There is a near universal agreement that violent messages permeate nearly every aspect of social life in this country, as we live in a society that implicitly and/or explicitly exposes individuals to heavy doses of violent imagery and ideals. Our movies, TV news, and television programs are mostly hyperviolent. Our sporting events and other leisure activities tend to revolve around violent themes. Even our children’s cartoons and video game are inundated with violence. Although no direct, causal relationship exist, social commentators tend to agree that this pervasive subculture of violence serves to reinforce individual-level thoughts and behaviors. The actual assaultive or homicidal transactions generally do not hinge upon recent or heightened levels of exposure to these violent stimuli; however, this type of social climate does make physical problem solving appear to be a more acceptable and realistic course of action. Murderers have been known to interact or network with other known killers, taking on everything from a collegial to a formal organizational format. However, when it comes to the issue of organizational alignment, most murderers fit the description of what Best and Luckenbill (1994) call loners. Namely, they choose to work alone and go to great lengths to keep their offending a secret. While some perpetrators of criminal assaultive operate as loners (abusive parents or domestic partners), the average assaulter (the male combatant who is prone to street or barroom fights) operates within a colleague or peerlike existence. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16

In extreme cases, such as gang violence, offenders are known to interact as part of a team or formal organization. Here, the violence takes on a collective form with fellow combatants passing along normative and behavioral guidance to one another. Sometimes, we even see active recruitment and apprenticeships within these collectives. The average offender learns violent ways by mutating or exaggerating existing socialization scripts. They tend to be persons with a history and proficiency in physical problem solving. Faced with emotionally charged situations, these individuals allow the situation to get out of hand to such a degree that a would-be assault becomes an assault or murder. Society’s formal social control agents clearly take a hardline orientation toward the crimes of homicide and assault. Law enforcement hits the ground running when these crimes occur. In 2021, 65 percent of all known homicides and 60 percent of all aggravated assaults were cleared by arrest. No other form of violent or property crime enjoys a clearance rate that approaches this level. Statutory provisions allow for the serious charges to be levied against these arrested individuals. For example, The Model Penal Code assigns a felony status to all three grades of criminal homicides. Murder is treated as a first degree felony which means that, in more jurisdictions, it I punishable by a 1- to 20 year prison term. Where aggravating circumstances are present, someone convicted of murder may be sentenced to life in prison or even death. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16

The Mode Penal Code defines manslaughter to be a second degree felony. If convicted on this charge, the defendant can be sentenced to 1 to 10 years in prison. Finally, the Model Penal Code classifies negligent homicide as a third degree felony. A person convicted on this charge must contend with a 1- to 5-year prison sentence. The Model Penal Code classifies aggravated assaults (those committed with a deadly weapon or against a peace officer) as a felony in the second degree. Such an offense is punishable by 1 to 10 years of prison. Simple assault is assigned a graded offense designation. Most simple assaults receive a generic misdemeanor or a designation, punishable by a fine and/or jail term of less than 1 year. When evidence of mutual consent (id est, a fight) is present, the offense may be downgraded to a petty misdemeanor. This grade of offense is punishable by a fine and/or jail term of up to 6 months. Murder and assault cases receive close scrutiny from the court system. Nearly two thirds of all homicide defendants and one third of the assault defendants remain in jail while they await trial. The average bail amount for murder is $500,000. For involuntary manslaughter, the average amount is $50,000. The average bail amount for assault with a weapon is $100,000. And the average bail amount for assault without a weapon is $15,000. Researchers found that 70 percent of the homicide defendants and 60 percent of the assault defendants in their study were eventually convicted. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16

Once convicted, the vast majority of homicide and assault defendants were subject to extreme sanctions. Over 90 percent of the murderers were sentenced to incarceration with a median prison sentence of 30 years. Only 10 percent of the murderer were sentenced to less than 10 years in prison and nearly 25 percent of all murder cases typically result in a life sentence. Nearly 75 percent of all assault defendants are sentenced to prison with the average sentence set at 69 months. Nationwide, there are approximately 2,500 murderers awaiting death sentences. This means that there was one individual on death row in the United States of America for every nine homicides that were committed in 2021. Surprisingly, informal reactions to homicide and assault offenders and offenses vary across different situations. The presence of third parties can alter the process of a homicide transaction in a number of ways. They can avoid involvement, negotiate further escalation, intervene in the dispute, or simply tolerate the violence as an impartial observer. Staged experiments show that citizens are wary to intervene in physical disputes that they witness This holds true even when the attackers is a man and the victim is a woman. Onlookers are particularly hesitant about intervening in disputes when they do not have social ties (id est, friendships, family ties, group affiliation) to the combatants. Conversely, when third parties know one or more of the combatants, these allegiances are more likely to inspire them to join the fight. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16

