Vengeful destructiveness is a spontaneous reaction to intense and unjustified suffering inflicted upon a person or members of a particular group. It differs from normal defensive aggression in two ways: (1) It occurs after the damage had been done, and hence is not a defense against a threatening danger. (2) It is of much greater intensity, and is often cruel, lustful, and insatiable. Language itself expresses this particular quality of vengeance in the term “thirst for vengeance.” It hardly needs to emphasized how widespread vengeful aggression is, both among individuals and groups. A number of gang members told us that they used violence to even the score with a specific group or individual. Unlike others we interviewed in the past, who reported generalized responses, these individuals identified a specific target for their violence: someone who had committed a violent act against them or their gang in the past. 002: I had on a blue rag and he say what’s up cuz, what’s up blood, and arguin’ and everything, and teachers would stop it, and then me and him met up one day when nobody was round. We got to fightin. Naw, cause I told Ron, my cousin, my cousin and em came up to the school and beat em up. And the next day when he seen me, he gonna ask me where my cousin and em at. I say I don’t need my cousin and em for you. They just came up there cause they heard you was a Blood. And they whooped em. Then me and him had a fight the next day, yeah. And then I had to fight some other dudes that was his friends and I beat em up. Then he brought some boys up to the school and they, uh, pulled out a gun on me and I ran up in the school. And then I brought my boys up the next day and we beat on em. #RandolphHarris 1 of 29

Specific examples of retaliation against rival gangs were mentioned less frequently than was general gang violence. This point underscores the important symbolic function of gang violence, a value that members must be ready to support. The idea that rival gangs will “bring violence” to the gang is an important part of the gang belief system; it is pivotal in increasing cohesion among members of otherwise loosely confederated organizations. Graffiti– another type of gang violence that occurs in response to defacing gang graffiti. Organizational symbols are important to all groups, and perhaps more so to those whose members are adolescents. The significance of graffiti to gangs has been documented by a number of observers in a variety of circumstances. In particular, graffiti identify gang territory, and maintaining territory is an important feature of gang activity in Sacramento and other cities. As Block and Block observed in Sacramento, battles over turf often originated in attempts by rival gang to “strike out” graffiti. Several gang members told us that attempts to paint over their graffiti by rival gangs were met with a violent response, but no gang members could recall a specific instance. Claiming to use violence in response to such insults again reflects the mythic character of gang violence; it emphasizes the symbolic importance of violence for group processes such as cohesion, boundary manintenance, and identity. Further, such responses underscore the threat represented by rivals who would encroach on gang territory to strike out gang graffiti. #RandolphHarris 2 of 29

INT: What does the removal of graffiti mean? 043: That’s a person that we have to go kill. We put our enemies up on the wall. If there is a certain person, we “X” that out and know who to kill. INT: What if somebody comes and paints a pitchfork or paints over your graffiti? What does that mean to your gang? 046: First time we just paint it back up there, no sweat. Next time they come do it, we go find out who did it and go paint over theirs. If they come back a third time, it’s like three times you out. Obviously that means something if they keep painting over us. They telling us they ready to fight. Territory—most gang members continued to live in the neighborhood where their gang started. Even for those who had moved away, it retained a symbolic value. Protecting gang turf is viewed as an important responsibility, which extends well beyond its symbolic importance as the site where the gang began. Our subjects’ allegiance to the neighborhood was deeply embedded in the history of neighborhood friendship groups that evolved into gangs. Thus, turf protection was an important value. When we asked gang members about defending their turf, we received some generalized responses about their willingness to use violence to do so. INT: If someone from another gang comes to your turf, what does your gang do? 019: First try to tell him to leave. INT: If he don’t leave? 019: He’ll leave one way or the other—carry him out in a Hefty bag. #RandolphHarris 3 of 29

