Randolph Harris II International Institute

The person who does not read good books has no advantage over the human who cannot read them. The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to gain knowledge, and choose an attitude in any given set of circumstance that is conducive to freedom, peace, and tranquility. A slight complication should be mentioned in the ladderlike structure described here, the “double-stranded” nucleic acid molecule that forms the subject of so much discussion these days. For a commonly mentioned feature of double-stranded nucleic acid (also established by Watson Crick) I the helical form of its molecule. It is as though the uprights of the ladder we have been discussing were flexible and the top and bottom ends of the ladder had been grasped and twisted in opposite directions until a form of double corkscrew resulted. X-ray photographs leave no doubt that such a double helix is the normal configuration of a free double-stranded molecule of nucleic acid. However, this geometrical complication is of little apparent significance in most of the processes we have to consider, and it will therefore be ignored when the resulting task of description is made easier thereby. Now let us see what can happen to our ladderlike double-stranded molecule of nucleic acid. One interesting possibility is that it will separate into two single-stranded molecules of nucleic acid. This can happen because the so-called hydrogen bonds that tie together the A-U (Substitute T for U, in DNA) and C-G bases at their points of contact in each rung of the ladder, though stronger than other bonds that sometimes cause temporary linking of molecular fragments, are still comparatively weak and can be broken without disrupting the rest of the structure. In the test tube, the addition of acid or alkali to the surrounding fluid or gentle heating to just under the boiling point of water will do the trick; in modern organisms, the presence of certain organic catalysts will cause the hydrogen bonds to break at ordinary temperatures. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

In either case, the result is as though each rung of the ladder had been sawed in two at the junction of the conjugated bases. This yields two separate single-stranded nucleic acid molecules in place of the double-stranded one. One of these single-stranded molecules is just the original piece of nucleic acid with which our discussion started several reports back. The other is a new molecule, different from the original one, but different in an orderly way. It is a “complement” of the original in the sense that the sequence of bases, or side chains, along its backbone is specified by substituting a U base for every A base of the original molecule, a G (This is for RNA; a T base, in the case of DNA.) for every C, a C for every G, and A for every U. We are finally about to discover a clue to the great importance of nucleic acid in life processes. For consider what will happen is the pair of reactions we have been discussing is repeated, employing as starting material both the original molecule and its complement. This time each of the two single-stranded molecules will form a complement, and the complement of the molecule which itself was the complement of the original molecule will be a carbon copy of the original! Here is indeed a new and interesting phenomenon—a long-chain organic molecule that controls a cycle of chemical reactions so as to produce exact duplicates of itself. To be sure, we have had to postulate a cyclically varying environment for our reacting ingredients. At times the fluids surrounding the nucleic acid molecules have had to contain the nucleotides, energy-rich molecules and catalysts needed to support the formation of double-stranded structures; at other times they have had to be different at least to the extent of containing hydrogen-bond-destroying ingredients that break double-stranded molecules in two. In the era of the early coacervates it seems most unlikely that such a cyclical change in chemical environment could have been provided by the simple structure and metabolism that must have then prevailed. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

However, with the evolutionary development of increasing chemical and architectural sophistication, a time must ultimately have come when the required cyclically varying conditions could have been sustained. The conditions postulated would still have been unlikely but probably not so unlikely that they would not have occurred from time to time during the many millions of years at the disposal of the remarkably prolific species-generating process of evolution. Note that we have as yet discovered nothing about the nucleic acid molecules to suggest that a mechanism for their production would have any kind of survival value for the host coacervate, interesting though we have judged such a mechanism to be. We are therefore, to this point, discussing a by-product of the coacervate metabolism. We are, in effect, assuming tht the relatively complex metabolic processes that sustained the growth and reproduction of certain advanced coacervate species just happened to include chemical reactions that from time to time produced the special materials, such as catalysts and energizing substances, needed for the two-stage synthesis of nucleic acids. Under such circumstances we are observing that nucleic acid molecules would in fact have been produced, whether or not they were useful to the host coacervate. Of course, to account for the fact that organisms containing nucleic acid ultimately starved out all others and are the only forms of life that persist today, we have to find some way in which nucleic acid could have become involved in the chemistry underlying growth and reproduction so as to contribute survivability advantages to the host coacervates. To attain such a goal, which we may hope to do in the future, we are going to invoke certain properties of nucleic acid that arise directly from the sheer physical length of its molecules. Therefore, before terminating the present discussion of the nucleic acid generation and reproduction mechanisms, we must show that the processes we have postulated are capable of leading to the formation of long and complex molecules, and not just short molecules consisting of only a few segments. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

To this end, we should first note that the two-stage process described so far is strictly a copying process—it could not originate new kinds of molecules. (Except, of course, for the complementary forms of the originally supplied nucleic acid molecules.) To get the process started, we had to assume that a molecule or molecules of nucleic acid were somehow “provided”; after that, additional copies of the starting molecules would be manufactured at a significant rate. The starting molecules, in the original coacervates embodying the process would have had to be more or les spontaneously generated when nucleotides happened to bump together in just the proper way. We know that the raw materials needed were continually formed in the primordial atmosphere, and experimental evidence suggest that the automatic hooking together of the constituents would have occurred from time to time. However, such random collisions would have been vastly more effective in producing simple molecules than complex ones. The greater the number of segments in a “long-chain” molecule manufactured in the random fashion, the rarer would the molecule be in the population of organic ingredients inhabiting the primeval seas. To keep our present story believable, therefore, we must assume that the molecules produced in the earliest forms of nucleic-acid-synthesizing coacervates were short and simple and thus, in terms of our upcoming genetic requirements, not very interesting. Happily, there is a way of getting around this difficulty. Organic catalysts are known today that, in the test tube, enormously accelerate the linking of nucleotides into nucleic acid molecules. Under the influence of such catalysts, chains of one thousand or more nucleotides have been formed in the laboratory. To be sure, it is most unlikely that catalysts of the late coacervate period had anything like the complex and sophisticated structure of today’s product. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

On the other hand, the modern reactions go to completion in seconds. A primitive ancestor of modern organic catalysts could have been of great evolutionary significance even though it required years instead of seconds to achieve its catalytic results. The rulers of the game of speculation we are playing would appear to permit us to postulate the existence of such catalysts in the era in question. Specifically, let us assume that some of the coacervates (not necessarily those which featured the nucleic acid reproduction mechanism) developed chemical reaction patterns that produced, as by-products, substances that were able to catalyze the attachments of additional nucleotides to the ends of nucleic acid molecules. The ultimate bursting apart of the parent coacervates would then spill into the seas some of these catalytic molecules, which from time to time would be accidentally incorporated in other coacervates. In particular, let us consider the consequences if some of these catalytic molecules happened to enter individual members of a species of coacervate possessing the nucleic acid reproduction mechanism we have been discussing. In the evolutionary terms the results of such an accident could be profound. These new catalysts, even though present in the coacervates in only minute quantities, would occasionally add nucleotides on to some of the nucleic acid molecules under continual production by the coacervate metabolism. Because of the independence of the copying mechanism on the length or specific base sequence of the nucleic acid, the new and longer molecule would then go into production and soon become abundant. Occasionally one of these longer molecules would in tern be lengthened by the action of the catalyst; this would result in the appearance of substantial numbers of a still more complex nucleic acid molecule, and so on. In this way, coacervate individuals blessed with a combination of the nucleic acid reproduction mechanism and a few nucleotide-liking catalytic molecules would automatically and continually develop an increasing variety of nucleic acid products. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

