not the first to recognize this tension. It has existed and been known to exist since science emerged in Greece sometime between the eighth and sixth centuries B.C. Enlightenment thinkers were aware that there had been surpassingly great philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers and political scientists from that time on, who had suffered persecution and been compelled to live on the fringes of society. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

The learned society and the university, the publicly respected and supported communities of scientists—setting their own rules, pursuing knowledge according to the inner dictates of science, as opposed to civil or ecclesiastical authority, communicating freely among themselves—are the visible signs of that innovation. The earlier thinkers accepted the tension and lived accordingly. Their knowledge was essentially for themselves, and they had a private life very different from their public life. They were themselves concerned with getting from the darkness to the light. Enlightenment was a daring attempt to shine that light on all men, partly for the sake of the progress of science. The success of this attempt depended on scientists’ freedom to associate with and speak to one another. And only if the rulers believed that the scientists were not a threat to them, could freedom be won. Enlightenment was not only, or perhaps not even primarily, a scientific project but a political one. It began from the premise that the rulers could be educated, a premise not held by the Enlightenment’s ancient brethren. This project was a conspiracy, as d’Alembert said in the Preliminary Discourse of l’Encyclopedie, the premier document of the Enlightenment. It has to be, for, in order to have rulers who are reasonable, many of the old rulers had to be replaced, in particular all those whose authority rested upon revelation. The priests were the enemies, for they rejected the claim of reason and based politics and morals on sacred text and ecclesiastical authorities. The philosophers appeared to deny the very existence of God, or at least of the Christian God. The old order was founded on Christianity, and free use of reason simply could not be permitted within it, since reason accepts no authority above itself and is necessarily subversive. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

There was a public struggle for the right to rule; for, in spite of the modest demeanor of the philosophers, they at the very least require rulers who are favorable to them, who have chosen reason. The right to freedom of thought is a political right, and for it to exist, there must be a political order that accepts that right. In other words, an argument had to be made that the free pursuit of science is good for society, in order to persuade the most powerful element of society and thus guarantee the protection of that pursuit. In a simple formula, it had to be shown that the progress of knowledge was parallel to political progress. This is by no means a self-evident proposition, as anyone who has read Rousseau’s Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, a powerful attack on it, knows. However, it is the leading principle of Enlightenment and the ultimate ground of the prejudice that most people have in favor of freedom of thought and inquiry. I say prejudice because the reasons have almost been forgotten, and other kinds of thought hostile to freedom of thought are current. The old order offered roots and salvation, and the very latest thought is marked by nostalgia for that old order. The Enlightenment thinkers proposed a political science that could be used by founders, such as in America, in establishing principles and arrangements for a sounder and more efficient politics, and a natural science that could master nature in order to satisfy men’s needs. These promises are what make reason not only acceptable within civil society but even central to it. A society based on reason needs those who reason best. The scientists were to be the most respected of men, taking the place of kinds and prelates, because they are the evident sources of the good think for life, liberty and the pursuit of property. It was not precisely replacing one faith by another, because the new science, if it cannot be practiced by just anyone, can be understood by anyone, if one is trained in its method, and knowledge of the rights and duties of man requires the use of his reason. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

The Enlightenment was a daring enterprise. Its goal was to reconstitute political and intellectual life totally under the supervision of philosophy and science. No conqueror, prophet or founder ever had a broader vision, and none had more stunning success. There is practically no contemporary regime that is not somehow a result of Enlightenment, and the best of the modern regimes—liberal democracy—is entirely its product. And throughout the World all men and all regimes are dependent on and recognize the science popularized by the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment inexorably defeated all opponents it targeted at the outset, particularly the priests and all that depends on them, by a long process of education that taught men, as Machiavelli put it, about “the things of this World.” One need only read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Book V, on education, to see how the reform of universities, particularly the overcoming of the theological influence, was essential to the emergence of modern political economy and the regime founded on it. Thus the academics and universities are the core of liberal democracy, its foundation, the repository of its animating principles and the continuing source of the knowledge and education keeping the machinery of the regime in motion. The regime of equality and liberty, of the rights of man, is the regimes of reason. The free university exists only in liberal democracy, and liberal democracies exist only where there are free universities. Marxists are right to say that the “bourgeois university” is essentially related to “bourgeois society,” but not in the sense they intend. The university does not defend that society because the university merely reflects its interests, but because the balance of forces within this kind of society is such as most to need, respect and, hence, protect, freedom of thought. Earlier associations of thinkers were under theological-political supervision by unquestioned right. Fascism rejected reason and controlled the universities. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