In other instances, however, the responses identified an individual or an incident in which the gang used violence to protect its turf. INT: What kind of things does the gang have to do to defend its turf? 013: Kill. That’s all it is, kill. INT: Tell me about your most recent turf defense. What happened, a guy came in? 013: A guy came in, he had the wrong colors on, he got to move out. He got his head split open with a sledgehammer, he got two ribs broken, he got his face torn up. INT: Did he die from that? 013: I don’t know. We dropped him off on the other side of town. If he did die, it was on the other side of town. Staging grounds for violence—gang members expect that when they go to certain locations they will be the targets of violence from other gangs or will be expected by members of their own gang to engage in violence. In some cases, large-scale violence will occur. Other encounters result only in “face-offs.” These encounters highlight the role of situational characteristic in gang violence. Most often the staging grounds are public places such as a restaurant. INT: Do they ever bring weapons to school? 011: No, cause we really don’t have no trouble. We mainly fight up at White Castle. That’s were our trouble starts, at the White Castle. (The expectation of violence at certain locations was so strong that some members avoided going to those places.) INT: Do you go to dance or parties? 047: I don’t. I stay away from house parties. Too many fights come out of there. #RandolphHarris 4 of 29

According to another gang member, violence at house parties had reached such a level that many hosts searched their guests for weapons. 074: Sometime people wait until they get out of the party and start shooting. Now at these parties they have people at the door searching people, even at house parties. In general, gang members reported that they “hung out” in small cliques or subgroups and that it was rare for the entire gang to be together. This reflects the general character of social organization in the gangs we studied. An external threat—usually from another gang—was needed to strengthen cohesion among gang members and to bring the larger gang together. Many members of our sample reported that they did not go skating, to the mall, or to dances alone or in small groups because they knew that gang violence was likely to erupt at such locations. Thus the gang went en masse to these locations, prepared to start or respond to violence. These expectations contributed to the eventual use of violence. In this way, the gang’s belief system contributed to the likelihood of violent encounters. Ending gangs—when we asked for gang members’ perspectives on the best way to end gangs, we expected to find a variety of recommendations targeted at fundamental causes (racism, unemployment, education) as well as more proximate solutions (detached workers, recreation centers, job training). #RandolphHarris 5 of 29

Instead the modal response reflected the centrality of violence in the gang. Twenty-five of our 99 subjects told us that the only way to get rid of their gangs would be to use violence to get rid of the members. This response was confirmed by gang members in their conversations with the field ethnographer. For many gang members, life in the gang had become synonymous with violence; for one respondent, even job offers were not sufficient to end the gang. INT: What would be the best way to get rid of your gang, Rolling Sixties? 033: Smoke us all. INT: Kill you all? 033: Yeah. INT: We couldn’t give you guys jobs? 033: No, just smoke us. (Others recommended using extreme violence to get rid of their gang.) INT: What would it take to get rid of your gang? 035: Whole lot of machine guns. Kill us all. We just going to multiply anyway cause the Pee Wees gonna take over. INT: What would be the best way to get rid of the Sixties? 042: Kill us all at once. Put them in one place and blow them up. (Violence is so central a part of gang culture that even the members’ recommendations about ending gangs include elements of violence. The process of gang violence—the analysis above suggests a model that accounts for the escalation of gang violence and is consistent with the nature of gang process and normative structure: it reflects the lack of strong leadership, structure, and group goals. The key element is the collective identification of threat, a process that unites the gang and overcomes the general lack of unity by increasing cohesion. This occurred in response to threats against the gang, either real or perceived, by rival gangs. The role of mythic violence is particularly important in this context; it is the agent through which talk about violence most frequently unites gang members. #RandolphHarris 6 of 29

We suggest that a seven-step process accounts for the peaks and valleys of gang violence. They key to understanding violence is the nature of organization within gangs. Most gangs originate as neighborhood groups and are characterized by loose ties between their members and the larger gang. These groups generally lack effective leadership; cohesion in small cliques is stronger than the ties to the larger gang. Against this backdrop, symbolic enemies are identified when subgroups interact with other gangs near them. Threats from those groups—whether real or perceived—expand the number of participants, and may increase cohesion among members and heighten their willingness to use violence. Violence between gangs is most often the result of a mobilizing event that pushes a ready and willing group beyond the constraints against violence. Such events may include the deployment of gang members to protect or attack certain locations, to engage in actions in cars, or simply to act “loco.” Violent encounters typically are short-lived and de-escalate rapidly. This de-escalation, however, may be only a respite before the next retaliation. The process moves through the following seven steps: Loose bonds to the gang, collective identification of threat from a rival gang (through rumors, symbolic shows of force, cruising, and mythic violence), reinforcing the centrality of violence that expands the number of participants and increases cohesion; a mobilizing event possibly, but not necessarily, violence; escalation of activity; violent event; rapid de-escalation; retaliation. #RandolphHarris 7 of 29

