Many of the problems being faced in America can be linked to a tendency to avoid confrontation of chronic social problems. This avoiding tendency often comes as a surprise to people from other nations, who tend to think of Americans as pragmatic and down-to-earth. In many social situations, a particular main involvement will be seen as an intrinsic part of the social occasion in which the situation occurs, and will be defined as preferential if not obligatory. At a card playing party, for example, participants may be expected to focus their attention on cards, justifying this allocation of involvement by reference to the nature of the social occasion. As suggested, we can therefore speak of occasioned main involvements. The significance of maintaining an occasioned main involvement can be seen, in relief, by examining what happens when an individual is insufficiently knowing to “catch” the meaning of what is going on. At such times he will have great difficulty in sustaining attention and hence proper involvement within the situation. This is problem is faced by international students in a classroom lecture or by persons not British at a cricket match. Similarly, when an amateur examining his car engine to determine why his car has stalled feels uncomfortable under the gaze of the other passengers, this discomfort may arise not only because he has cased them an inconvenience and is demonstrating incompetence, but also because he must act involved in his task and may not know enough about motors to become sincerely caught up in examining one for failings. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21

Insufficient experience is not the only cause of such a predicament. When guests at a small occasion of sociability are momentarily left by their host to their own devices, a similar problem occurs: expecting to be guaranteed sociable interaction, they may find nothing available as a legitimate main involvement and hence no means of being at ease. Interestingly enough, if an individual is insufficiently schooled in a subject matter to participate in it from within, as it were, and attempts to compensate for his alienation by wearing exactly the right clothes, employing exactly the right equipment, or assuming exactly the right stance, those around him may say that he is “overinvolved in the situation.” In fact, however, it might be more accurate to say that he is insufficiently involved in the occasioned main involvement and overdependent on selected signs of being at one with this activity. In this way we might try to account for the slight uneasiness caused others by a woman not closely related to the deceased who appears at the funeral in a very modish, very complete, black ensemble. The main involvement sustained by an individual within a social situation can express his apparent purpose in being present; and obligation to have an appropriate main involvement is an obligation to have a particular purpose. As suggested, however, there are social situations in which those present do have a purpose, even an obligator one, that does not in itself require or even allow a main involvement, for example, when an individual in a vehicle of public transportation sits or stands while awaiting his destination. At such times the individual may sustain quite absorbing main involvements which are patently subordinated to a dominant involvement that cannot yet occur. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21

Whether an occasioned main involvement is prescribed or not, the participant in a social gathering—at least in a middle-class gathering—may be obliged to sustain at least a certain minimal main involvement to avoid the appearance of being utterly disengaged. This is one reason why waiting rooms, club cars, and passenger airplanes in our society often are supplied by management with emergency supplies such as magazines and newspapers, which serve as minimal involvements that can be given weight (when there is nothing but waiting to do) yet can be immediately discarded when one’s turn or destination arrives. Newspapers, in particular, play an important role here, providing a portable source of involvement, which can be brought forth whenever an individual feels he ought to have an involvement but does not. In our society meals provide an interesting problem in involvement allocation. In public restaurants eating is defined as the dominating involvement, and yet it is also seen as something that perhaps ought not to engage very much of the individual’s attention. Often, therefore, subordinate involvements will be sought out to drain off some unusable involvement capacity. Thus, when an individual finds he must eat alone without the cover of conversation with an eating partner, he may bring along a newspaper or a magazine as a substitute companion. Interestingly enough, should the individual read from a scholarly tome in these situations, he may be considered too absorbed for public propriety, too distracted from the dominating activity, and incidentally too little available in the situation at large should he suddenly be called upon to direct his attention to something. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21

It may be added that pocket books, serious though they may be in content, tend to scout this ruling because of their appearance and cost; this may be one reason for their popularity. And should he have nothing to read, he may elect to sit at the counter and, by having a quick and simple meal, exhibit that some of his involvement is lodged in other affairs to which he is rushing. Facing away from the gathering and toward the counter, he can correct for his exposure in the situation by being located at its edges if not outside it. Interestingly enough, there are situations in which certain minor involvements are explicitly demanded, the implication being that the occasion is not important enough to justify a complete absorption in the occasioned main involvement. In Shetland Isle, young women participating in evening family conversation were sometimes obliged to knit at the same time, this side involvement being an important source of household income. Similarly, in one convent we learn that nuns understood that: You came to the recreation with your workbag…In the bag you carried the work your hand must do while you sat in the circle, for no hands might lie idly folded in the lap. The work, moreover, had to be something manual like darning or knitting. It could not be anything self-absorbing like letter-writing, sketching or reading which would take your attention from the sisters sitting around you. These illustrations of the balance required between main and side involvements may seem to touch on trivial aspects of behavior, but there are circumstances in which the seriousness of the issue becomes very evident. For example, a constant complaint of patients on the admission wards of mental hospitals is that there is literally nothing to do. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21