When Hitler came to power, Karl Schmitt said, “Today Hegel died in Germany.” Hegel was arguably the greatest university man there ever was. And communism asserts that the people, under the guise of the vanguard party, has become rational, so that the university no longer needs a special statue—id est, it can be controlled by the Party. Only in liberal democracy is the primacy of reason accepted, even though its citizenry is not understood to be simply and always reasonable. It assures a special status for the university, an exemption from the ordinary moral and political limitations on what can be thought and said in a civil society. The university is not the beneficiary of the freedom of thought accorded to all the members of society. All to the contrary, in the original project of modern society, the general freedom of thought was believed to be desirable in order to support the kind of thought was believed to be desirable in order to support the kind of thought proper to philosophers and scientists, which alone strictly deserves the name of “thought.” At the outset the primary freedom was freedom of thought, both because reason is the highest faculty and because it is most necessary to the god society. If there was to be a new kind of society, a new dispensation for mankind, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Bacon, Locke and Newton had to be free to think and propagate what they learned. They very special status of what came to be called academic freedom has gradually been eroded, and there hardly remains an awareness of what it means. There is barely a difference recognized in popular and even university consciousness between academic freedom and job security guaranteed by government, business or unions. It has become assimilated to the economic system and looks like self-interest of a kind that is sometimes approved of and sometimes disapproved of. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

The rights of science are now not distinguishable from the rights of thought in general, of any description whatsoever. Freedom of speech has given way to freedom of expression, in which the obscene gesture enjoys the same protected status as demonstrative discourse. It is all very wonderful; everything has become free, and no invidious distinctions need to be made. However, it is too good to be true. All that has really happened is that reason has been knocked off its perch, is less influential and more vulnerable as it joins the crowd of less worthy claims to the attention and support of civil society. The semitheoretical attacks of Right and Left on the university and its knowledge, the increased demands made on it by society, the enormous expansion of higher education, have combined to obscure what is most important about the university. In October 1983, just four years after Deng Xiaoping began to release China from the iron grip of anti-capitalism, a conference of policy leaders was held in Beijing under the wing of the reformist premier Zhao Ziyang, who called on China to study the concept of the Third Wave. Some, still fearful of stepping outside the perimeter of Marxist theory, reportedly went over Zhao’s head to the then general secretary of the Communist Party, Hu Yaobang, and asked what he thought of the conference proposal. Himself a liberal in the Chinses context at the time, Hu responded with words to the effect that “too many people in the party are afraid of new ideas.” Since then, top Chinese leaders—and tens of millions of their followers—have strongly supported the idea that China should not merely focus on industrialization. It should simultaneously, and as rapidly as possible, try to build a knowledge-intensive economy, skipping whenever possible the traditional stages of industrialization. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