The ultimate result would be a population of nucleic acid molecules in the seas that would grow steadily not only in numbers but also in average complexity. The molecules containing thousands of nucleotides that are commonplace in modern organism could well owe their complexity—and therefore, as we shall see later, their remarkable ability to regulate and control life processes—to such a past developmental history. Thus we have finally been able to rationalize the appearance of advanced forms of coacervates containing quantities of long-chain nucleic acid molecules together with mechanisms for their precise reproduction. We are clearly moving toward a hypothesis to account for the remarkable monopoly of control growth and reproduction processes that is exhibited by the nucleic acid mechanisms of modern organisms. As our next step, let us see whether we can discover any properties of the new and complex nucleic acid molecules that might have bestowed increased survivability on their coacervate hosts. Most people believe that all that is required of teachers is knowledge of the subject matter. We know much better. We have seen many experts in the content who cannot teach. The World if full of people who can do, but cannot teach. Change is mandatory; growth is optional. Falling in love is madness. No treatment is required, indeed none is effective. It is self-limited in time, recovery is certain and spontaneous. In the aftermath, however, one may find oneself joined for life to a partner one would not in any normal state have chosen. This disorder generally runs a benign course. However, it is a madness. One loses contact with reality, clutches jealously to one’s breast something one believes to be a treasure while everyone else see plainly it is but an ordinary loaf of bread. The opportunity to love is ever-present. No one, in one’s loneliness, need ever say, “I wish I had someone to love.” That someone is right there. The trouble is one has become real, while only the still-imaginary inspires us to love. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

We say we want love, and surely we do, but we want it to flow toward us, a great wave splashing over us, bountifully; we are not so eager that it flow outward, away from us to other who might need it more than we. We live by attachment, not by reason. There is no value without caring, and caring is loving. That is the point: one’s own life has value only because one cares for others. And one cares without a reason! Without reflection, without the weighing of profit and loss. The caring that justifies everything else is itself without justification. It is a leap. Attachments grow in the dark, like roots. Silently, invisibly, they extend themselves in heart-soil, anchoring us in the World. To go on living then is not elective; we cannot depart this life, we are held by invincible tendrils. After arriving at the peak of a breathless air of passion and desirability, we being a long process of decline. Imperceptible for a few years, but then beyond overlooking. We are becoming less loveable. There is no stopping it short of dying young. And if we live long enough—proceed far enough into ugliness and decay—we are not lovable at all. Whatever attention still comes our way flows from duty, however well camouflaged as caring. Concurrently, as we grow older, we become less and less able to love others, and if we live long enough we become incapable of loving at all, our concerns reaching then no further than our pains and malfunctions. Irritably aware of the diminishment of love coming toward us, we tend not to notice that we, equally, are giving less to others. To grow old gracefully one must accept, without protest or dismay, the diminishment of incoming love. More, one must anticipate it, always positioning oneself to receive less than that which is voluntarily offered. Never ask or plead or sue for love. The time for wooing is over, this is the time for farewell. Two things I know for sure about love: no one ever gets enough, and you cannot get more by asking. To the beggar for money a few real coins may fall, but the beggar for love is a fool. Into one’s upturned hat, along with the humiliation, will fall only scraps of guilt and duty falsely labeled as love. The only way to get more love is to give more love. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

Beware! Wooing may be hidden. Too much giving, too much attentiveness, too many presents, may be but the mask for asking. You have had your turn; now get out of the way. Make room for others. Who can map the vast terrain of love? The sublime heights, the dismal swamps. There are no certified experts, anyone may try one’s hand. What do I know about love? What varieties have fallen to me? What has been meant when a woman has said to me, I love you? But you are supposed to avoid women’s eyes and abstain from pleasures of the flesh. Then suddenly a kaleidoscope of images flashes onto our mental screens. Whether we see this as salacious old goatery or delightful innocence, it is an unforgettable introduction to life. Life, for some, means much more than mere abstinence. Traditionally urged on married couples as, the only noble and straight method of birth control, it embodies a lifestyle of intense self-control in which the rational mind reduces all the carnal appetites to nothingness. Only thus can a man attain the state of selflessness necessary for the realization of truth. Based on ancient thought, including medical writings, successful virtuous men have supremely healthy bodies purified, paradoxically, by conquest of their carnal desires through an austere lifestyle, exercise, and celibacy. The overall fitness this produces owes much to the vital energy, the essence of life, which is no longer wasted but retained as an internal resource. The goal is to build up a resilient store of vital energy so that the body—in a holistic, psychosomatic sense—radiates an aura of vitality and strength. Unchaste men, to the contrary, were morally weak, incapable of leading. Chastity is one of the greatest disciplines without which the mind cannot attain requisite firmness. A man who is unchaste loses stamina, becomes emasculated and cowardly. He whose mind is given to animal passions is not capable of any great effort. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

However, awareness of vital energy is only part of the path to realization of truth. The steps along the way are simple to enunciate, murderously difficult to master. First, understand that celibacy is necessary. Secondly, gradually control all the senses, especially through fasting and careful diet. Third, consort only with clean companions, both human and literary. Lastly, pray. Those focus is on being a spiritual being, enlightenment, which bodily celibacy alone does not suffice. Never entertain thoughts about pleasures of the flesh. That is not to say such fantasies will not insinuate themselves. The trick is to refuse to focus on them. If we non-co-operate with the mind in its evil wanderings, victory will be ours in the end. To acknowledge this aspect of man’s predicament is an act of humility, demanded by honest self-evaluation. However, this demand is not fulfilled by most people. They evaluate their highly ambiguous moral achievements as sufficiently perfect, morally speaking; and there are even some who evaluate them as expressions of the nearly perfect or most perfect moral fulfillment. They consider themselves as “moral men,” or as “men of good will,” and look down on those who are “immoral men” or who at least so not belong to the selected group of the “men of good will.” They do not see the ambiguity of their goodness and the mixture of their motives. They are not hypocritical, but self-assured in their high moral standing. They do not feel that they need forgiveness, either in Christian or in humanist terms. They defend the motivating power of the moral law, pointing to themselves as examples. However, some of these “moral men” and some of the “immoral men” are, at some point, grasped by the unconditional seriousness of the moral imperative, and they then recognize its deep opposition to them, even to the best qualities in them. This experience unites Paul the “righteous Pharisee,” and Augustine the “sinner,” and Luther the “ascetic monk.” They took the moral imperative without compromise and without self-deception, and concluded that the “naked” moral law has no motivating power. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

They looked for something that had this power, and they found it in the religious element which they called “grace,” a word that requires much interpretation to become an answer also for us. However, before discussing grace as the power of moral motivation, I should like to recall two concepts which belong together and represent the highest levels that Greek humanism reached in solving the question of moral motivation, and which remain decisive for the amalgamation of the moral with the cultural. One is classically expressed by Socrates when he speaks of the knowing of the good, which creates the doing of the good. The question, of course, is: what kind of knowledge can create a moral action? It is immediately clear that it cannot de the detached knowledge of prescientific or scientific inquiry, nor can it be the practical knowledge of the day-to-day handling of things and people, even if such knowledge is elevated to the level of technical expertise or psychological skill, for any of this can be used for the performance of the most anti-moral actions. (Our most flagrant modern example of this is a particular political party.) Since we cannot assume, unlike some of his critics, that Socrates was cognizant of this danger, we much search for another kind of knowledge he might have had in mind. Perhaps we approximate it when we use the modern term “insight.” If Socrates did mean “insight,” he stands in line with his great predecessors—for example, Heraclitus and Parmenides. Heraculitus’ attack against those who are “fools” is not a criticism of the unsophisticated, but of those not subject to the power of the logos, the universal law of things and mind, the source of the physical and moral laws. Those who are not grasped by the logos are fools, and one directs one’s prophetic-philosophical wrath against them. In this way he established the idea of the wise man who unites knowledge with personal involvement in the universal logos, an idea which become of immense practical significance in the humanist-religious philosophy of the Stoics. Wisdom became the leading virtue in the later ancient World, combining cognition and morality. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