Not only does the medical treatment that would seem to constitute the occasioned involvement fail to materialize, but all the usual safety devices for providing subordinate involvements, previously mentioned, may be unavailable, or, if available, may have to be relied upon for a greater period of time than they were apparently designed to manage. Here, improper management of involvement within the situation must be displayed in just those circumstances where its observation by others may be very threatening. The patient, in short, is forced to act oddly just at a time and in a place where the one thing uppermost in his mind may be to demonstrate that he is normal. Should the patient take strong exception to his circumstances, he may be shifted to a “seclusion room,” where, quite literally, there may be nothing at all available to provide an acceptable main focus of attention. Alone in a stripped room, it will be nearly impossible for him to act suitably engaged and hence nearly impossible to act sane, and so the patient may try to cover up the judas-hole in the cell door in order to prevent passers-by from transforming a private predicament into a social situation. Failure to sustain a required degree and kind of main involvement does not occur merely because of a lack of appreciative understanding of what is going on or because of an impoverished environment. While present in a gathering, the individual may find that his concerns and interest lie outside it, being the kind that can be satisfied within an actual social situation but not the current one. The expressed impatience that may result, the sense of straining at the situation’s bonds, is something everyone has witnessed and displayed. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21

Common, too, are those conditions that lead an individual to say he is bored and to feel phlegmatic and affectless to engage in a suitable main involvement. It is worth commenting on another possibility, namely, that an individual can apparently feel too anxious and excited to participate properly. Whatever the acceptable main involvements available in the situation, the individual may find himself too agitated to give the required part of himself up to any of them. The kind of preoccupation has been memorialized for us in the expectant father cartoon. Persons who fidget and pace approach this condition; and in mental hospitals, manic patients realize it. One of the most poignant mental hospital scenes is that of a patient too excited or distraught to settle into what is available in the situation, yet desperately attempting to do so. Thus, one famous ex-patient, describing his efforts to control himself during periods of excitement, records: “I have often felt this [unhealthy mental excitement] and felt also that it could be often controlled by a determined exercise of the will. Often I have risen and walked firmly through the room or field, holding myself in as I would rein in a horse which was striving to break away in spite of curb-chain, bridle, or bit.” Sometimes the patient gives the impression that he knows he cannot hope to contain himself in the situation and is now concerned merely with giving others some impression of being properly present. In Central Hospital I observed one patient who would walk from one end of the day-room to the other, where there was a doorway leading out to the porch, bravely attempting to give the impression that there was something on the porch he had to see to, and then, without entering the porch, retrace his steps and repeat the cycle. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21

Another patient, a young psychotic woman, with the incredibly rapid tempo of a patient with motor excitement, seemed to attempt to squeeze herself back into the situation by dumping one ashtray into another, one bowl of water into another, one plate of food into another, apparently in the vain hope that it would look as though she were doing something acceptable and meaningful. Another, in repeatedly leaving her cafeteria seat, going to the doorway, and then coming back, would try to cover this anxious action by keeping on her face the studied look of someone who had to be somewhere at a particular time. There are many social situations where individuals can be found who affect to be caught up in the occasioned proceedings but who in fact have their own special business to pursue and hence their own allocation of involvement. The phrase “to mix with the crowd” tends to be reserved for criminals, detectives, reporters, and other heroes of dissimulation, but the process is in actuality quite a common one. Thus, in some urban public libraries, the staff and the local people without homes may reach a tacit understanding that dozing is permissible as long as the dozer first draws out a book and props it up in front of his head. In Central Hospital an interesting example of this dissimulation occurred in regard to well-liked attendants who would participate in the organized recreational activity of the parole patients and be quite fully accepted by the patients while doing so. Yet when a fight occurred among the patients at these times, or an attempted escape, the attendant often seemed to be on the scene even before some of the patients present realized anything untoward had happened. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21