This is why China shoots an astronaut into space, why it sets out to become a biotech superpower, and why in just a few years it has more than 1.66 billion mobile-phone subscribers and more than one billion internet users. It is why China is attempting to set its own technical standards for DVD players, chips and computers, not merely for protectionist reasons but to influence future technological advance around the globe, as the British did in the nineteenth century and the Americans did in the twentieth. It is why the Beijing Genomics Center impressed the World by breaking the genetic code for rice in record time. It is why—while the Obama White House slowed medical research by severely restricting government money for embryonic stem-cell research—China moved more aggressively forward in this field. This is why the Chinese city of Dalian has become a knowledge center rather than a manufacturing base. They are not just making clothes there. GE, Microsoft, Dell, SAP, HP, Sony and Accenture have set up backroom operations there for Asian companies and software R&D centers. It is why in 2020 China graduated 1.4 million students from science programs and 600,000 from engineering programs and these numbers tend to be a yearly average, which is only growing. China is also making a concerted effort to bring home tens of thousands of Chinese scientists working in the United States. It is why hundreds of multinationals have rushed to set up R&D labs in China—with an estimated two hundred labs arriving each year. Says Harry Shum, chief of Microsoft’s Beijing lab, “Nowhere in this universe has a higher concentration of I.Q. power.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

And it is why China is leading the World in exports of digital equipment. China’s twin-track strategy—selling affordable industrial labour while racing to build its knowledge sector—is set against a background of less central planning, a downshift of power to regions and local governments, expansion of market activities and, if anything, an overemphasis on exports. These changes are accompanied by widespread pain, social disruption and unrest, all of which may well get much worse. Chinese leaders are right to put stability at the top of their agenda. However, much like the rest of the World, China has to worry about the COVID-19 pandemic, future epidemics and pandemics, along with protests, not merely on a manageable local level but on a national level; financial panics; environmental crises; out-of-control fuel and energy costs and looming shortages; and generational cleavages—not to mention greater instability relations with America, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Even worse, two or more of these crises could converge. Only the naïve think revolutionary changes follow straight trend lines. However, they also know their historic mission—to end the mass poverty that has characterized China for the past five thousand years. China has raised more than one billion people out of extreme poverty since 1979. The glass may be half empty, but before this, for these people, there was no glass. And no future. Nor is the twin-trach strategy applied only in China. The other vast pools of countries rising out of poverty are Africa and India. With these other nations expanding and rising out of poverty, to stay number one is going to be a challenge for America. That is why it is so important to support American business, American cars, American made meat and produce and washing machines, dryers and other types of American made products. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

Now, consider a pair of jeans. The denim in them may well have come from Burlington Industries. This giant American textile firm sends it customers free software that allows them to communicate directly with Burlington’s mainframe, to paw through its stock of denims electronically, to find the particular batch of fabric they want, and to order it—all at instantaneous speeds. Manufacturers like Burlington hope such services will distinguish them from their competitors, make life easier for customers—and simultaneously lack those customers into the new “electronic data interchange” (EDI) systems so tightly that it will become hard for them to escape. At their simplest, EDI systems simply permit the electronic exchange of documents between companies or business units—invoices, specification, inventory data, and the like. However, leaving it at that is rather like calling Mozart a tunesmith. For by wedding one another’s data bases and electronic systems, companies re able to form highly intimate partnerships. For example, while Burlington opens its inventory files to its customer, Digital Equipment, the computer maker, opens its design secrets to its suppliers. When DEC places another order for components, it may electronically transfer its entire Computer-Aided-Design file to the supplier firm, so that both buyer and seller can work more closely together, step by step. The object is intimacy. The big auto companies now virtually refuse to do business with suppliers who are not equipped for electronic interaction. At Ford, fifty-seven parts plants have been told they must electronically exchange shipping schedules, material requisitions, releases, and receipts with both customers and suppliers. The benefits of EDI are not only a reduction in paperwork and inventory, but quicker, more flexible responses to customer needs. Together these can amount to massive savings. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