Knowledge of the character of wisdom cannot be considered as functioning in one direction only, as the cause of moral action, because it is in itself partly a result of moral action. Since one must be good in order to be wise, goodness is not a consequence of wisdom. The Socratic assertion, therefore, that knowledge creates virtue must be interpreted as knowledge in which the whole person is involved (insight). That is, a cognitive act which is untied with a moral act can cause further moral acts (and further cognition). Nonetheless, clinical theorists have developed sociocultural, psychological, and biological explanations for why people abuse or become dependent on various substances. No single explanation, however, has gained broad support. Like so many other disorders, excessive and chronic drug use is increasingly viewed as the result of a combination of these factors. A number of sociocultural theorists propose that people are most likely to develop patterns of substance abuse or dependence when they live under stressful socioeconomical conditions. In fact, studies have found that regions with higher levels of unemployment have higher rates of alcoholism. Similarly, lower socioeconomic classes have substance-abuse rates that are higher than those of other classes. Other sociocultural theorists propose that substance abuse and dependence are mora likely to appear in families and social environments where substance use is valued, or at least accepted. Researchers have, in fact, found that problem drinking is more common among teenagers whose parents and peers drink, as well as among teenagers whose family environments are stressful and unsupportive. Moreover, lower rates of alcohol abuse are found among some religious groups, where drinking is typically acceptable only as long as it remains within clear limits, whereas alcoholism rates are higher among some others who are not taught to drink in moderation. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

The sociocultural explanation of substance abuse and dependence are supported by studies that generally compare drug use among people of different environments or cultures. As with sociocultural explanations of other mental disorders, however, they fail to explain why only some people who live under unfavourable social conditions develop substance-related disorders. Psychological (psychodynamic, behaviourable, and cognitive) and biological theorists have provided some insight into this issue. Our youth is already fairly grown-up (fifteen to twenty-five years old), and confronting the external and definite problems of jobs and money. We have seen what kinds of opportunities are open to him, either in or out of the organized system, and what kind of public attention one can expect if he makes a nuisance of himself. My emphasis so far has been underprivileged conditions, because we have been discussing “problematic” cases “outside” of society. In the following chapters, however, when we turn to the earlier and character-molding factors that impede growth, we shall see that they apply even more particularly to “unproblematic” youth, whether growing up in the middle class or the working classes. (I do not mention the upper class simply because its numbers are few and it stands for nothing. All ideology and culture in America at present spring from the middle status of the organized system.) My thought is that the average adjusted boy is, if anything, more humanly wasted than the disaffected. So let us go on to discuss his stupidity, his lack of patriotism, one’s confusions about pleasures of the flesh and his lack of faith. The first, heretical principle of the Fourth Wave government is that of power of marginalized citizens. It holds that the majority rule, the key legitimating principles of the Third Wave era, is increasingly obsolete. It is not just majorities, but also non-dominate groups that count. And our political systems must increasingly reflect that fact. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

Expressing the beliefs of his revolutionary generation, it was Jefferson, once again, who asserted that governments must behave with “absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority.” The United States of American and Europe—still at the dawn of the Second Wave er—were just beginning the long process that would turn them eventually into industrial mass societies. The concept of majority rule perfectly fitted the needs of these societies. Today, as we have seen, we are leaving industrialism behind and rapidly becoming de-massified society. In consequence it is growing increasingly difficult—often impossible—to mobilize a majority or even a governing coalition. This is why is why once, Italy for six months, had gone without governments, and the Netherlands for five had gone without governments. In the United States of America, some do not see the basis for any positive majority on anything today. Because their legitimacy depended on it, Third Wave elites always claimed to speak on behalf of the majority. The government of the United States of America was “of…by…and for the people.” Mr. Trump claimed to represent America’s “Silent Majority.” And the United States of America, under his guidance, was becoming neo-Conservative with support for marginalized groups, ad the moderate, middle-class. Headquartered in the great universities of the Northeast and think tanks in Washington, and also setting foot in great places like Marietta, Ohio; Salina Kansas, academic neo-Conservatives regard Middle America as what the American Dream is all about. Hard work, agriculture, religion, and family values. However, both masses and classes tend to lose much of their significance in powershifts. Different parties have different agendas. One may be pro-American and Capitalistic, the other may be socialist and enjoys the lawless Wild, Wild West. The advance with a political party that is not pro-American thus weakens the very legitimacy of many existing governments. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

The Fourth Wave also challenges all of our conventional assumptions about the relationship of majority rule to social justice. Here too, as in so many other matters, we are watching a startling historic flip-flop. Throughout the era of the Third Wave civilization the fight of majority rule was humane and liberating. In still-industrializing countries in some industrializing countries it remains so. Under President Trump’s society, he gave a fairer break for the less affluent, everyone got stimulus checks. However, under Mr. Biden’s control, he gave the power to grant stimulus checks to the governors. And slick people like Gavin Newsom flat out refused to issue any money to those who worked and became disabled, the elderly, and veterans, and also some poor who did not have kids. And although the economy is rough for the less affluent, it is likely no more help is on the way from the government. It will be hard for even the middle-class to bare this economic holocaust. Not only is majority rule, therefore, no longer adequate as a legitimating principle, it is no longer necessarily humanizing or democratic in societies that are not Pro-American. Ideologues routinely lament the breakup of mass society. Rather than seeing in this enriched diversity an opportunity for human development, they attack it as “fragmentation” and “urbanization” and attribute it to the aroused “selfishness” of groups looking for handouts. The trivial explanation substitutes effect for cause. For the rising activism of marginalized groups is not the result of a sudden onset of selfishness; it is, among other things, a reflection of the needs of a new system of production which requires for its very existence a far more varied, colourful, open, and diverse society than any we have ever known. The implications of this fact are enormous. It means that when political parties try to suppress the new diversity, or cork up the political pluralism that comes with it, they actually (to their jargon) “fetter the means of production”—they slow down the economic and technological transformation of every society. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

And we in the Capitalist World can acknowledge diversity and change institutions accordingly.  If we try to stifle diversity, all that will result in is economic and cultural stagnation. We need to jettison the frightening, but false, assumption that increased diversity automatically brings increased tension and conflict in society. Indeed, the exact reverse can be true. Conflict in society is not only necessary, it is, within limits, desirable. However, if one hundred humans all desperately want the same brass ring, they may be forced to fight for it. On the other hand, if each of the hundred has a different objective, it is far more rewarding for them to trade, cooperate, and form symbiotic relationships. Given appropriate social arrangements, diversity can make for a secure and stable civilization. It is the lack of the appropriate political institutions today that unnecessarily sharpens conflict between marginalize groups to the knife-edge of violence. It is the lack of such institutions that make non-dominate groups intransigent. It is the absence of such institutions that makes the majority harder and harder to find. The answer to these problems is not to stifle dissent or to change minorities with selfishness (as though the elites and their experts are not similarly self-interested). The answer lies in imaginative new arrangements for accommodating and legitimating diversity—new institutions that are sensitive to the rapidly shifting needs of changing and multiplying emerging cultural groups. However, there are some brutes in human shape. That all the links between the baboon and humans have not been lost is plainly proved by the very existence of these creatures. They will respond only to a language which they can understand: disciplinary punishment, firm repression. Their twisted minds must be surgically operated on, which means that they must be made to feel something of the pain which they made others suffer. Therefore those who through false sentimentality or wrong religion would here use kindness make a profound mistake. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