At such moments some patients became a little disillusioned, realizing that the attendant’s participation was in part merely a show, that his spirit had not been caught up by the occasion, and that all along he had been alertly standing guard. It is in cases such as these, when the show of proper involvement is given away, that we obtain a clear outline of the constraints that are unusually unfelt and invisible. Now, while it is important for people to like it, it does not mean that we have to desperately seek their approval. However, it is crucial to be likeable. Other than being civil and treating people with respect, another way to show you care for them is to remember their names. Also, when doing business with other people, it may be a good idea to find out his or her complete name and some facts about his or her family, business and political opinions. Fix all these facts well into your mind as part of the picture, and the next time you met that person, inquire after the family, and ask about yacht and polo match. You will develop a following! One would do well to discover early in life that the average person is more interested in his or her own name than in all the other names on Earth put together. Remember that name and call it easily, and you have paid a subtle and very effective compliment. However, forget it or misspell it—and you have placed yourself at a sharp disadvantage. For example, I once organized a public-speaking course in Paris and sent form letters to all the American residents in the city. French typists with apparently little knowledge of English filled in the names and naturally they made blunders. One man, the manager of a large America bank in Paris, wrote me a scathing rebuke because his name had been misspelled. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21

The bigger a corporation becomes, the colder they become. One way to warm it up is to remember people’s names, and even if you are having a series of bad days, try to be nice and make it seem that your life is perfect. When an executive says he or she cannot remember names, it usually means he or she cannot remember a significant pat of one’s business and is operating on quicksand. People love personalized treatment, it makes them feel special and important. People are so proud of their names that they strive to perpetuate them at any cost. President Donald Trump built towers and hotels, William Randolph Hearst built castles and mansion, Sarah L. Winchester built one of the largest in most unique Queen Anne Victorian mansion in the World. Libraries and museums owe their richest collections to people who cannot bear to think that their names might perish from the memory of the race. The New York Public Library has its Astor and Lenox collections. The Metropolitan Museum perpetuates the names of Benjamin Altman and J. P. Morgan. And nearly every church is beautified by art-glass windows commemorating the names of the donors who contributed large sums of money for this honor. Most people do not remember their names, for the simple reason that they do not take the time and energy necessary to concentrate and repeat and fix names indelibly in their minds. They make excuses for themselves; they are too busy. However, remembering a name could make a person feel you are sincere and they are important to you and that could land you a huge account at work. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21

One time I had to meet with a client for an open house, and the event was to be catered. This particular client had an allergy to egg products and was interested in purchasing several homes as investment properties that he would rent out to his family. So, we made sure to remove any items that had eggs in them from the menu. He was so impressed that we took the time to accommodate his special needs that wrote a note to the manager and told him, “Your staff knows a lot about the fine art of handling people.” Later he signed the deal. Half the time we are introduced to a stranger, we chat a few minutes and cannot even remember his or her name by the time we say goodbye. One of the first lessons a politician learns is this: “To recall a voter’s name is statesmanship. To forget it is oblivion.” If you do not hear the name distinctly, say, “So sorry. I did not get the name clearly.” Then, if it is an unusual name, as them, “How is it spelled?” During the conversation, take the trouble to repeat the name several times, and try to associate it in your mind with the person’s features, expression, and general appearance. If the person is someone extremely important, leave a note of their name in your mobile phone. All this takes time, but good manners are made up of petty sacrifices. The importance of remembering and using names is not just the prerogative of kings and corporate executives. It works for all of us. Sometimes if you remember a person’s name, smile at them, and then tell them what you want, you may get a little extra roast beef on your sandwich. We should always be aware of the magic contained in a name and realize that this single item is wholly and completely owned by the person with whom we are dealing…and nobody else. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21

The name sets the individual apart; it makes one unique among all others. The information we are imparting or the request we are making takes on a special importance when we approach the situation with the name of the individual. From the waitress to the senior executive, the name will work magic as we deal with others. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language. In contemporary life the book of experience is filled with blank and mysterious pages. Conceptual spaces are used by the agents themselves to make distinctions. Accompanying these distinctions there are usually boundaries. Movement in a conceptual space is not free of restriction. An agent in a hereditary caste system cannot simply pick up and move to another cast. Nor can an employee just move to a better-paying job at will. The barriers to movement are part of what defines the “location.” Supervisory jobs that pay more have specific qualifications and may be subject to a competitive selection process. Castes are defined by socially maintained rules of entry and exit. Conceptual barriers are among the most extraordinary human inventions for accomplishing goals. There are clan identities, club, and fraternity membership criteria, citizenship rules, ethnic groupings, religious affiliations, and a host of other socially defined categories with hard boundaries. These conceptual barriers place much more refined filters on patterns of interaction. Because they are conceptual rather than physical, their effects on interactions can be much more selective. Clan identity may dictate one kind of restriction on material interactions (such as marrying within your religion), another kind of restriction on commercial ones (such as borrowing money from outside the clan), and none at all on relations such as who can be employed. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21