However, the Worldwide shift to electronic interchange also implies radical changes in the business system. Companies are forming into what might be called “information-sharing groups.” More communication is crossing—and sometimes blurring—organizational boundaries. Whether in a Japanese insurance company or an American automaker, EDI forces major changes in accounting and other control systems. When a company goes electronic, jobs change; people move around; some departments gain clout, others lose. The entire relationship of the firm to its suppliers and customers is shaken up. Such power shifts, however, are not merely limited to individual firms. Whole sectors of the economy are already feeling the impact of EDI. For EDI can be used as a weapon to wipe out go-betweens and intermediaries. Shiseido, Japan’s top cosmetic firm, for example, uses its networks to sidestep the traditional distribution chain. Shiseido’s powders, creams, eye shadows, lotions, and what-have-you are everywhere in Japan and beginning to make a splash in American and European markets as well. By connecting its computers directly to those of its customers, Shiseido end-runs wholesalers and warehousers, delivering from its own distribution centers directly to the stores. If Shiseido and other manufacturers can “talk” directly with their retailers, and retailers can electronically access information in the manufacturer’s own computers, who needs an intermediary? “The wholesaler?” Bingo! By passed,” say Monroe Greenstein, a retail industry analyst at the Bear, Stearns securities firm in New York. To avoid that fate, wholesalers, too are turning to electronic weaponry. The most publicized, by now classic case of a wholesaler taking the offensive—and capturing new power in the marketplace—involves American Hospital Supply, now a part of Baxter Health Care Corporation. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

Starting as early as 1978, AHS began placing terminals inside hopsitals and allowing them to dial directly, through a network, to its computers. It was much simpler for hospitals to order supplies from AHS by pushing a button than to deal with other, less sophisticated suppliers. It turns, AHS used the network to zap all sorts of useful information about products, usage, costs, inventory control, et cetera, to its customers. Because AHS’s system was so responsive and reliable, hospitals were able to cut back on their own inventories, saving them substantial money. And if a hospital placed all its business with AHS, the company provided an entire management information system for the hospital. AHS’s business skyrocketed. Consultant Peter Keen, from whose study, Competing in Time, some of these data are drawn, describes how Foremost McKesson, a pharmaceutical wholesaler, applied the AHS strategy to its own field. As customer orders flow into Foremost McKesson’s computers electronically from hand-held terminals placed in 15,000 stores, they are instantly sorted and consolidated. This generates Foremost McKesson’s own orders, fully half of which are then, in turn, instantly and automatically transmitted to its supplier firms. Such high-speed systems allow AHS, Foremost, and many other firms to wire themselves so snugly into their customers’ daily operations that it becomes costly and complex for them to shift their business elsewhere. In return, the systems save their customers significant sums and help them manage more smartly all around. All this pays off in negotiating power. However, AHS and McKesson are still exceptions. Most wholesalers could face an electronic squeeze play, caught between manufacturers and increasingly sophisticated retailers. Warehouse companies are next in line for trouble as extra-intelligence spreads through the economy. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

The increasing customization and flexible manufacture made possible by computers, means, among other things, a shift from a few big orders for uniform products to many smaller orders for diversified products. Simultaneously, the speedup of business encouraged by electronic networking increases pressures for just-in-time delivery to factories and stores. All this implies fewer bulk shipments, shorter storage times, faster turnaround, and more insistence on precise information about the whereabouts of every stored item—less space, more information. This substitution reduces the clout of the space merchant and pushes smart warehousers into a search for alternative functions. Some are using networks and computers to sell customers data software services, transportation management, packing, sorting, inspecting, knockdown and assembly services, and the like. Still others—Sumitomo Warehouse in Japan, for instance—are moving into real estate development as the traditional functions of the warehouser dry up. The super-symbolic economy and the spread of extra-intelligence also shake up the transportation sector—railroads, shippers, and truckers. Like warehousers, many truckers are also turning to electronic networks to save themselves. In Japan the move toward short-run factory production and the push for just-in-time delivery means a big surge in short-haul work. And instead of delivering big loads on a once-a-week schedule, the pressure is toward smaller but far more frequent drop-offs. The most rapid growth is seen in door-to-door delivery. What we see, therefore, are all the traditional sectors of the production and distribution system wielding extra-intelligence to stay alive, or as an offensive weapon to extend their power. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