Unfortunately, this involvement usually serves to exacerbate, not defuse, the level of violence. The complex and unpredictable nature of third-party responses lead scholars to conclude that their presence rarely takes on a noticeable social control function. By definition, criminal homicide is a collective transaction. An offender, victim, and possibly an audience engage in an interchange which leaves the victim dead. Furthermore, these transactions are typically situated, for participants interact in a common physical territory. As with other situated transactions, it is expected that the participants develop particular roles, each shaped by the others and instrumental in some way to the fatal outcome. However, research, with a few exceptions, has failed critically to examine the situated transaction eventuating in murder. At most, studies have shown that many victims either directly precipitate their destruction, by throwing the first punch or firing the first shot, or contribute to the escalation of some conflict which concludes in their demise. However, how transactions of murder are organized and how they develop remain puzzles. What are the typical roles developed by the offender, victim, and possible bystanders? In what ways do these roles intersect to produce the fatal outcome? Are there certain regularities of interaction which characterize all transactions of murder, or do patterns of interaction vary among transactions in a haphazard fashion? These are important questions that we will soon cover. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16

I have suggested that an individual can betray one’s encounter either by entering collusive byplays against it or by taking leave in a precipitous fashion. There is another possibility, however—one that is especially important for the kind of leave-taking that also terminates the engagement. Leave-taking, as already suggested, is a physical act well designed to express rejection of those taken leave of. In the case of two-person engagements, the person left is not only the person available as the target for this implication, but also finds oneself perforce unengaged—and this state, during some social occasions, may be a threat not only to the unengaged individual but to those managing the occasion as well. Perhaps the most familiar instance of this issue is found in the leave-taking considerateness associated with “getting stuck” at social parties. A girl at a party who is left without a dance or talk partner is left exposed as an undesired person (and, incidentally, exposes the party itself as an entity that cannot incorporate its members). Hence, there are often rules against a male dropping his partner, no matter how long he has been stuck with her, if this means she will be exposed to the gathering unengaged. In theory, in “society” the male must wait for the officially sanctioned means of release: delivery of the female to a desirable unit of participation, especially another male openly seeking her company. At public dances for the lower-middle and lower class, a male’s obligation to his current partner may extend only to walking her back to the female side of the hall; sauntering back with her, however, is more protective of the female than is walking with a rapid pace. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16

Even then, however, the social task of the person released may not be at an end: If you are talking to a lady with the ordinary indifference of a common acquaintance, and are only waiting till some one else comes up, for an opportunity to leave her, you should not move the instant another arrives, for that would look as if your previous tarrying had been compulsory; but you should remain a few moments and then turn away. In the face of this difficult obligation, the withdrawer may devise strategies to reduce the potential offensiveness of his withdrawal. Currently, at informal parties, a person locked in an encounter may seize on a desire for a fresh drink as a reason for tactful leave-taking. A more general tack is to rely on the tacit cooperation of the person who is being left; she must look for cues and hints and take them. While a guy must be willing to dance a little longer than he might want, or even until officially released by another male, the female herself ought to come to his rescue after a while: The beginning of wisdom is to accept the fact that one has danced long enough with one partner and that he might like to change. A woman who clings for hours, pathetic though she may be, will not soon dance with that partner again. Failing that perfect refuge, a table and a group of friends, she should suggest leaving the floor quite quickly, as soon as getting stuck seems likely. The classic phrase for this is, “It’s so hot—would you like a drink?” or, Let’s sit down for a bit.” Once away from the floor, she and her partner should join in a group of friends—better a group than a couple—unless a man comes up to speak to her, at which point her partner may slip away. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16

The tactful work of the leave-taker and the left is sometimes facilitated by the person responsible for order in the occasion; this officer may provide diplomatic means of effecting other persons’ tactful departures. Thus, the fact that a guest may use the punch bowl as a means of switching encounters can lead a wise hostess to arrange to have drinks and food out, but at a far table. However, of course, the hostess’s action may be even more direct: she may herself arrange to break into those conversational clusters in which she feels persons have been stuck. Some of the tete-a-tetes will break up by themselves, if the guests have sense and experience enough to move around and handle themselves. However, very often the intervention of the hostess will be themselves. In fact, unless a tete-a-tere seems to be particularly animated and gay the hostess is sure that both guests are enjoying themselves thoroughly, she should change the combinations from time to time. So, too, with partners who have been too long stuck with each other dancing. Here the hostess may ensure that there will be men present, often relatives of the house, who are willing to engage in “duty” dances and other emergency operations. The traditional role of the usher is a formalization of this function, giving to men whose sign of office is white boutonniere the right and obligation to keep partners “circulating.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 16