Moreover, the members of the clan may be dispersed in space. Although no physical boundary could effectively contain all the members and only the members, the concept of the clan can contain them and structure their interactions with each other and with other agent types. Interaction determined simply by coresidence within a common physical region cannot be so finely differentiated by types of agents. This is an enormous advantage for conceptual barriers as a means of shaping interaction patterns. As always, there are disadvantages. Conceptual barriers, like their physical counterparts, can be causes of underexploration because they restrict interactions to homogeneous and familiar pools of other agents. Members of commercia firms often find that they have fallen into a pattern of talking about the business only with other members of the firm. The opportunities for learning about markets not being served are diminished when this happens. Arguments for diversity of religious and cultural types in public institutions often make the underexploration point, that there is much to be leaned from interactions that are more heterogeneous. It is against these revolutionary changes in our uses of time, space, and knowledge that another unanticipated historical event is unfolding—the resurgence, as we have seen, of what we have termed prosuming. We know that in ancient times our ancestors fed, clothed and sheltered themselves long before the invention of money. They produced what they needed to consume. We also know that gradually, over the millennia, people prosumed less and relied more on money and markets. The common assumption of those who bothered to think about this was that prosuming would continue to diminish—that people creating unpaid value outside the market would shrivel into irrelevancy. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21

Yet exactly the opposite is happening. While shrinking in its First Wave forms, prosuming is rapidly expanding in new, Third Wave ways. It is producing more economic value, feeding more “free lunch” into the money economy and doing so through more channels. It is actually increasing productivity in the money sector and, as the World Wide Web and Linux have shown, it is challenging some of the biggest and most powerful governments and corporations in the World. Prosuming could even, ultimately, transform the ways in which we deal with problems like unemployment. Since the Great Depression of the 1930s and the rise of Keynesian economics, part of the textbook solution for unemployment has been the injection of public funds into the money economy to stimulate consumer demand, and, through that, make jobs. The reasonable assumption was that if a million workers were out of jobs, the creation of a million jobs would solve the problem. In a knowledge-intensive economy, however, that assumption is false. First, the United States of America and other countries no longer even know how many unemployed there are, or what that terms means when so many people combine their “job” with self-employment and/or create unpaid value by prosuming. More important, even creating five million jobless workers lack the particular knowledge or skill sets required by the new labor market. The problem of unemployment thus becomes qualitative rather than merely quantitative. Nor is conventional retraining as useful as it sounds, since, by the time new skills are learned, the economy’s knowledge requirements may well have shifted again. In short, unemployment in knowledge economies is different from that in assembly-line economies. It is structural. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21

The largely overlooked reality is that even the unemployed are employed. They are busy, as all of us are, creating unpaid value. This is yet another reason to reexamine the entire relationship of money and non-money sectors of the wealth system—the two lobes, as it were, of the brain-based economies of tomorrow. New, more powerful technologies will increase prosumer productivity. How can that be used more effectively to stimulate the money economy? Are there better ways to channel value back and forth between these two parts of wealth system? Are Linus and the Web the only models? Are there ways to remunerate the unremunerated for their contributions—perhaps with computer-assisted, multi-participant barter systems or even new “paracurrencies” of one kind or another? A generation ago, mosaics had a different structure. Typically, they looked like pyramids or wheel-and-spoke arrangements. A big company was surrounded by a ring of suppliers and distributors. The giant dominated the other firms in its grouping, dealers and suppliers alike serving essentially as it satellites. Customers and labor unions were also weak in comparison with the jumbo company. It goes without saying that large firms today still carry tremendous clout. However, things are rapidly changing. First, suppliers today are no longer just selling goods or services. They are also supplying critical information and, conversely, sucking information out of the buyer’s data bases. They are, as the buzzword has it, “partnering” with their clients. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21