Technopoly (the surrender of culture to technology) strove furiously to control information because the culture seeks all authority in technology to the point that it is becoming more satisfying to some than God. So much so that people are increasingly allowing technology to control their lives and taking orders from it. As we have discussed, there is a surplus of information, and we just keep generating more tools to help us deal with it. That is how people are now getting their direction and purpose for life. There have, of course, always been experts, even in tool-using cultures. The pyramids, Roman roads, the Strasbourg Cathedral, could hardly have been built without experts. However, the expert in Technopoly has two characteristics that distinguish one from experts of the past. First Technopoly’s experts tend to be ignorant about any matter not directly related to their specialized area. The average psychotherapist, for example, barely has even superficial knowledge of literature, philosophy, social history, art, religion, and biology, and is not expected to have such knowledge. Second, like bureaucracy itself (with which an expert may or may not be connected), Technopoly’s experts claim dominion not only over technical matters but also over social, psychological, and more affairs. In the United States of America, we have experts in how to raise children, how to educate them, how to be lovable, how to responsibly enjoy pleasures of the flesh, how to influence people, how to make friends. There is no aspect of human relations that has not been technicalized and therefore relegated to the control of experts. These special characteristics of the experts arose as a result of three factors. First, the growth of bureaucracies, which, in effect, produced the World’s fist entirely mechanistic specialist and thereby gave credence and prestige to the specialist-as-ignoramus. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

Second, the weakening of traditional social institutions, which led ordinary people to lose confidence in the value of tradition. Third, and underlying everything else, the torrent of information which made it impossible for anyone to possess more than a tiny fraction of the sum total of human knowledge. As a college undergraduate, I was told by an enthusiastic professor of German literature that Goethe was the last person who knew everything. I assume she meant, by this astounding remark, less to deify Goethe than to suggest that by the year of his death, 1832, it was no longer possible for even the most brilliant mind to comprehend, let alone integrate, what was known. The role of the expert is to concentrate on one field of knowledge, sift through all that is available, eliminate that which has no bearing on a problem, and use what is left to assist in solving a problem. This process works fairly well in situations where only a technical solution is required and there is no conflict with human purposes—for example, in space rocketry or the construction of a sewer system. It works less well in situations where technical requirements may conflict with human purposes, as in medicine or architecture. And it is disastrous when applied to situations that cannot be solved by technical means and where efficiency is usually irrelevant, such as in education, law, family life, and problems of personal maladjustment. I assumes I d not need to convince the reader that there are no experts—there can be no experts—in child-rearing and pleasures of the flesh and friend-making. All of this is a figment of the Technopolist’s imagination, made plausible by the use of technical machinery, without which the expert would be totally disarmed and exposed as an intruder and an ignoramus. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

In 1987, R.S. Becker, J.A. Golovchenko, and B.S. Swartzentruber at AT&T Bell Laboratories announced that they had used an scanning tunneling microscope (STM) to deposit small blobs on a germanium surface. Each blob was thought to consist of one or a few germanium atoms. Shortly thereafter, IBM Almaden researchers John Foster, Jane Frommer, and Patrick Arnett achieved a milestone in STM-based molecular manipulation. Of this team, Foster and Arnett attended the First Foresight Conference in Nanotechnology, where they told us the motivations behind their work. Foster came to IBM from Stanford University, where he had completed a doctorate in physics and taught at graduate school. The STM work was one of his first projects in the corporate World. He describes his colleagues Arnett as a former “semiconductor jock” involved in chip creation at IBM’s Burlington and Yorktown locations. Besides his doctorate in physics, Arnett brought mechanical-engineering training to the effort. Arnett explains what they were trying to do: “We wanted to see if you could do something on an atomic scale, to create a mechanism for storing information and getting it back reliably.” The answer was yes. In January 1988, the journal Nature carried their letter reporting success in pinning an organic molecule to a particular location on a surface, using an STM to form a chemical bond by applying an electrical pulse through the tip. They found that having created and sensed the feature, they could go back and use another voltage pulse from the tip to change the feature again: enlarging it, partly erasing it, or completely removing it. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