When it comes to personal achievement, attitude may be right and understanding may be right, but you still find that things happen in a certain way. Any ordinary things. It is very useful to try to remember instances where one tried to do something differently and to see how one always came back to the same thing even if one made a slight deviation—enormous forces driving one back to the old ways. “When you said that we cannot help the same things happening, did you mean until our being is changes?” I did not speak about work. I said it was necessary to understand that by ourselves we cannot “do.” When this is sufficiently understood, you can think what it is possible to do: what conditions, what knowledge and what help are needed. However, first it is necessary to realize that, in ordinary life, if you try to do something different, you will find that you cannot. When this is emotionally understood, only then is it possible to go further. “If we are machines, how can we change our being?” You cannot wait until you change. There is one very important principle in the work—you never have to work in accordance with your forces, but always beyond your forces. This is a permanent principle. In the work you always have to do more than you can. Only then can you change. If you do only what is possible, you will remain where you are. One has to do the impossible. You must not take the word “impossible” on a big scale, but even a little means much. You have to do more than you can, or you will never change. This is different from life—in life you only do what is possible. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16

“I want to find the way to make a decision to work from which I cannot draw back.” This is one of our greatest illusions, that we can make decisions. It is necessary to be in order to make decisions because, as we are, one little “I” makes decisions and another “I” which does not know about it, is expected to carry them out. This is one of the first points we have to realize, that, as we are, we cannot make decisions even in small things—things just happen. However, when you understand this rightly, when you begin to look for the causes, and when you find these causes, then you will be able to work and perhaps you will be able to make decisions, but for a long time only in relation to work, not to anything else. The first thing you have to decide is to do your own work and to do it regularly, to remind yourself about it, not to let it slip away. We forget things too easily. We decide to make efforts—certain kinds of effort and certain kinds of observations—and then just ordinary things, ordinary octaves, interrupt it all and we quite forget. Again we remember and again we forget, and so on. It is necessary to keep certain realizations, certain things that you have already realized and understood, always with you. You must try not to forget them. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16

The chief difficulty is what to do and how to make yourself do it. To make yourself think regularly, work regularly—this is the thing. Only then will you begin to see yourself, that is, to see what is more important and what is less important, where to put your attention and so on. Otherwise what happens? You decide to work, to do something, to change things—and then you remain just what you were. Try to think about your work, what you are trying to do, why you are trying to do it, what helps you to do it and what hinder you, both from outside and inside. It can also be useful to think about external events because they show you how much depends on the fact that people are asleep, that they are incapable of thinking rightly, incapable of understanding. When you have seen the outside, you can apply it to yourself. You will see the same confusion in yourself on all sorts of different subjects. It is difficult to think, difficult to see where to begin to think: once you realize this, you start to think in the right way. If you find your way to think rightly about one thing, that will immediately help you to think rightly about other things. The difficult is that people do not think rightly about anything. For instance, one should think not only about the consequences of committing a crime and the consequence of self-defense, but also look at the economic factors such as the cost of bail, time lost from work, and if your vehicle happens to be in the area because what will happen if you are not there to move it? Although the macho response to a threat may seem like the best course of action in the moment, walking away may be more rightly. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16

There is so much trouble in the World today that we really should limit the people we are around if they are constantly unhappy and upset or generally not in a good disposition. Movies and TV often depict violence, and most of the time the character gets out of trouble super quick because they have to in order to keep the show of the film flowing. People only see the glamourous side of violence, but the real consequences so they do not stop to really consider if acting out is a viable option. When individual character deviates from the social character, the social group tends to reinforce all those character elements that correspond to it, while the opposite elements become dormant. If, for instance, a sadistic person lives within a group where the majority are nonsadistic and where sadistic behavior is considered undesirable and unpleasant, the sadistic individual will not necessarily change one’s character, but one will not act upon it; one’s sadism will not disappear, but will “dry up,” as it were, for lack of being fed. Life in the kibbutzim and other intentional communities offers many examples of this, although there are also instances where the new atmosphere produces a real change of character. A person whose character is sadistic will be essentially harmless in an antisadistic society; one will be considered to be suffering from an illness. One will never be popular and will have little, if any, access to positions in which one can have social influence. If it is asked what makes the sadism of a person so intense, one must not think of only constitutional, biological, but of psychic atmosphere that is largely responsible not only for the generation of social sadism but also for the vicissitudes of individually generated, idiosyncratic sadism. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16