Gang violence, like other gang activities, reflects the gang’s organizational and normative structure. Such violence, especially retaliatory violence, is an outgrowth of a collective process that reflects the loose organizational structure of gangs with diffuse goals, little allegiance among members, and few leaders. If gangs are composed of diffuse subgroups, how is violence organized? Our answer to this question is “Not very well and not very often,” because most gang violence serves important symbolic purposes within the gang. In addition, most gang violence is retaliatory, a response to violence—real or perceived—against the gang. Gang violence serves many functions in the life of the gang. First, and most important, it produces more violence through the processes of threat and contagion. These mechanisms strongly reflect elements of collective behavior. Second, it temporarily increases the solidarity of gang members, uniting them against a common enemy by heightening their dependence on each other. When gang violence exceeds tolerable limits, a third function may be evident: the splintering of gangs into subgroups and the decision by some individual to leave the gang. It cannot be denied that blood vengeance and criminal law, bad as they are, also have a certain social function in upholding social stability. The full power of the lust for vengeance can be seen in those instances where this function is lacking. It is notorious that real or alleged atrocities can ignite the most intense rage of vengefulness. #RandolphHarris 8 of 29

A startling revelation of the satanic confederacy against God and His Christ is given to the Apostle John. After the messages to the seven churches, the World-wide work of the deceiver-prince is fully disclosed to the apostle. He is bidden to write all that he is shown, so that the Church of Christ might know the full meaning of the war with Satan in which the redeemed would be engaged right on to the time when the Lord Jesus would be revealed from Heaven in judgment upon these vast and terrible powers—powers which are full of cunning malignity and hatred to His people, and truly at work behind the World of men from the days of the garden story to the end. As we read the Apocalypse it is important to remember that even though the organized forces of Satan described there were in existence at the time of the Fall in Eden, they were only partially revealed to the people of God prior to the advent of the promised “Seed of the woman” who was to bruise the serpent’s head. When the fullness of time came, God manifest in the flesh met the fallen archangel, the leader of the evil angelic hosts, in mortal combat at Calvary. Putting them to open shame, He shook off from Himself vast masses of those hosts of darkness who had gathered around the cross from the furthermost realms of the kingdom of Satan (Col. 2.15). The Scriptures teach us that God’s unveilings of the truths concerning Himself, and of all the things in the spiritual realm which we need to know, are always timed by Him to match the strength of His people. #RandolphHarris 9 of 29

The full revelation of these satanic powers disclosed in the Apocalypse was not given to the Church in its fancy—come forty years passed after the Lord’s ascension before the Book of Revelation was written. Possibly it was necessary that the Church of Christ should first fully grasp the fundamental truths revealed to Paul and the other apostles before she could safely be shown the extent of the war with supernatural powers of evil upon which she had entered. In the vision given to John, the name and character of the deceiver is more clearly made known, along with the strength of his forces and the extent of the war and its final issues. It is shown that in the invisible realm there is a war between the force of evil and the forces of light. John says that “the dragon WARRED, and his angels” (Rev. 12.7), the dragon being explicitly described as the “old serpent, called the Devil and Satan,” the deceiver of the whole inhabited Earth. His World-wide work as deceiver is fully revealed, and the war in the Earth-realm caused by his deceiving of the races and the World powers acting under his instigation and rule. The highly organized confederacy of principalities and powers acknowledging the headship of Satan is disclosed, and their “authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation,” all deceived by the supernatural and invisible forces of evil, and making “war with the saints” (Rev. 13.7). #RandolphHarris 10 of 29

Tightly defined occasions can, of course, have their own compensations. An example is the army parade square, a region where extreme situational orientation can be found. Here it can be the rule that no statement is to be made by an officer to a subordinate that is not addressed in an impersonal way and with sufficient volume to make it a public utterance, as in the shout, “Smarten up, that man in the rear”; in response to which the person thus addressed may be obliged to be silent or, if an answer is demanded, to limit all statements drastically and, as already suggested, speak while looking straight head, excluding himself from almost all mutual-involvement and ensuring that even his glance remains situational. Yet, here, the person on parade can feel that his mind has been left wonderfully free to wander. Contrariwise, the looseness of some cocktail parties may require of the guest that he keep very much on his toes mentally. Further, in those situations where the individual is required to show much respect for the gathering as a whole, he may be excused from any kind of deep involvement with individuals who are next to him. On the other hand, in those situations where no holds are barred, the interpersonal wrestling that may occur can be extremely strenuous and taxing. Here we have, of course, the traditional argument that is advanced in support of the ritualization of sociable occasions. #RandolphHarris 11 of 29