However, object some religious and most mystical persons, ought we not to show mercy? Ought we not to forgive a sinner? Yes, we ought to forgive because we should comprehend that one sins through ignorance of life’s unwritten laws. However, the scriptural injunction to forgive enemies is often misconstrued. We ought to show mercy and forgive sinners, but we should do the one at the right time and the other to the right person. Otherwise, we merely misplace these virtues and thus convert them into vices. It is our duty to practise compassion but it is not our duty to misplace it. We should show mercy only when there are signs of real repentance for having perpetrated the crime and in proportion to the actual degree of such repentance. For example, generally, those who end someone’s life, often times commits the greatest of crime. They must make the greatest of repentances. They must turn themselves into penitents, sincerely disavowing their past evil and convincingly demonstrating their change of heart by tangible proofs. When we witness the return to life of a criminal’s sleeping conscience, the remorseful recognition of wrong-doing, and the honest admission of guilt, when one expresses genuine sorrow over one’s crimes and shows forth sincere repentance, it will be right and proper to treat one mercifully and forgivingly. In the moment when one truly repents, to our joy and one’s profit, in that same moment we must extend forgiveness and help one start a fresh and better life. However, those other individuals who do not do any of these things, who merely smart with resentment and thirst for revenge, their treatment must be stern and punitive. Unless and until they do repent thoroughly, wise justice has no option but to treat them firmly. This treatment is helpful to their purification. A sentimental neglect to administer this tart medicine will only morally harm them in the end, let alone expose the World to a repetition of their crime. They must learn that everything has to be paid for. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

However, the dearness or cheapness of the price they must pay should depend partly upon the measure of spontaneous repentance and amendment which they themselves bring. For there is always the divine message which, if they will tardily heed and obey it, can mitigate their unhappy lot. And that message says, “Repent, and be redeemed!” However, repentance must run deep, into open deeds and secret thoughts, if it is to be karmically effective. Its reality must be proved by abundant evidence. The criminals have to pay today for what they have done yesterday. However, if they have acknowledged their error, if they are genuinely remorseful, repentant in heart and mind and deed, if they strive spontaneously to make what amendment for the past it is still possible to make, then in the cause of the new universal law will manifest itself side by side with the old and thus modify their miseries. For although it is true that part of their future already exists even nor, owning to universal laws causes which they themselves set going, it is equally true that until the event of that future crystallize into the space-time World they are always liable to be modified by any fresh universal legal cases which are introduced into their own domain. The digital revolution is not the only source of fundamental change heading in our direction. On another front, our scientific knowledge base is exploding in all directions. Astronomers are studying “dark matter.” Scientists probing anti-matter have created anti-hydrogen. We are making breakthroughs in field as diverse as conductive polymers, composite materials, energy, medicine, microfluidics, cloning, supramolecular chemistry, optics, memory research, nano-technology and scores of others. U.S. scientists are rightly lamenting recent cutbacks in spending for research in many fields—and especially for basic research. However, largely overlooked are advances being made in a special class of technology—the tools use research scientists. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

The industrial revolution clicked into high gear and vaulted to a whole new level when, beyond merely building machines to make products, our ancestors began inventing machines to make more—and better—machines. Today we call them capital tools. This same process on a vastly larger scale is now happening to what might be termed “K-tools”—the instruments we use to generate knowledge, the most important form of capital in advanced economies. Armed with supercomputers and supersoftware, the Internet and the Web, scientists now also have access to powerful tools that facilitate rapid collaboration. They are forming more and more multinational teams, pooling insights, methods, and tools across multiple time zones. Another cluster of K-tools consists of a fabulous instrument for visualization in the laboratory. In principle, researchers can now “walk around” inside a single grain of rice to visually observe how its internal structures morph as it grows, then continue to watch as the rice is stored, processed, shipped and cooked. Researchers are able to stroll through an intestine as it digests the rice. Scientific periodicals and Web sites are filled with advertisements for better, faster, time-saving lab technologies. “Automate your research,” reads one from Roche Applied Science. “Process virtually any sample material to isolate DNA, RNA, mRNA, and viral nucleic acids in less than two hours…Perform real-time PCR analysis… in less than 40 minutes.” Another, from AB Applied Biosystems, announces that “whatever your path of discovery,” its DNA analyzer “will get you there faster.” However, faster is astonishingly slow when it comes to nuclear physics. To study the erratic motion of the individual electrons surrounding the nucleus of an atom, researchers need to fire extremely short bursts of electromagnetic radiation. The briefer the better. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

Recently scientists broke records by creating the fastest light pulse ever developed. The pulses demonstrated by the group led by Professor Zenghu Change are not just shorter in duration, but also in wavelength. The new light reaches an important spectral region, the so called “water window,” where carbon atoms absorb strongly but water does not. Scientists have demonstrated the fastest light pulse every developed, a 53-attosencond X-ray flash, beating its own record set in 2012. Researchers at University of Central Florida in the United States of America have developed a 67-attosecond extreme ultraviolet light pulse in 2012 which was the fastest at the time. At one-quintillionth of a second, an attosecond is unimaginably fast. In 53 attoseconds, light travels less than one-thousandth of the diameter of a human hair. In the same way high-speed camera can record slow-motion video of flying bullets, attosecond light pulses allow scientists to capture images of fast-moving electrons in atoms and molecules with unprecedented sharpness. The pulses demonstrated by the group led by Professor Zenghu Change are not just shorter in duration, but also in wavelength. The new light reaches an important spectral region, the so called “water window,” where carbon atoms absorb strongly but water does not. Such attosecond soft X-rays could be used to shoot slow-motion video of electrons and atoms of biological molecules in living cells to, for instance, improve the efficiency of solar panels by better understanding how photosynthesis works. X-rays interact with the tightly bound electrons in matter and may reveal which electrons move in which atoms, providing another way to study fast processes in materials with chemical element specificity. That capability is invaluable for the development of next-generation logic and memory chips for mobile phones and computers that are a thousand times faster than those in use today. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

So American researchers have been working on a “lasetron” designed to create flames measure in zeptoseconds—billions of a trillionth of a second. Pulses of radiation short enough to probe the nucleus could be generated with existing technology, according to physicists in the United State of America. Alexander Kaplan and Peter Shkolnikov has calculated that a high-power laser could make electrons emit powerful bursts of X-rays or gamma rays just zeptoseconds -10^-21 seconds long. This “lasetron” could also produce magnetic fields as intense as those found near white dwarf stars. In all these widely different fields, the next step is clear. We are likely to see, before long, not only more and more potent capital tools for knowledge acquisition but capital tools for making those capital tools. The combination of more scientists, more powerful K-tools, instant communication, widespread collaboration and an ever-broader base of knowledge on which to draw is changing the borders of science itself, reopening questions that were once regarded as B-movie science fiction. Serious scientists today are no longer afraid of damaging their reputations by talking about time-travel, cyborgs, near-immortality, anti-gravity devices that could transform medicine and provide an endless source of non-fossil-fuel energy, and many other possibilities once found only on the wilder shores of unbelievability. Some of the biggest corporations in the World—and some armies—are spending huge sums to investigate these new technologies. Day after day, our labs offer fresh discoveries. Many will present us with profound moral issues—witness the conflict over stem-cell research and cloning. We now have clues to the genetic manipulation of certain forms of intelligence. Imagine what that might mean to knowledge-based economics and parents who want biologically smartened child. However, also imagine what social and political dangers might arise from such manipulation. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