With any exercise of brinkmanship, there is always the danger of falling off the brink. While strategists look back at the Cuban missile crisis as a successful use of brinkmanship, our evaluation would be very different if the risk of a superpower war had turned into a reality. The survivors would have cursed Kennedy for recklessly and unnecessarily flaming a crisis into a conflagration. Yet in an exercise of brinkmanship, the risk of falling off the brink will sometimes turn into a reality. The riots in America in 2020 are a sad example. The people were on a collision course with law enforcement. One side would have to lose; either the hard-liners would cede power to more reform-minded leaders or the people would compromise on their demands. During the confrontation, there was a continual risk that the hardliners would overact and use force to squelch the democracy movement. When two sides are playing a game of brinkmanship and neither side is backing down, there is a chance that the situation will get out of control, with tragic consequences. In the aftermath of the democracy movement, government leaders became more aware of the dangers in brinkmanship—for both sides. Faced with similar democracy protests in East Germany and Czechoslovakia, the communist leaders decided to give in to popular demands. In Romania, the government tried to hold firm against a reform movement, using violent repression to maintain power. The violence escalated almost to the level of a civil war, and in the end President Nicolae Ceausescu was executed from crimes against the people. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16

It helps to think of spying as a gigantic business. In fact, it is not inappropriate that U.S.A. Central Intelligence Agency is nicknamed The Company. As in any industry, there are a few giant firms and many smaller ones. In the global espionage industry, U.S.A. producers are dominant. These include, apart from the CIA, the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency and, above all, the National Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, which together are responsible for most of the “techint” data collection. In addition there are specialized military intelligence units attached to various military commands. Less known are the small intelligence units, frequently staffed by CIA people on loan, in the State Department, the Energy Department, the Treasury, the Commerce Department, and sprinkled throughout the government. Together they for the U.S.A. “intelligence community.” The Soviets, on their side, rely on part of the KGB (the other part has domestic security functions) to collect foreign intelligence, and on the GRU, which specializes in military and technological espionage. The Soviets, too, possess a vast system of satellites, ground stations, giant radar, reconnaissance aircraft, and other means to monitor international communications and nuclear activities around the World. The British—famed for excellent analytic skills and for the number of Soviet moles who succeeded in worming their way into their intelligence agencies—depend on their Secret intelligence Service, known as M16, and their own NSA counterpart, called Government Communications, Headquarters, or GCHQ. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16

The French CIA is the DGSE, also known as La Piscine or “the swimming pool,” and is supplemented by the GCR, or Groupement de Controles Radioelectrique. Frequently on the outs with other Wester services, it is rising in prestige, despite its Keystone Kops performance in the so-called Greenpeace incident, which led to the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, a ship belonging to anti-nuke protestors. The highly rated Israeli Mossad, often called “The Institute,” and the West Germany Bundesnachrichtendienst are also important producers, as are the three main Japanese services. The first of these is the Naicho, or Cabinet Research Office, a small organization that reports directly to the Japanese Prime Minister. The private organizations and news media like Kyodo News service and Jiji Press; and from the Chosa Besshitsu, or “Chobetsu,” which handles electronic and aerial reconnaissance, focusing mainly on North Korea, China, and the U.S.S.R. (In 1986, eighty-four years after Giichi Tanaka’s firsthand look-see at the Trans-Siberian Railroad, the Soviets discovered an odd Japanese container on the railroad. Techint had supplanted Humint.) In short, virtually every nation has some semblance of an agency for the collection of foreign intelligence. Additionally, certain nongovernmental institutions, from giant oil companies to the Vatican, conduct extensive intelligence operations. In aggregate, these organizations form one of the World’s greatest “service” industries. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16

The chief danger of nanotechnology is not accidents, but abuse. The safety benefits of nanotechnology, when used with normal care, will free some of our attention to grapple with this far more difficult problem. Nanotechnologies have such great power that they could be used for evil or environmentally destructive purposes as easily as they could be used for good and environmentally nourishing purposes. This great danger will require a level of political control far beyond that which most nations know how to exercise. We have a prodigious social learning task that we must face. Thus far, we have focused on how increased abilities can serve constructive ends. Not surprisingly, the potential consequences—with the huge exception of social and economic disruption—are overwhelmingly positive. Inherently, clean, well-controlled, inexpensive, superior technologies, when applied with care, can yield far better results than inherently dirty, messy, costly, inferior technologies. This should come as no surprise, but it is only half the story. The other half is the application of those same superior technologies to destructive ends. Readers feeling that all this may be too good to be true can breathe a sigh of relief. This problem looks tough. Molecular manufacturing will lead to more powerful technologies, but our current, crude technology already has World-smashing potential. We have lived with that potential for decades now. In the coming years, we will need to strengthen institutions for maintaining peaceful security. Remember, Americans, be proud of who you are, display your superiority and buy American cars, produce, meat and other products to keep America the World’s Superpower. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16