Behaviour—social behaviour—is partly an art, partly instinct. In what is called our freer modern life, manners have come to count for a good del less, which makes sheer manner count for a good deal more. Now that it is less vital to be correct, it becomes far more important to be acceptable. In fact, the decline of manners in the grand and fixed sense has made behaviour infinitely more difficult. A perpetual forced recourse to instinct (the art element being discredited) gives our friends a harassed, unstable air. There is no longer the safety of a prescribed World, of which the thousand-and-one rules could be learnt, in which one could steer one’s way instructed and safe. The World, even the great World, can have, in an age of manners, held no more terrors than does the Hyde Park Corner traffic, with its apparent complexity, for the unassuming driver who has passed his test. For each of the occasions of society, one of the thousand-and-one rules you have learnt fitted. You knew what to do, and did it. Society went like clockwork. Man as we know him is not a completed being; nature develops him only up to a certain point and then leaves him either to develop further by his own efforts and devices, or to live and die such as he was born. Man ascribes to himself many powers, faculties and properties which he does not possess, and which he will never possess unless he can develop into a completed being. Man does not realize that he is actually a machine, with no independent movements, which is brought into motion by external influences. #RandolphHarris 12 of 29

The most important of the qualities which man ascribes to himself, but does not possess, is consciousness. By consciousness we mean a particular kind of awareness in man, awareness of himself, awareness of who he is, what he feels or thinks, or where he is at the moment. You must remember tht man is not equally conscious all the time and that, according to the way in which we study man, we consider that he has the possibility of four states of consciousness. They are: sleep, waking-state or relative consciousness, third state of consciousness or self-consciousness, and fourth state of consciousness or objective consciousness, but in ordinary life man knows nothing of objective consciousness and no experiments in this direction are possible. In fact man actually lives only in two states: one part of his life passes in sleep, and the other part if what is called waking-state, though in reality it differs very little from sleep. When we speak of consciousness, therefore, we refer to a state of greater consciousness than our ordinary waking state. We have no control over this state but we have a certain control over the way in which we think about it and we can construct our thinking in such a way as to bring consciousness. By giving to our thoughts a direction which they would have in a moment of consciousness we can induce consciousness. This practice we call self-remembering. #RandolphHarris 13 of 29

Experiences in meditation and self-searching, intuitive and mystical reachings, and hours of silent midnight walking paved the way to a formulation of my understanding of loneliness; this formulation emerged clearly during my observations of hospitalized children. In the hospital I saw how lonely feelings impelled young children to seek a compassionate voice and a warm, friendly face; I saw how young children separated from their parents could often be more completely involved in the struggle with loneliness than in the painful experiences connected with illness and surgery; I observed how these children underwent a period of protest and resistance against separation, against the mechanical actions and fixed faces and gestures of the hospital combine. I also observed a gradual deterioration of protest, rebellion, and self-assertion to be replaced by a deep sense of isolation, lonely weeping, withdrawal, depression, and numbness. In general, I witnessed a basic, pervasive feeling of dehumanization, an institution that not only sought to repress lonely feeling but discouraged the whole range of human emotions tht characterize the alive and growing child. When I saw that these dimensions of loneliness were almost totally ignored, misunderstood, and misinterpreted by hospital, I set out to know the meaning of loneliness, not by defining and categorizing, but by experiencing it directly myself through the lives of others. #RandolphHarris 14 of 29