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February 2, 2022 4:00 am

The real art of communication is not only to say the right thing in the right place, but do not expect to hear only what you like. We have learned that nucleic acids, like proteins, form long-chain molecules. However, unlike proteins, nucleic acids do not have 6-atom arrangements of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen as their basic structural segments. Instead, each “vertebra” of the backbone of the nucleic acid molecule consists of a configuration, called a sugar phosphate, containing 5 carbon atoms, 8 hydrogen atoms, 5 or 6 oxygens, and 1 phosphorus, bound together by mutual electric forces in a standardized spatial arrangement. (There are actually two slightly different forms of nucleic acid. The one with 6 oxygen atoms in each vertebral segment is called ribonucleic acid (RNA); that with only 5 oxygen atoms is known as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). In modern organisms, as we shall see later, the two kinds of nucleic acid have developed specialties, being separately responsible for different features of the genetic process. However, in the primitive era under discussion, it is simplest to consider RNA and DNA to be equivalent in their functions.) The overall distribution of electric charge is such that one end of a sugar phosphate attaches relatively easily to a particular corner of another sugar phosphate, thereby leading to the formation of the observed long chains. In our study of protein molecules, we saw that chemical individuality was conferred on the otherwise identical segments of the chain by the attachment, to each segment, of 20 different side chains of the atomic configurations. The backbone segment with attached side chain was called an amino acid, and the remarkable variety of protein substances was found to be a consequence of the number of different molecules that could be built by hooking together long sequences of the 20 different kinds of amino acids. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19

Nucleic acids employ a similar arrangement of attached side chains to confer individuality on the segments of the long molecules. However, only 4 types of side chains appear in a molecule of RNA or DNA, instead of the 20 that appear in protein molecules. The nucleic acid side chains contain only carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen and involve, in each case, a characteristic configuration of 12 to 16 atoms. Although the combination of the sugar phosphate backbone segment with its side chain possesses acid properties, there is no such common chemical property term amino acid to designate the structural units of protein molecules. The corresponding term for the nucleic acid molecular structural units is nucleotide. To be sure, the names adenine, guanine, cytosine, and uracil that are given, guanylic acid, cytidilic acid, and uridylic acid as designations of the individual types of nucleotide, but we shall have little need for such terminology. (In DNA the side chain uracil is replaced by thymine, which differs from uracil only in having an aggregation of 1 carbon and 2 hydrogen atoms tacked on to one out-of-the-way corner.) We should, however, note that the term base is commonly used instead of “side chain” in technical discussions of the nucleic acids. One of the most important similarities between nucleic acids and proteins is their common likelihood of formation under the conditions that prevailed when the Earth was young. In past experiments, wherein the hypothesized primordial atmosphere was exposed to ultraviolet radiation, radioactive bombardment, heat, and electric discharge, the amino acids needed for protein formation were generated, to be sure. However, in addition, the sugars, phosphates, and bases that appear in nucleic acids were sometimes produced. And the local conditions on the infant Earth that occasionally caused amino acid segments to hook together to form simple precursors of modern proteins must sometimes also have produced primitive forms of nucleic acid molecules. #RandolphHarris 2 of 19

Let us therefore suppose that a primitive molecule of nucleic acid has formed in this way and that it consists of a string of nucleotides of the different types A, G, C, and U (the letters representing the distinctive side chains, or bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and uracil). (Or A, G, C, and T, if the molecules happens to be of the DNA, rather than the RNA, variety.) Suppose, further that this molecule happens to be immersed in a fluid containing an abundance of the ingredients from which other nucleic acid molecules might be constructed—including nucleotides of the four significant types. Under these circumstances interesting chemical reactions may occur. To start with, the free nucleotides floating around in the mixture will tend to stick to the outer, unattached ends of the bases that project from the backbone of the nucleic acid molecule. This by itself is not surprising; probably many different kinds of molecular fragments have patterns of electric charge permitting some kind of partial fit with the patterns of charge at the free ends of the nucleic acid bases; under the ceaseless jostling of thermal agitation, temporary attachments of many varieties must be continually made and broken. However, it happens that certain of the attachments that can be made between the free and the bound nucleotides possess unusual characteristics. This is true of the attachment of a free U nucleotide (substitute T for U, in DNA) to a bound A nucleotide to a bound G nucleotide (or vice versa). The first important characteristic of an A-U or a C-G combination is the strength of the attachment; in either case the interposition of hydrogen atoms between oxygen and nitrogen atoms produces a relatively tight bond. The second important characteristic of these two combinations is that both result in approximately the same length of structure when measured at right angles to the backbone of the supporting nucleic acid molecule. The A and G bases are long; the C and U bases are short; the A-U and C-G combinations are of about the same length. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19

What difference does all this make? Just this: the relatively strong binding forces that cause A-U and C-G combinations to be more lasting than others also line up the free ends of the newly attached nucleotides (the ends farthest from the backbone of the original nucleic acid molecule) in just the right positions to permit the to be easily hooked together. The result is a new nucleic acid molecule, complete with backbone and side chains, attached in Siamese-twin fashion to the original molecule. The resulting double molecule is in effect a ladder; the two uprights consist of the sugar-phosphate backbones, and the uniform-length crossbars consist of the A-U, U-A, C-G, and G-C base pairings of the two molecules. Since the reader has been warned that this treatment is rife with speculation, it is therefore probably worthwhile to point out that what has been discussed up to this point rests on a firm experimental basis. In 1953 J.D. Watson and F.H. C. Crick, working at Cambridge University with X-Ray diffraction photographs of nucleic acids (DNA) made by the English physicist M.H.F. Willkins and his colleague Rosalind Franklin, succeeded in establishing the main features of the modern theory of nucleic acid structure. (For this work the three scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962). Watson and Crick were able to show that the kind of ladderlike structure just described actually does occur and that the rungs of the ladder always consist of the long-short combinations of bases. In fact, it was later discovered that these ladderlike molecules of nucleic acid can even be formed from single-stranded molecules in the test tube, in the complete absence of living cells, provided that a “broth” containing the necessary ingredients is supplied. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19