IMB quickly saw a commercial use, as explained by Paul M. Horn, acting director of physical sciences at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center: “This means you can create a storage element the size of an atom. Ultimately, the ability to do that could lead to storage that is ten million times more dense than anything we have today. A broader vision was given by another researcher, J.B. Pethica, in the issue of Nature in which the work appeared: “The partial era ensure reported by Foster et. al. implied that molecules may have pieces deliberately removed, and in principle be automatically ‘edited,’ thereby demonstrating one of the ideals of nanotechnology.” Can proximal probes move atoms with complete precision? Foster’s group succeeded in pinning single molecules to a surface, but they could not control the results—the position and orientation—precisely. In April 1990, however, another group at the same laboratory carried the manipulation of atoms even further, brining a splash of publicity. Admittedly, the story must have been hard to resist: It was accompanied by an STM picture of the name “IBM,” spelled out with thirty-five precisely places atoms. The precision here is complete, like the precision of molecular assembly: each atom sits in a dimple on the surface of a nickel crystal; it can rest either in one dimple or in another, but never somewhere between. Donald Eigler, the lead author on the Nature paper describing this work, sees clearly where all this is leading: “For decades, the electronics industry has been facing the challenge of how to build smaller and smaller structures. For those of us who will not be using individual atoms as building blocks, the challenge will be how to build up structures atom by atom.” #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

Technical machinery is essential to both the bureaucrat and the expert, and may be regarded as a third mechanism of information control. I do not have in mind such “hard” technologies as the computer—which must, in any case, be treated separately, since it embodies all that Technopoly stands for. I have in mind “softer” technologies such as IQ tests, SATs, standardized forms, taxonomies, and opinion polls. These play a role in reducing the types and quantity of information admitted to a system that often goes unnoticed, and therefore their role in redefining traditional concepts also goes unnoticed. There is, for example, no test that can measures a person’s intelligence. Intelligence is a general term used to denote one’s capacity to solve real-life problems in a variety of novel contexts. It is acknowledged by everyone except experts that each person varies greatly in such capacities, from consistently effective to consistently ineffective, depending on the kinds of problems requiring solution. If, however, we are made to believe that a test can reveal precisely the quantity of intelligence a person has, then, for all institutional purposes, a score on a test becomes one’s intelligence. The test transforms an abstract and multifaceted meaning into a technical and exact term that leaves out everything of importance. One might even say that an intelligence test is a tale told by an expert, signifying nothing. Nonetheless, the expert relies on our believing in the reality of technical machinery, which means we will reify the answers generated by the machinery. We come to believe that our score is our intelligence, or our capacity for creativity or love or pain. We come to believe that the results of opinion polls are what people believe, as if our beliefs can be encapsulated in such sentences as “I approve” and “I disapprove.” #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

Political movements with single charismatic leaders are usually always more suitable and efficient for television. When a movement has no leader or focus, television needs to create one. Mao is simpler to transmit than Chinese communism. Chavez is better television than farm workers. Steinem is better than women. Graham is better than Christianity. Erhard is better than “human potential movement.” Hitler is easier to convey than fascism. Nader is easier than consumerism. Trump is better than corruption. The one is easier than the many. The personality of the symbol is easier than the philosophy. The philosophy requires depth, time, development, and in some cases, sensory information. This remains true unless the many are made into copies of each other. Then, the one is the same as the many. For the same reasons, hierarchy is easier to report upon than democracy or collectivity. The former is focused and has a specific form: leaders and followers. Only the leaders need to be interviewed. Democratic or collective forms need to be interviewed. Democratic or collective forms involve flow processes with power constantly shifting. Television reporters do not have time to interview everyone. And this is how technology is controlling our lives. Superficiality is easier than depth. Short subjects with beginnings and ends are simpler to transmit than extended and multifaceted information. The conclusion is simpler than the process. But getting what you prefer is not easy. There are two reasons. In the first place, you have to get another individual to help—even though the other individual is better off in the short run by not helping. In the second place, you are tempted to get whatever help you can without providing any costly help yourself. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