I knew from my own experiences and from my conversations with hospitalized children that loneliness itself could not be communicated by words or defined in its essence, or appreciated and recognized except by persons who are open to their own senses and aware of their own experiences. To say that the discovery of objective truth in science consists in the apprehension of  rationality which commands our respect and arouses our contemplative admiration; that such discovery, while using the experiences of our senses as clues, transcends this experience by embracing the vision of a reality beyond the impression of our senses, a vision which speaks for itself in guiding us to an ever deeper understanding of reality—such an account of scientific procedure would be generally shrugged aside as out-dated Platonism; a piece mystery-mongering unworthy of an enlightened age. Yet it is precisely on this conception of objectivity that I wish to insist. Into every act of knowing there enters a passionate contribution of the person knowing what is known, and this coefficient is no more imperfection but a vital component of his knowledge. In dialogue with the lonely people, I tried to put into words the depths of his or her feelings. Sometimes my words touched the individual and tears began to flow; sometimes the person formed words in response to my presence, and broke through the numbness and the dehumanizing impact of the hospital atmosphere and practice. #RandolphHarris 15 of 29

In a strong sense, loneliness became my existence. It entered into every facet of my World—into my teaching, my interviews in therapy, my conversations with friends, my home life. Without reference to time or place or structure, somehow (more intentionally than accidentally) the loneliness theme came up everywhere in my life. At this time, I became clearly aware that, exhaustively and fully, and in a caring way, I was searching for, studying, and inquiring into the nature and impact of loneliness. I was totally immersed in the search for a pattern that would reveal the various dimensions of loneliness. This was research in the sense of close searching and inquiring into the nature of a human experience and not from a detached intellectual or academic viewpoint. Rather, my studies involved an integrative, living form; I became part of the lonely experiences of others, involved and interested, while at the same time aware of an emerging pattern. Facts and knowledge accumulated as I listened and later recorded and studied them; but, at the same time, there were intuitive visions, feelings, and sensings that went beyond anything I could record or know in a factual sense. At the center of each lonely existence were ineffable, indescribable feelings and experiences, which I felt in a unified and essential way. I had, at moments, gone “wide open,” ceasing to be a separate individual, but wholly related to the other person, leaving something behind of my own intuitive vision, and comprehension while, at the same time, taking something away. #RandolphHarris 16 of 29

Top law firms generally choose their partners from among their junior associates. Those not chosen must leave the firm, and generally move to a lower-ranked one. At the mythical firm Justin-Case, the standards were so high that for many years no new partners were selected. The junior associates protested about this lack of advancement. The partners responded with a new system that looked very democratic. Here is what they did. At the time of the annual partnership decision, the abilities of the ten junior associates were rated from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best. The junior associates were told their rating privately. Then they were ushered into a meeting room where they were to decide by majority vote the cutoff level for partnership. They all agreed that everyone making partner was a good idea and certainly preferable to the old says when nobody made partner. So they began with a cutoff of 1. Then some high-rated junior associate suggested that they raise the cutoff to 2. He argued that this would improve the average quality of the partnership. Nine junior associates agreed. The sole dissenting vote came from the least able member, who would no longer make partner. Next, someone proposed that they raise the standard from 2 to 3. Eight people were still above this standard, and they all voted for this improvement in the quality of the partnership. The person ranked 2 voted against, as this move deprived him from partnership. What was surprising was that the lowest-rated junior associate was in favor of this raising of the standards. #RandolphHarris 17 of 29

In neither case would he make partner. However, at least in the latter he would be grouped with someone who has ability 2. Therefore, upon seeing that he was not selected, other law firms would not be able to infer his exact ability. They would guess that he is either a 1 or a 2, a level of uncertainty that is to his advantage. The proposal to raise the standard to 3 passed 9.1. With each new cutoff level someone proposed raising it by one. All those strictly above voted in favor so as to raise the quality of the partnership (without sacrificing their own position), while all those strictly below joined in support of raising the standard so as to make their failure less consequential. Each time there was only one dissenter, the associate right at the cutoff level who would no longer make partner. However, he was outvoted 9.1. And so it went, until the standard was raised all the way to 10. Finally, someone proposed that they raise the standard to 11 so that nobody would make partner. Everybody rated 9 and below thought that this was a fine proposal, since once more this improved the average quality of those rejected. Outsiders would not take it as a bad sign that they did not make partner, as nobody makes partner at this law firm. The sole voice against was the most able junior associate who lost his chance to make partner. However, he was outvoted 9.1. The series of votes brings everybody back to the old system, which they all considered worse thana the alternative of promotion for all. Even so, each resolution along the way passed 9.1. There are two morals to this story. #RandolphHarris 18 of 29