In the laboratory situation this broth must include more than the original single-stranded molecules and the four kinds of nucleotides to be incorporated in the new nucleic acid; it must also contain catalysts to speed up the reaction and energy-rich molecules by temporarily attaching themselves to the segmental components. As we have earlier observed, such additional ingredients usually facilitate the reactions in living organisms also. Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed. There is no text in theology, philosophy, and psychology that deals more profoundly with the problem of the law than the seventh chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. He praises the law as “holy in itself” and the commandment as “holy and just good.” He calls it “spiritual.” In his “inmost self” he “delights in the law of God,” he is “subject to God’s law as a rational being.” Without the law he would “never have become acquainted with sin.” This is one facet of Paul’s evaluation of the law: the law is the expression of what man essentially is and therefore ought to be, but what he actually is not, as the law shows to him. The other side of Paul’s evaluation of the law is based on his experience that the law commands us to do the good that we cannot do because we are estranged from it and under a longer I who am the agent, but sin that has its lodging in me.” However, the law does more than show us our essential nature and our estrangement from it. The law awakens the sleeping sin: “In the absence of law, sin is a dead thing”; “When the commandment came, sin sprang to life”; “Through the commandment, sin became more sinful than ever.” It is obvious that Paul does not consider the law as a power of moral motivation. He was, on the basis of his own experience, aware of the fact that the commanding law produces “all kinds of wrong desires,” but does not motivate the conquest of these desires and the reunion of his actual will with his essential will: “What I do is the wrong which is against my will.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 19

Paul’s experience is independent of the religious framework in which it appears. A humanist with insight into his spiritual predicament could fully agree with it. Actually, however, and not by chance, the problem of the law as motivating power appeared again in its profundity and explosive power in the Protestant Reformation. All Reformers fought the idea that man’s “good works,” his fulfillment of the law, could be a contributing factor in salvation, or the acceptance of humans by God. Not the fulfillment of commandments (which is impossible in the state of separation from God), but the acceptance of the message that we are accepted, is the motive of the moral action. Nevertheless, the Reformers maintained a threefold use of the law—first, in its legal function as the principle of the positive law, the law of the nations; second, in its power to awaken our conscience to the fact that our actual existence contradicts our essential being, that we are estranged from ourselves; and third, in its function as a mirror of what is good and bad in Christian life. Luther denied and Calvin affirmed the third function of the law. However, all the Reformers denied its power of moral motivation. Again it was a personal experience, namely, that of Luther, that led to the rediscovery of Paul’s experience and its theological implications. The depth to which Luther felt the ambiguity of the law emerges in expression of hate, not only against the law itself, but also against the image of God who lays down a law nobody can fulfill and who punishes those who trespass against it. The shaking anxiety produced by this thought, and the hidden hatred against God, break out in Luther repeatedly, even in his later period. In such a state of mind, man is not able to recognize the law as the expression of one’s own essential being; he feels it as a strange and tyrannical command. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19

However, as with Paul, this is not Luther’s sole evaluation of the law. The interpretation of the Ten Commandments in Luther’s Small Catechism demonstrates that he is able to see in the law the right relation to God—love and fear—provides the moral motivation. Beyond this, his interpretation indicates, as for every table of laws, a particular situation—in this case the paternalistic kind of rural society in which he lived. The ambiguity of the commanding law, as experienced by Luther, was the decisive problem for the entire period of the Reformation. The emphasis was different in different Reformers, but the basic answer was the same. The enormous tension produced by this ambiguity, however, slowly receded, and Protestantism became to a large extent a religion of the law, doctrinal as well as moral. All systems, determined by the law, whether religious or secular, are systems of compromise. This is true of groups as well as of individuals; and it is true of the great majority of human beings and human situations in all periods. This happens because the moral law becomes embodies in state law, conventional rules, and educational principles (with or without the support of a particular religion), and exercises motivating power through tradition, public opinion, personal habit, and the threats and promises connected with all of them. In this way the commanding law has the power to produce moral action in an institutionalized form. It is, generally speaking, what the Reformers called the “first use of law,” its power to produce “civil justice,” since obedience to the laws makes the existence of society possible. From the point of view of the unconditional moral imperative, and love as the ultimate principle of moral commands, these methods of motivating moral action are compromises, unavoidable in view of the human predicament, but far removed from the true nature of the moral.  #RandolphHarris 7 of 19

This is true not only because of the universal human estrangement, the struggles between man’s essential and existential nature, the ambiguity of good and evil in ever process, the mixture of moral and amoral motives in every moral act, but also because social institutions as well as personal habits have an almost irresistible tendency to perpetuate themselves in disregard of the demands of creative justice in a new situation or under unique conditions, both in the communal and in the individual life. The law provides moral motivation if morality becomes a thread within a texture of premoral forces and motives. In our times, the distinction between Case Poverty, due to illness, accidents, or personality defects, and Class Poverty, due to social and underprivileged, does not amount to much. Personal and social play into each other. For it could be asked: Why was the accident not insured? What social conditions formed such a careless personality? Or, conversely, Does the poor class not have, economically, a personality defect? (Just as in the Protestant Ethic the poor had a theological defect; but of course it is also persistently true that “only the poor are saved.”) Likewise, the old monastic concept of voluntary poverty is no longer much distinguishable from either case of poverty or class poverty, for it happens that a person cannot continue the Rat Race, it makes one sick; and one chooses out to survive. Another man would like to be rich and famous and he works hard; but cannot work otherwise than the work demands, but such work might not be marketable; so he could be said to “choose” poverty. In an organized system, all poor tend to be the same poor. (The same blurring of distinctions has occurred between “political” and “common” criminals. As society becomes more close-knit and total, a criminal act may well be a dumb political gesture, and political protest is certainly taken as criminal. So the anarchist philosopher refused to distinguish between these and said, “As long as one of these is in jail, I am not free.”) #RandolphHarris 8 of 19

It makes little difference, then, whether a young fellow chooses his lot or is cast among the poor; especially if, being there, he soon takes on habits which make it difficult for him, or unattractive to him, to belong to the system. Supposed, then, that with pretty good awareness our scarred young man is now confirmed poor. He must still face the problem of vocation and money. On these points the writers of the Fourth Wave Generation are confused. For one thing, they have a false notion that the kind of artistic activity that proliferates among the Fourth Wave Generation of artistic activity that proliferates among the youth is art, and gives the justification of art as a vocation. It is not art but something else, and they do not behave as if they were justified by it. The problem of money, again, seems simple, but is not. In voluntary poverty, the problem is to get enough to subsists. (Money is called “bread.”) But how? Many of the youth take jobs generally temporarily. The principle is that anything will do. A fellow might work in the organized system, exempli gratia, dressing a window at Banana Republic; but, it is argued, he would not thereby be in the Rat Race, because he just wants “bread” and will quit. Naturally Banana Republic did not know this when they hired him, so he is using them, not they him. This might come to pretending to conform rather elaborately, for the system is total; exempli gratia, a fellow will get the job if he shaves off his beard. Work is no different from shoplifting. One plays roles and is hip. (Money is now called “loot.”) What is not understood in this form of reasoning is that playing roles and being hip in this way is very nearly the same as being an Organization Man, for he does not mean it either. Obviously the Holy Barbarian is here on shaky ground. Getting his “loot,” he is exploiter of labour, but only a little bit. (The integral aim of useful man’s work is not always mentioned.) Let me make a close analogy—so close that it is probably an identity—between the job in voluntary poverty and the service in wartime that a pacifist can agree to perform. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19

