FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35  
36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   >>   >|  
ring of a final decision in men's age-old arguments; but elsewhere such discussions were _verboten_, and subject to swift, stiff penalties. There were some who thought quietly to themselves that perhaps in the reaction to horror they had voted too much power to a small group of men known as Security, but there were others, weary of the insecurity of world power-politics, who felt that Security was a blessing, and would for all time protect all men in the freedom of their own beliefs. The pressures had been great, and the pendulum of political weight had swung far in an opposite direction. In fact, man had achieved that which he would deny--in a reach for freedom, he had made the first turn in the coil that would bind him--in the coil that would bind the mass of the many to the will of the very few. * * * * * In school in Moscow, these things touched Bessandra's life only remotely. The concepts, the talk, the propaganda from Radio Moscow, these she heard, but they were not her main interests. Her main interests were two--one, the fascination which the giant computer at Moscow University held for her; and two, the students around her. People, she had noted, had behavior patterns very similar to the complex computer; not as individual units, though as individual units they could also be as surprisingly obtuse as the literal-minded reaction of the computer; but in statistical numbers they had an even greater tendency to act as the computer did. The information fed them and their reactions to it had a logic all its own; not a logic of logic, but a logic of reaction. And the reaction could be controlled, she noted, in the same self-corrective manner that was applied to logic in the interior of the computer--the feedback system. It was obvious that with a statistical group of people, the net result of action could be effectively channeled by one person in an obscure position acting as a feedback mechanism to the group, and with selective properties applied to the feedback. At one point she had quietly, and for no other reason than to test this point to her own satisfaction, sat back and created a riot of the women students at the University, without once appearing either as the cause or the head or leader in the revolt. The revolt in itself had been absolutely senseless, but the result had been achieved with surprisingly little effort on the part of one individual. Computers and
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35  
36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

computer

 
reaction
 

individual

 
feedback
 

Moscow

 

Security

 
achieved
 

freedom

 

revolt

 

students


University

 
surprisingly
 

applied

 

interests

 

result

 

statistical

 

quietly

 
manner
 

corrective

 

controlled


minded

 

numbers

 

greater

 

literal

 

obtuse

 
tendency
 
reactions
 

information

 
obscure
 

appearing


satisfaction
 

created

 

effort

 

Computers

 
senseless
 

leader

 

absolutely

 

action

 
effectively
 

channeled


people

 
system
 

obvious

 

person

 

position

 
reason
 

properties

 
acting
 

mechanism

 

selective