When actions are taken in a piecemeal way, each step of the way can appear attractive to the vast majority of decision-makers. However, the end is worse than the beginning for everyone. The reason is that voting ignores the intensity of preferences. In our example, all those in favor gain a very small amount, while the one person against loses a lot. In the series of ten votes, each junior associate has nine small victories and one major loss that outweighs all the combined gains. We saw a similar example in the past involving trade tariffs or amendments to the tax reform bill. Just because an individual recognizes the problem does not mean an individual can stop the process. It is slippery slope, too dangerous to get onto. The group as a whole must look ahead and reason back in a coordinated way, and set up the rules so as to prevent taking the first steps on the slope. There is safety when individuals agree to consider reforms only as a package rather than as a series of small steps. With a package deal, everyone knows where he will end up. A series of small steps can look attractive at first, but one unfavorable move can more than wipe out the entire series of gains. In 1989, Congress learned this danger first-hand in its failed attempt to vote itself a 50 percent pay raise. Initially, the pay raise seemed to have wide support in both houses. When the public realized what was about to happen, they protested loudly to their representatives. #RandolphHarris 19 of 29

Consequently, each member of Congress had a private incentive to vote against the pay hike, provided he or she thought that the hike would still pass. The best scenario would be to get the higher salary while having protested against it. Unfortunately (for them) too many members of Congress took this approach, and suddenly passage no longer seemed certain. As each defection moved them further down the slippery slope, there was all the more reason to vote against it. If the pay hike were to fail, the worst possible position would be to go on record supporting the salary hike, pay the political price, and yet not get the raise. At first, there was the potential for a few individuals to selfishly improved their own position. However, each defection increased the incentive to follow suit, and soon enough the proposal was dead. There is a second, quite different moral to the Justin-Case story. If you are going to fail, you might as well fail at a difficult task. Failure causes others to downgrade their expectations of you in the future. The seriousness of this problem depends on what you attempt. Failure to climb Mt. Everest is considerably less damning than failure to finish a 10K race. The point is that when other people’s perceptions of your ability matters, it might be better for you to do things that increase your chances of failing in order to reduce its consequences. People who apply to Harvard instead of the local college, and ask the most popular student for a prom date instead of a more realistic prospect, are following such strategies. #RandolphHarris 20 of 29

Psychologists see this behaviour in other contexts. Some individuals are afraid to recognize the limits of their own ability. In these cases they take actions that increase the chance of failure in order to avoid facing their ability. For example, a marginal student may not study for a test so that if he fails, the failure can be blamed on his lack of studying rather than intrinsic ability. Although perverse and counterproductive, there is no invisible hand to protect you in games against yourself. A hunger for knowing—the power of the state has always rested on its control of force, wealth, and knowledge. What is profoundly different today is the changed relationship among these three. The new super-symbolic system of wealth creation thrusts a wide range of information-related issues onto the political agenda. These range from privacy to product piracy, from telecommunications policy to computer security, from education insider trading to the new role of the media. Even these touch only the tip of an emerging iceberg. Although not yet widely noticed, this emerging info-agenda is expanding so rapidly that, in the United States of America, 101^st Congress saw the introduction of more than a hundred proposed laws dealing with info-issues. Twenty-six dealt with how the deferral government should disseminate data and information collected at taxpayers expense. Today anyone with a personal computer and a modem can dial into a number of government data bases for information on a dizzying number of topics. However, how should this dissemination work? #RandolphHarris 21 of 29

Should the government contact with outside private firms to do the electronic distribution and sell access for a fee? Many librarians, university researchers, and civil liberties advocates argue that government information should not be sold but made available freely to the public. On the other hand, the private companies serving as intermediaries claim they provide additional services that justify charging a fee. The info-agenda extends far beyond such concerns, however. As we drive deeper into the new super-symbolic economy, info-issues no longer remain remote or obscure. A public whose livelihood increasingly derives from the manipulation of symbols is also increasingly sensitive to their power of significance. One of the things it is already doing is asserting a wider and wider “right to know”—especially about circumstances directly related to its welfare. In 1985 a survey by the U.S.A. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that more than half of 2.2 million workers involved in large-scale layoffs got less than twenty-four hours notice before being heaved out on the street. By 1987 organized labor was pushing for a law that would require large firms planning substantial layoffs to give their workers sixty days’ notice, and to inform state and city authorities as well. Employers strongly fought the proposed law, arguing that going public with this information would undermine a firm’s efforts to save the plant. Who would want to invest in it, or merge with in, or contract work to it, or refinance it once the word was out that mass layoffs were about to occur? #RandolphHarris 22 of 29