Nearly any civilian job that a man does advances the war. If he picks beans, he replaces a farmer for the war factory. Pacifists have commonly accepted such a job as attendant in a hospital, which is understaffed anyway. This is not a petty problem, for when the evil, as they see it, is general and close-knit, it is necessary to preserve one’s personal integrity if only to influence the future when the emergency is past. Anyone who does not understand this and the hairsplitting involved, will not understand ingenuous youth. During the last great was many a young fellow went to a conscientious-objector’s camp in order to avoid war work, and then left the camp in disgust and went to jail because the camp work was boon-doggling. Among some of the Fourth Wave youth, such a principle of integrity is clearly operating in the choice of job. To recapitulate, many of the humble jobs of the poor are precisely not useless (or exploiting). Farm labour, hauling boxes, janitoring, serving and dish washing, messenger—these jobs resist the imputation of uselessness (or exploitation) made against the productive society as a whole. These are preferred Fourth Generation jobs. For one thing, in them no questions are asked and no beards have to be shaved. Nor is this an accidental connection. Personal freedom goes with unquestioned moral utility of the job, for at the level of simple physical effort or personal service, the fraudulent conformity of the organized system sometimes does not yet operate; the job speaks for itself. However, on the other hand, such jobs, being hard and useful, are the most miserably exploited. Exempli gratia, hospital workers who struck a union in Sacramento, California were getting $26,588.00 a year—the minimum wage not applying because they were eleemosynary institutions! Migratory farmers average $33,619.20 a year, and are not welcome in the neighbourhood. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19

This big money is in the system. So unorganized wages are low. Yet the price of subsistence at the market is standard high. Taking such a job, a man loses his freedom, he never stops working. He is used and made a fool of by the system, and this is in itself dishonourable. This is the dilemma of voluntary poverty in our society: either to compromise one’s integrity (but then why bother?), or to be abused and made a fool of. (As one way out, let me recommend Scheme III of Communitas, by my brother and myself. We suggest diving the economy into two parts: the subsistence economy and the high-standard economy. In the subsistence part, run absolutely for use, everybody will work less than one year in seven and be guaranteed his subsistence for life. The rest of the time he can work in the high-standard economy for high wages, or do nothing at all, as he pleases. This plan would seem exactly to meet the need of voluntary poverty: to work with perfect integrity at the absolutely necessary, and to have the maximum of freedom for noneconomical activity.) Looking at family, one should not feel the ache of future loss, but an unmixed celebration of what one now has. One should accept change not because one cannot anyway prevent it, but because it is life itself. Love and the end of love, like life and death, must be praised as one. The danger in striving for permanence is not that one will fail, but that one may in some stifled measure succeed, thereby preserving a fading relationship behind a mask of love that falls increasingly at a variance with the withering face behind it. Yearning for permanence is failure of nerve, cowardice in face of the risk and opportunities of living. Sometimes an individual can be as if brain-damaged. Life has distanced itself, is taking place behind a veil; sometimes, surrounded by books, one does not want music, and it will seem to one that one is reaching into oneself for a silence beyond the absence of sound, for a stolen preview perhaps of that stillness that lies on the other side. #RandolphHarris 11 of 19

Sometimes an individual can be stricken with loss, also with guilt. Whom has one loved, truly? To whom has one given oneself, fully, holding nothing back? Has one trusted anyone enough to stand fully exposed before one, fully vulnerable? Is it any different now? One feels that it is different, that one brings to a loved one something more authentic, more worthy, but how does one know? Needing one to cover over the emptiness might very well present itself as true love. Today many people are fervently celibate. Celibacy is the paramount means by which some establish their character. Celibacy is a way for many to obtain the ultimate self-control. People are deeply concerned about their health. You hear about people turning to water purifiers, bottled water, ice cold baths, cupping, vegan diets, but some take it a step further and truly regard their body as a temple of God. Celibacy is an ascetic, righteous, and extraordinarily health devotion to seeking a level of selflessness that will permit them knowledge of pure truth and will allow them to retain the essence of life. For these beings, one drop of “vital energy” is seen to contain sixty drops of blood. It is not just one more fluid but rather a distillate of blood, marrow, bone, and other bodily substances and so incorporates within itself the very nature of human existence. One authority believes that, “A person should guard one’s vital energy as a jeweller guards one’s most valuable diamonds.” This vital energy is the essence of power; the essence of strength; the essence of endurance; the essence of power; the essence of strength; the essence of endurance; the essence of beauty. It gives something special to the lips, a special light to the body, a shine to the eyes, and something special to the cheeks. Celibates are taught to force their minds away from lascivious thoughts and confine their fellowship to like-minded men. They practice austerities, the most obvious one being celibacy. They pray, for faith in God, and for every spiritual success. #RandolphHarris 12 of 19

These celibate people have busily structured lives. Never situ around and daydream, they admonish newcomers, for daydreaming can easily lead to circumstances the deplete vital energy. Anything that could waste this vital energy is strictly forbidden. To make sure one has a pleasant night, one washes one’s feet in warm water before bed, reflecting on the Supreme Being, and then going to urinate if an unwelcome urge comes in the night time. Diet, too, is crucial. One much recharge and enrich this vital energy. Milk is at the heart of one’s nutritional regimen, and the stereotype is a burly man who can guzzle bucketsful of milk. Men drink milk to intensify their vital energy—milk, especially cow’s milk is described as an ideal liquid—and, as they gulp, assumes they are adding to their body’s reserve of vital energy. Ghee, clarified butter, also produces vital energy, and strong vital energy at that, the stuff of physical, moral, and spiritual strength. Indeed, it is a more important source of vital energy than milk. It fuels one’s fire in one’s own body. Also one is supposed to devour vast quantities of almonds smashed into a thick paste and mixed with milk and honey. This is a goo pick-me up after school or work. Otherwise, they eat only lightly spiced food, avoid pickles and abstain entirely from tobacco and liquor. Some also recommend sports as a way to maintain celibacy, and many young men in their late teens and early twenties are driven to take up sports as a result. They are so convinced of this way of life and the power that it has that they are motivated by the widespread conviction that celibacy is so power it can transform the frailest and sickliest boy into a champion. Leaders devise a total life program for each of these celibate young men that includes exercises, food, and rest. These individuals are also counseled spiritually. They regard themselves as “extraordinary men who do extraordinary things to and with their bodies.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 19

These people have physical activity with rules similar to Olympic sports, as well as spiritual quest by men pledged to physical strength and competence, celibacy, duty, obedience, honesty, and humility. The role of religion is so pervasive that nightly prayer and prayer throughout the day is a habit of celibates. These individuals attend work or school. Ideally, one rises at 3 A.M. —in reality, most are u by 4.30 or 5 A.M. A glass of water and premium cranberry juice is followed by the forest or nature area ablutions. At home, careful defecations are a practice, which guarantees total control over vital energy. At 9 A.M is time for physical education, and one preforms a litany of routines before one finally leaves for the crowded bustle of one’s other life. All of these regimens are carefully designed to achieve the strictest celibacy and, with it, the augmentation and enrichment of vital energy, the living quick of human existence. Drinking large amounts of alcohol in a short time, or binge drinking, is a serious problem on college campuses. Studies show that as many as 40 percent of college students binge-drink at times, around half o them at least six times per month. These are higher rates than those displayed by people of the same age who are not in college. In any circles, alcohol use is an accepted part of college life. Are we as a society taking the issue too lightly? Consider some of the following statistics: Alcohol is a factor in nearly 40 percent of academic problems and 28 percent of all college dropouts. Although 84 percent of incoming freshmen consider heavy alcohol use to be a problem on campus, 68 percent drink during their first semester, at least half of them during their first week on campus. Alcohol affects not only those who drink but also those who do not, with approximately 600,000 students each year physically or emotionally traumatized or assaulted by physical force from a student drinker. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19