Many corporations are able to rely on an independent network of third-party business partners—independent software developers, makers of peripheral equipment, dealers, and retailers….Some critical wrongly assert that such arrangements have led to the emergence of the “hollow corporation,” a vulnerable shell whose survival is dependent on outside companies. However, it is believed that this mosaic arrangement permits corporations to be lean, fleet, and adaptive, and that especially in times of crisis it is the “partners” who help corporations pull through. In fact, for every dollar of revenue in the catalyst company, the external infrastructure may generate three to four additional dollars of sales…Of far greater import is the enhanced flexibility to turn change and chaos into opportunity. In the past, companies often mouthed the rhetoric of partnership. Today they are finding themselves thrust into it. By tracing information patterns in a power-mosaic, we gain a clue to where real power and productivity lie. For example, communication flows might be densest between a parts supplier and manufacturer (or more accurately between a specific unit of each). The shipping operation of one and the stock-intake operation of the other form, in effect, a single organic unit—a key relationship. The fact that for accounting purposes, or for financial reasons, one is part of Company A and the other a part of Company B is increasingly divorced from the productive reality. In fact, the people in each of these departments may have more common interest in and loyalty to this relationship than to their own companies. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21

At Matsushita in Japan the partnering process has been formalized into something called “high productivity through investment of total wisdom.” Matsushita meets with its subcontractors at an early stage of product’s design and asks them to help improve it, in order to shorten time lags and get the product to market faster. Kozaburo Sikata, chairman of Kyoei-kai, the association of Matsushita subcontractors, expects this system to become standard practice. Sharing previously unshared information at the start is not something Matsushita does out of the goodness of its heart, but because competition demands it. And one can be sure that, as big as Matsushita is, its executives listen carefully when its 324 organized suppliers speak. Beyond this, suppliers these days are not just linked electronically to the big company, like spokes to a wheel-hub; they are, and increasingly will be, linked to one another a well, which means they are in far stronger position to form coalitions when necessary to apply pressure on the big firm. There is still another reason why the emerging mosaics no longer necessarily consist of dominators and dominated. With the breakup of the monolithic corporation into profit centers smaller and often weaker than themselves. The size of the parent firm, once a major factor, is increasingly irrelevant. It is, therefore, no longer sensible, as power shifts from monoliths to mosaics, to take for granted that giant firms dominate the mosaics of which they are a part. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21

Indeed, the large firm is also pressured from the other side, by customers who are increasingly organized into “users councils.” Ostensibly these groups are in business to exchange technical data. In reality, they are a new form of consumer lobby. Proliferating rapidly and arming themselves with high-powered legal, technical, and other expertise, users’ organizations represent countervailing power, and can often compel their supplier firms, regardless of size, to meet their demands. Such groups are especially active in the computer field, where, for example, users of VAX and Lotus software are organized. IBM customers are organized into many groups, joined in a single international council that represents some 10,000 companies, including some of the biggest in the World. IBM now boasts that it listens to its users. It better. Members of these groups may at one and the same time be customers, competitors, and joint venturers. Business life is becoming confusingly poly-relational. The idea, therefore, that few monolithic giants will command the economy of the future is simple-minded. In the new there is always an admixture of the old, and this is true of the protean counterculture now burgeoning in the United States of America. For over sixty years, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) sought a credible deterrence to any Russian attempt to invade Western Europe. A conventional defense by NATO forces was not likely to succeed. A primary component of the NATO deterrence was based on the U.S.A. nuclear forces. Yet, a nuclear response would be devastating for the whole World. How could this work? #RandolphHarris 17 of 21

The Russians have the first move. If they do not attack, we have the status quo; score move. If they attack, we have the status quo; score this 0 for each side. If they attack and NAO attempts a conventional defense, suppose the Russians have the payoff 1 and the United States of America has -1. A nuclear response gives -100 to each side. In this game, the Russians look ahead and forecast that their aggression will not bring forth a nuclear response. It is not in the U.S.A. interest after the fact. Thus attacking will give them the payoff 1; not attacking, 0. Therefore they will attack. If you think this is an unlikely scenario, the European members of NATO thought it all too likely that the United States of America would desert them in their time of need in just this way. They wanted the United States of America to commit credibly to a nuclear response. Let us leave aside the issues of credibility for now and examine the mechanics of how such a threat could work. Now the United States of America has the first move, namely the response rule it puts in place. The pertinent rule is the threat: “If the Russians attack Western Europe, our response will be nuclear.” If the United States of America does not make the threat, the rest of the game unfolds as before. With the threat in place, the choice of a conventional defense no longer exists. Once the U.S.A. threat is in place, the Russians loo ahead and recognize that aggression will meet a nuclear response and result in a Russian payoff of -100. They prefer the status quo, and so do not invade. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21