Popular support for the measure grew, however. In the words of the Democratic Party leader in the Senate: “It’s not a labor issue. It’s a fairness issue.” By 1988 the battle was ranging all across Washington, with the Congress lined up in favor and the White House against. Ultimately the law passed, despite the threat of presidential veto. American employees now do have a right to know in advance when they are about to lose their jobs because of a plant close-down. Americans want more information about conditions off the job as well. Across the United States of America environmental groups and whole communities are clamoring for detailed data from companies and government agencies about toxic waste and other pollutants. They were outraged not long ago to learn that at least thirty times between 1957 and 1985—more than once a year—the Savanah River nuclear weapons plant near Aiken, South Carolina, experienced what a scientist subsequently termed “reactor incidents of greatest significance.” These included widespread leakage of radioactivity and a meltdown of nuclear fuel. However, not one of these was reported to local residents or to the public generally. Nor was action taken when the scientists submitted an internal memorandum about these “incidents.” The story did not come to light until exposed in a Congressional hearing in 1988. The plan was operated by E.I. du Pont Nemours & Company for the U.S.A. government, and Du Pont was accused of covering up the facts. The Company immediately issued a denial pointing out that it had routinely reported the accidents to the Department of Energy. #RandolphHarris 23 of 29

At this point, the DoE, as it is known, accepted the blame for keeping the news secret. The agency was steeped in military secrecy and the traditions of the Manhattan Project, which led to the invention of the atomic bomb in World War II. Public pressures for disclosure, however, touched off an internal struggle between Secretary of Energy John S. Herrington, fighting for higher safety standards and greater openness, and his own field managers who resisted. However, even as that conflict raged within the agency, a revolutionary new law went into effect, requiring for the first time that communities all over the United States of America be given explicit, detailed information about toxic wastes and other hazardous material to which they are exposed. “For the first time,” said Richard Siegel, a consultant whose firm has helped three hundred factories gear up for compliance, “the public is going to know what the plant down the street is releasing.” It was another clear victor for public access. The rising pressure for openness is not just an American phenomenon, nor is it limited to national issues. In Osaka, Japan, citizens have formed a “Right to Know Network Kansai,” which has since organized what they call “tours” of municipal and prefectural governments, for the purpose of demanding access to hitherto restricted information. Of twelve requests made at the prefectural offices, six were granted, the others quickly denied. Among these was a request for information about the governor’s expense account. #RandolphHarris 24 of 29

The response of the Osaka city government was, so to speak, more artful. When the group demanded files relating to the city’s purchase of a painting by Modigliani, now proudly hanging in the Osaka City Museum of Modern Art, officials did not say no. They just never replied. However, pressures for access to public documents, local as well as national will not go away. The growth of what might be called info-awareness, paralleling the rise of an economy based on computers, information, and communication, had forced governments to pay more and more attention to knowledge-related issues like secrecy, public access, and privacy. From the time the United States of America passed its Freedom of Information Act in 1966, broadening the rights of citizens to access government documents, the concept had spread steadily through the advanced economies. Denmark and Norway followed suit in 1970; France and the Netherlands, in 1978; Canada and Australia, in 1982. This list, however, hardly tells the full story. For an even larger number of states, provinces, and cities have also passed legislation—sometimes even before the nation itself acted. This is the case in Japan, where five prefectures, five cities, two special districts, and right towns had done so as early as 1985. The same period has also seen the rapid diffusion of laws defining the right to privacy. Privacy laws were passed in Sweden in 1973, in the United States of America in1974. In 1978, Canada, Denmark, France, and West Germany all followed suit, with Britain joining the parade in 1984. #RandolphHarris 25 of 29

