dynamic system
like a reactor. All you need is a few more neutrons around, giving you a
k-factor of 1.00000001 and you are headed for trouble. Each extra
neutron produces two and your production rate soars geometrically
towards bang. On the other hand, a k-factor of 0.999999999 is just as
bad. Your reaction is spiraling down in the other direction. To control
a pile you watch your k-factor and make constant adjustments."

"All this I follow," Costa said, "but where's the connection with
Societics?"

"We'll get to that--just as soon as you realize and admit that a minute
difference of degree can produce a marked difference of kind. You might
say that a single, impossibly tiny, neutron is the difference between an
atom bomb and a slowly cooling pile of inert uranium isotopes. Does that
make sense?"

"I'm staggering, but still with you."

"Good. Then try to go along with the analogy that a human society is
like an atomic pile. At one extreme you will have a dying, decadent
culture--the remains of a highly mechanized society--living off its
capital, using up resources it can't replace because of a lost
technology. When the last machine breaks and the final food synthesizer
collapses the people will die. This is the cooled down atomic pile. At
the other extreme is complete and violent anarchy. Every man thinking
only of himself, killing and destroying anything that gets in his
way--the atomic explosion. Midway between the two is a vital, active,
producing society.

"This is a generalization--and you must look at it that way. In reality
society is infinitely complex, and the ramifications and possibilities
are endless. It can do a lot more things than fizzle or go boom.
Pressure of population, war or persecution patterns can cause waves of
immigration. Plant and animal species can be wiped out by momentary
needs or fashions. Remember the fate of the passenger pigeon and the
American bison.

"All the pressures, cross-relationships, hungers, needs, hatreds,
desires of people are reflected in their interrelationships. One man
standing by himself tells us nothing. But as soon as he says something,
passes on information in an altered form, or merely expresses an
attitude--he becomes a reference point. He can be marked, measured and
entered on a graph. His actions can be grouped with others and the
action of the group measured. Man--and his society--then becomes a
systems problem that can be fed into a computer. We've cut t