Now the United States of America in its first move looks ahead to all this and sees that its payoff is 0 with the threat and 1 without. Therefore U.S.A. interests dictate making the threat. Once again, observe that the U.S.A. response rule requires doing something that is not the best response after the fact. Therein lies the strategic purpose: by credibly altering the Russians’ perception of the U.S.A. response after the fact, the United States of America can change “the fact” –namely, the Russian decision whether or not to invade Western Europe. The rule must be in place before the other party has already taken the action you want to influence. After the fact, neither an unconditional move nor threats and promises have any relevance. This first move must be either observed or inferred by the rival, or else you cannot use it for strategic effect. In the film Dr. Strangelove, the Russians install their sure deterrent, the doomsday device, on a Friday, but delay telling the Americas until Monday. Over the weekend, U.S.A. Air Force General Jack D. Ripper orders his squadron of planes to launch a nuclear attack. The deterrent fails by being unobservable. Observability is not as straightforward as it seems. One need not actually observe the other person’s actions if the action can be inferred from the consequence. If I am allergic to shellfish, I can tell that you cooked with shrimp even if I did not actually observe you in the kitchen. Just as your unconditional move must be observable if it is to influence your rival, his actions must be observable if you are to influence them by threats or promises. Otherwise you cannot check his compliance, and he knows this. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21

Now that you have seen how credible unconditional moves and threats have their effects, you will be able to analyze most simple situations of this kind without drawing a game tree in all its detail. A verbal argument will usually suffice. If ever it does not, and you doubt if the prose has covered all the cases correctly, you can always check the reasoning by drawing an outline. We can make war on poverty but shrink from the extensive readjustments required to stop breeding it. The body is a type of workyard. Molecular machines do the daily work of the body. When we chew and swallow, muscles drive our motions. Muscle fibers contain bundles of molecular fibers that shorten by sliding past one another. In the stomach and intestines, the molecular machines we call digestive enzymes break down the complex molecules in foods, forming smaller molecules for use as fuel or as building blocks. Molecules to the bloodstream. Meanwhile, in the lungs, molecular storage devices called hemoglobin molecules pick up oxygen. Driven by molecular fibers, the heart pumps blood laden with fuel and oxygen to cells. In the muscles, fuel and oxygen drive contraction based on sliding molecular fibers. In the brain, they drive the molecular pumps that charge nerve cells for action. In the liver, they drive molecular machines that build and break down a whole host of molecules. And so the story continues. The body is also a construction site. In growing, healing, and renewing tissue, the body is a construction site. Cells take building materials from the bloodstream. Molecular machinery programmed by the cell’s genes uses these materials to build biological structures: to lay down bone and collagen, to build whole new cells, to renew skin, and to heal wounds. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21

With the exception of tooth fillings and other artificial implants, everything in the human body is constructed by molecular machines. These molecular machines build molecules, including more molecular machines. They clear away structures that are old or out of place, sometimes using machinery like digestive enzymes to take structures apart. During tissue construction, whole cells move about, amoebalike: extending part of themselves forward, attaching, pulling their material along, and letting go of the former attachment site behind them. Individual cells contain a dynamic pattern of molecules made of components that can break down but can also be replaced. Some molecular machines in the cell specialize in digesting molecules that show signs of damage, allowing them to be replaced by fresh molecules made according to genetic instructions. Components inside cells form their complex patterns by self-assembly, that is, by sticking to the proper partners. Failures in construction increase as we age. Teeth wear and crack and are not replaced; hair follicles stop working; skin sages and wrinkles. The eye’s shape becomes more rigid, ruining close vision. Younger bodies can knit together broken bones quickly, making them stronger than before, but osteoporosis can make older bones so fragile that they break under minor stress. Sometimes construction is botched from the beginning due to a missing or defective genetic code. In hemophilia, bleeding fails to stop due to the lack of blood-clotting factor. Construction muscle tissue is disrupted in 1 in 3,300 male births by muscular dystrophy, in which muscle are gradually replaced by scar tissue and fat; the molecule “dystrophin” is missing. Sickle-cell anemia results from abnormal hemoglobin molecules. Paraplegics and quadriplegics know that some parts of the body do not heal well. The spinal cord is an extreme—and extremely serious—case, but scarring and improper regrowth of tissues result from many accidents. If tissues always regrew properly, injury would do no permanent physical damage. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21

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