Numerous nations set up “data protection” agencies specially designed to prevent computer abuses of privacy. The terms and methods naturally vary from nation to nation, as does their effectiveness. However, the overall pattern is plain: Everywhere, as the super-symbolic economy develops, information issues became more significant politically. Again, we are in the World of the Ordinary Expectations scenario, and primitive assemblers have recently developed. Again, the prospect of nanotechnology is being taken seriously for the first time—but it is somehow portrayed as being just more of the same, but worse. Environmentalists views it not as an alternative to the polluting industries of the twentieth century, but as an extension of human power, and hence of the human ability to do harm. Horror stories of technology gone made are spun to support this view. Self-driving cars become kamikaze automobiles, mowing down helpless pedestrians and ramming into other whiles at full speed. Security cameras are now used by stalkers to better target their victims, but operators refuse to let police view the footage to prosecute criminals. Human beings have become so savvy with nanotechnology that they start living the Earth. Arms-control groups are justifiably alarmed by nanotechnology and emphasize its military applications. Groups seeking arms control via disarmament—and believing in unilateral strategies—work to precent the development of nanotechnology everywhere they can, that is, everywhere within their political reach. To maximize their political leverage, they portray it as an almost purely military technology of immense and malign power. #RandolphHarris 26 of 29

Special-interest groups in industry see molecular manufacturing as a threat to their business and join the lobbying efforts to prevent it from happening. Unions, neglecting the prospect of greater wealth and leisure for their members, focus instead on possible disruptions in established jobs. They, too, oppose the development of the new technology. As a result, we hear not about how nanotechnology could be used in health care, environmental cleanup, and the manufacture of improved products, but about the insidious threat of tiny, uncontrollable military monster machines that will smash our industry. After a few years of hearing this, public opinion in the industrial democracies is firmly “against the development of nanotechnology,” but this is more a slogan than an enforceable policy. Laws are nevertheless passed to suppress it, and the focus of public debate returns to the old themes of poverty and disease and the newer themes of climatic change an environmental destruction. Solutions seems as distant as ever. No right-thinking person would have anything to do with nanotechnology, so only wrong-thinking people do. However, the initial debate had not become serious until assemblers were developed, and research had gone still further before the laws were passed. By then, nanotechnology was just around the corner. Developing nanotechnology is primarily a matter of tools, just as was developing nuclear weapons. #RandolphHarris 27 of 29

Decades earlier, nuclear weapons capability had spread from one to two countries in forty-nine months, and to another three in the next fifteen years, despite the requirement for large quantities of exotic materials in each device. By the 1980s, there was already a huge international trade in chemicals compounds, and many thousands of chemists who knew how to combine them to make new molecular objects, working not only in university research labs, in corporate research labs, and in civilian and military government research labs, but—as the black market in designer drugs shows—secretly, in criminal research labs. Even in the 1980, a scanning-tunneling microscope had been built as a high school science-fair project in the United States of America. There is nothing large-scale or exotic about synthetic chemistry or about precise positioning of molecules. And in our scenario, primitive assemblers have already been developed and techniques for constructing them published (as is standard practice) in the open scientific literature. And so the attempts to suppress the development of nanotechnology succeed only in suppressing the open development of nanotechnology. However, governments cannot be sure that other governments are not developing it in secret, and they have now heard so much about its military potential that this is impossible to ignore. Around the World, governments quietly set up secret research programs: some in democracies, others in the remaining authoritarian states. #RandolphHarris 28 of 29

There are even underground efforts. Once a primitive assembler or even an AFM-based molecular manipulator is in hand, the remaining challenges are chiefly those of design. In the 1980s, personal computers had become powerful enough to use for designing molecules. In the years since then, computer power has continued its exponential explosion. Peculiar elements of the technoculture join with—pick one: radical anarchists, radical reds, radical greens, or radical racists—in a project aimed at bringing down “the corrupt World order” of governments, of companies, of religions, of human beings, or of nonwhite/nonbrown people. With responsible groups out of the technology race, they see a real chance of finding the leverage needed to change the World. And so years pass in comparative quiet, with occasional rumors of activity or exposure of a project. Then, from an unexpected direction beyond the reach of democratic control, destructive change breaks loose upon an unprepared World. The sky falls, and Chicken Little is vindicated. With luck, we will find this scenario is also absurd. Public debate in the coming years will surely present a more balanced picture of the opportunities and dangers posed by the development of nanotechnology. Thoughtful people with conflicting views will become deeply involved. The impracticability of attempting to suppress technologies of this sort will likely become clear enough to give us a chance of keeping development in the open, in relatively responsible hands. #RandolphHarris 29 of 29

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