Binge drink has been linked to severe healthy problems and serious injury, auto crashes, unplanned and unprotected pleasures of the flesh, aggressive behaviours and various psychological problems. In fact, binge drinking by college students had been linked to an estimated 1,400 student deaths, 500,000 injuries, and 70,000 cases of physically forced assaulted or date physically forced assault every year. There was a 31 percent increase in the number of female binge drinkers in colleges from 2011-2019. Excessive alcohol use is associated with more than 27,000 deaths among women and girls each year. Excessive alcohol use poses unique health and safety risk to females. Nearly half of adult women report drinking alcohol in the past 30 days. Approximately 13 percent of adult women report binge drinking and on average do so 4 times a month, consuming 5 drinks per binge. About 18 percent of women of children bearing age (id est, 18-44 years) binge drink. In 2019, about 32 percent of female high school students consumed alcohol compared with 26 percent of male high school students. Binge drinking was also more common among female (15 percent) then male (13 percent) high school students. In 2019, 4 percent of women overall and 8 percent of woman ages 18 to 25 years had an alcohol use disorder. Although men are more likely to drink alcohol and consumer larger amounts, biological differences in body structure and chemistry lead most women to absorb more alcohol and take longer to metabolize it. After drinking the same amount of alcohol, women tend to have higher blood alcohol levels than men, and the immediate effect of alcohol usually occur more quickly and last longer in women than men. These differences make women susceptible to the long-term negative health effects of alcohol compared with men. There is no known safe amount of alcohol use during pregnancy. Alcohol use during pregnancy increases the risk of having a baby with fetal alcohol spectrum (FAS) which is associated with intellectual disabilities and birth defects. FAS is 100 percent preventable. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19

These findings have led some educators to describe binge drinking as “the number 1 public health hazard” for full-time college students, and many researchers and clinicians have turned their attention to it. The implications are clear: college drinking, certainly binge drinking, may be more common and more harmful than was previously believed. At the very least, it is a problem whose research time has come. The Bill of Rights, added to the United States of America’s Constitution in 1791, is clearly one of the stunning achievements of human history. Many wonder how the revolutionists, the men and women, the farmers, merchants, artisans, lawyers, printers, pamphleteers, shopkeepers, and soldiers who together created a new nation on the distant shores of America, were able, in the midst of bitter social and economic turmoil, under the most immediate pressures—to muster so much awareness of the emerging future. Listening to the distant sounds of tomorrow, they sensed that civilization was dying and a new one was being born. These founders were driven to it—compelled, carried along by the tidal force of events, fearing the collapse of an ineffectual government paralyzed by inappropriate principles and obsolete structures. Seldom has so majestic a piece of work been done by humans of such sharply divergent temperaments—brilliant, antagonistic, and egotistic humans—humans passionately committed to diverse regional and economic interests, yet so upset and outraged by the terrible “inefficiencies” of an existing government as to draw together and propose a radically new one based on startling principles. Even now these principles more Americans, as they have moved countless billions around the planet. It is difficult for several patriots to read certain passages of Jefferson or Paine, for example, without being brought to the edge of tears by their beauty and meaning. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19

Many are thankful for being Americans and having a government of laws, not humans, and particularly for that precious Bill of Rights, which has made it possible to express creativity, vote, have freedom, and write without fear of suppression. It is remarkable that no decision of the past can bind the future forever. The Constitution of the United States of America needs to be recognized, and the Bill of Rights expanded, taking into account the threats to freedom unimagined in the past, and creating a more fortified government capable of protecting national security, making intelligence and coherent democratic decisions necessary for our survival in a new World. There is no easy blueprint for tomorrow’s constitution for the perfect version already exists and just needs to be enforced. The founders already had the answers and one can see that if they take the time to read the document. It includes all the freedoms we need. However, the time has come for us to imagine completely novel forms of peace, to discuss the Constitution, dissent, debate, and design our actions from this democratic architecture that our nation was founded on. We must do this with the widest consolation and peaceful public participation, we need join together to reconstitute American. Some humans look at the American Constitution with sanctimonious reverence and deem it like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to them humans of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and supposed what they did to be beyond amendment. Laws and institutions go must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep peace with the times. Mr. Jefferson is admired and blessed for his wisdom and the help he provided to create the system what has served us so well for so long. There is some confused thinking in the minds of pious people about the question of forgiveness. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19

Criminal aggressors—whether they be single individuals or whole nations—need to be punished as much for their own moral benefit as for the physical protection of society. If through sentimental emotions they are left unpunished, then we render them a disservice. For they will fail to learn the age-old lesion that crime does not pay. Not that they will really escape from the inevitable come-back of karma, but when the perpetration of crime is swiftly followed by proportionate punishment, the moral lesson involved is brought home to the wakeful consciousness much more effectively than when the same lesson is brought home to the subconscious at a later period in another birth. Just as we do not hate a child even when one is performing such a punitive operation, we ought not to hate the erring criminals who have put their energies into wrong channels even when we are restraining or punishing them. It should be done in the spirit of education, impersonally, calmly, without hatred, but with firm inflexible determination to teach them the lesson of their own experiences—the truth that barbarity does not pay. Today there are more than 2.5 billion computers in the World, including servers, desktops, and laptops. Almost half o the private households Worldwide have access to a computer at home. Microchips are everywhere. In 2020, more than 932 billion chips were manufactured around the World, feeding $493,858,200,000.00 industry. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has a computer named Sierra. Sierra is one of the fastest supercomputers in the World. Sierra boasts a peak performance of 125 petaFLOPS—125 quadrillion floating-point operations per second. Sierra is six to 10 times more capable than LLNL’s 20- petaflop Sequoia, which was the World’s eight-fastest supercomputer. Sierra is even more important today as we face increased global complexities, so it is essential that America’s tools operate at the leading edge. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19

With a foot print of 7,000 square feet, Sierra is comprised of 240 computing racks, and 4,320 nodes, with each node consisting of two IBM POWER 9 CUPs, four NVIDIA V100 GPUs, and Mellanox EDR InfiniBand interconnect. To prepare for this architecture, LLNL has partnered with IBM and NVIDIA to rapidly develop codes and prepare for applications to effectively optimize the CUP/GPU nodes. Meanwhile, 5 billion people around the World use the internet in January 2022—equivalent to 62.5 percent of the World’s total population. What is more, there are now fewer than 3 billion people around the World who do not use the internet, making another important milestone on our journey towards universal accessibility. Does anyone really think all these chips, computers, companies and Internet connections are going to vanish? Or that the World’s 5.31 billion unique mobile phone users in the World today are going to throw their phones away? In fact, these, too, are daily morphing into more and more advanced and versatile digital devices. What we see, therefore, in parallel with transformation of roles and boundaries in society, is the even more rapid transformation in its knowledge infrastructure. Compared with the changes it makes possible, everything done so far will seem trifling. And not just in a few “developed” countries. For while the United States has spearheaded these developments, they re no longer an “American” phenomenon. As of January 2020, English was the most popular language online, representing 25.9 percent of Worldwide internet users. Chinese was ranked second with a 19.4 percent usage, but Chinese will soon be the most widely used language on the Internet. There has also been exponential growth of mobile devices in Africa. There are 650 million mobile users in Africa, surpassing the number in the United Stated of America or Europe. In some African countries more people have access to a mobile phone than to clean water, a bank account or electricity. There are also tele-centers, cyber cafés and other forms of public Internet access are growing rapidly in urban areas. The global information technology industry is values at $5.3 trillion U.S.D. It is served by 56 million companies around the globe. And change is so rapid that all of these numbers are already obsolete by the time you read them. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19

Cresleigh Homes

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February 1, 2022 3:27 am