The main results of Cooperation Theory are encouraging. They show that cooperation can get started by even a small cluster of individuals who are prepared to reciprocate cooperation, even in a World where no one else will cooperate. The analysis also shows that the two key requisites for cooperation to thrive are that the cooperation be based on reciprocity, and that the shadow of the future is important enough to make this reciprocity stable. However, once cooperation based on reciprocity is established in a population, it can protect itself from invasion by uncooperative strategies. We want the government of the United States of America to exempt our people from ALL taxation as long as we are deprived of equal justice under the law of the land. We want equal education—but separate schools up for 16 for boys and 18 for girls on the condition that the girls be sent to women’s colleges and universities. Under such a schooling system, we believe we will make a better nation of people. The United States of America’s government should provide, free, all necessary textbooks and equipment, schools and college buildings. It is encouraging to see that cooperation can get started, can thrive in a variegated environment, and can protect itself once established. However, what is most interesting is how little had to be assumed about the individuals or the social setting to establish these rules. The individuals do not have to be rational: the evolutionary process allows the successful strategies to thrive, even if the individuals do not know why or how. Nor do the individuals have to exchange messages or commitments: they do not need words, because their deeds speak for them. Likewise, there is no need to assume trust between individuals: the use of reciprocity can be enough to make defection unproductive. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

Altruism is not needed: successful strategies can elicit cooperation even from an egoist. Finally, no central authority is needed: cooperation based on reciprocity can be self-policing. The emergence, growth, and maintenance of cooperation do require some assumptions about the individuals and the socials setting. They require an individual to be able to recognize another individual who has been dealt with before. They also require that one’s prior history of interactions with this person an be remembered, so that an individual can be responsive. Actually, these requirements for recognition and recall are not as stong as they might seem. Even bacteria can fulfill them by interacting with only one other organism and using a strategy (such as TIT FOR TAT) which responds only to the recent behaviour of the other individual. And if bacteria can play games, so can people and nations. For cooperation to prove stable, the future must have a sufficiently large shadow. This means that importance of the next encounter between the same two individuals must be great enough to make defection an unprofitable strategy when the other player is provocable. It requires that the players have a large enough chance of meeting again and that they do not discount the significance of their next meeting to greatly. For example, what made cooperation possible in the trench warfare of World War I was the fact that the same small units from opposite sides of noman’s land would be in contact for long periods of time, so that if one side broke the tacit understandings, then the other side could retaliate against the same unit. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

Finally, the evolution of cooperation requires that successful strategies can thrive and that there be a source of variation in the strategies which are being used. These mechanisms can be classical Darwinian survival of the fittest and the mutation, but they can also involve more deliberate processes such as imitation of successful patterns of behavior and intelligence designed new strategic ideas. In the most ancient part of the Avesta, the hymnlike speeches and discourses of Zarathustra, we read of the two primal moving spirits: the good, good in disposition, in word and in work, and the evil, evil in disposition, in word and in work. “Twins through sleep” they were, “as was heard,” that is, erstwhile sleeping companions in the womb of their origin. However, when they were in opposition to one another, and the benignant spirit spoke to the wicked one: “Neither our sentiments nor our judgements, neither our inclinations nor our intentions, neither our words nor our works, neither ourselves nor our souls are in concord.” And they further established, confronting each other, life and death together, and that ultimately for the adherents of deception there exists the most evil, but for the adherents of truth the best disposition. So these two spirits then chose: the deceitful one chose to do that which is most evil, but the most benignant spirit, he who is clad in the hardest Heavens, chose being-true. “Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the World. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which yet have seen me do. Behold ye see that I have prayed unto the Father, and ye have all witnessed. Ans ye see that I have commanded that none of you should go away, but rather have commanded that ye should come unto me, that ye might feel and see; even so shall ye do unto the World; and whosoever breaketh this commandment suffereth himself to be led into temptations,” reports 3 Nephi 18.25-26. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21