 There's a grave danger in thinking of a collapsed society operating just the way it does today. In other words, in a collapsed society, air-conditioned motels might not operate unless you had had the wit earlier to switch away from grid power systems to independent power production. My own preference would be through photovoltaic cells. But these are things that I think, Kurt, I'm sure you think of yourself. Well, our electricity comes to be independent from the rest of the state. Yes, with bullshows. I could wreck bullshows in five minutes. But I might want to. You see, you're talking about a collapsed society. I don't believe, as a matter of fact, it's going to collapse. But what I think is going to happen to it is it's going to change drastically. And the change is now already visible, it seems to me. Evolution is at work. And you now have a, around the world, I do believe, a movement of the incompetence into positions of power. All powerful institutions today are manned by not terribly bright people, which reminds me of another saying that I thought of. You know the one about cream rising to the top? That's not true. Crud rises to the top. And the personality of people who want to be political leaders is essentially cruddy. And nobody else gets there, and nobody else ever will get there. It's worthwhile noting that great leaders usually do not turn out to be terribly intelligent people. So I think what is happening, evolution happily at work, the dummies are gravitating toward the institutions, and smart people are gravitating toward their homes, their localities, and their skills. And this, I think, will go on for a long, long time. Nobody is capable by revolutionary action of overturning great social systems. It has never been done. There hasn't been a revolution by armed force ever in the history of the world. What we have had is changes of management very often, but no revolutions. The revolutions take place in laboratories. They take place in laboratories, and they take place on tilled fields in such places. Such a revolution is taking place. The entire technology of the 20th century has moved toward decentralization and miniaturization. All of the tools now move in this direction. And with genetic engineering, final tools begin moving in this direction. We now begin to operate at a molecular level in technology. And this is revolutionary. Most major managers do not manage technology well because they are essentially managers, not creators. With the microcomputer today, in most big companies, there's a concerted effort by the managers of the data processing departments to keep microcomputers out of the hands of individual department managers. Because as many of them say, if they have them, how can we control? And as you know, the main major function of modern management has never had anything to do with productivity. It has had to do with reward and punishment and the maintenance of power. Modern managers are inept. All modern major corporations are poor users of technology. Do you use a technology? Well, most. The most significant thing about Bell laboratories, which I'm sure everybody's favorite is, it was the part of the Bell system least like the rest of it. And of course, as it became bureaucratized, it became less creative. So it occurs to me, we now refer to another old wisdom, not too old, but there was a philosopher who said, workers of the world unite. Incorrect. Poor grasp of the technology. The thing should be workers of the world disperse. And as soon as possible, which leads us to the presentation this morning, which I admire your work very much, but I would never want to be part of any project that would speak truth to power, to use the old phrase. It's not worth it. The goal that occurs to me is never to speak truth to power, which has proven historically now to be a poor user of truth, however you define truth, information. The thing to do is to destroy power. Power itself, hierarchical power particularly, runs counter to every tool that is now available. In short, to think of any structure in hierarchical terms is to throw out all of the available tools, because all of the available tools suggest in productive systems and social systems, by which I mean agreements between individual human beings, all suggest that people can be individually responsible today for all of their actions. Not just their actions in terms of their relationships with other people, they can now be responsible individually for productive practices. In short, villages can produce automobiles. Households can produce interferon after a time. All of the microprocessor technology suggests that small units can handle information. You can have the Library of Congress in a TP. You can do high-energy physics now without a particle accelerator. You're very smart about it. I'm really... The charge that the technology has caused problems I think is just the worst of all charges. It never caused any problems. Science and technology have been tools used poorly and well by individual human beings. There is no dynamic about it. It never had to go any particular way. All decisions are made by people. They are not made by invisible forces. This is a prejudice of mine and you need not listen to it for very long. But it occurs to me that I base my life on that assumption that I can make decisions and carry through with them and that now I have the tools available in my village and in my home to make all of these decisions to not be dependent on any outside authority whatsoever so that now I can make agreements with neighbors based on real parity. I don't have to make agreements with doctors because they know more than me. There is a diagnostic program that Jan Prince, who many of you know is working on now for emergency room use that should enable anyone with their wits about them to handle most medical emergencies. Already about 80% of anything that happens to you can be handled simply by doing nothing because these are all self-repairing activities. Information is the key to just about everything there is. I should mention I think that if you think about this for a time you might be able to conclude that all management, all administration can be replaced by information. If there is information available, the administrator is not needed. Administrators in the past have simply been nodes where information has collected and they have tended to restrict it rather than distribute it. Now, the idiot world, the world of the great institutions, General Motors, the federal government, the Soviet Union and other obnoxious entities of a collectivist nature are as inept as anybody. They are the most inept people on the face of the earth. Only Ronald Reagan thinks the Russians are competent. So far as I know, I don't have any neighbors who think they're competent. Climb and Rickover doesn't think they're competent. No, I don't suppose the Russians think they're terribly competent. I don't think that Andropov gets up in the morning and glories in the productive system of the Soviet Union for God's sake. I mean, it's a lousy system and only ideologues fear it. It occurs to me. Which brings us to a point, ideology. I agree with Kerr on so many things. So I talk about everything I agree with you on. I don't think you mentioned, though, some of the great diseases that afflict people and affect their potential survival. Of all these diseases, ideology is probably, it seems to me, the most dreadful. A person afflicted by ideology is unlikely to make decisions based on reality. They make decisions based on fantasies. They say a thing. Say a thing. This is moral and that is immoral. And then they live their life on the basis of what they once said, regardless of confronting information or anything else. Now, I do not want too many neighbors around me who are ideologues. I think personality is much more important than ideology. A person may, like Kerr, have the most obnoxious opinions of many things and yet have a wonderful personality. I think Kerr would be a good neighbor. And I would say of some of his more idiosyncratic views of the world, hmm, so what? You know, I shoot as well as he does. I'm a student of Aikido. And I'm twice as violent. I have a terribly violent nature. So I wouldn't worry about any of his opinions. Opinions are bullshit. They tell you nothing about a person. You have to be with a person and know them. And that's one of the things that I hope that in this diverse congregate that people would slow down on this reflexive feeling about opinions. I mean, who cares? I mean, I can advocate cannibalism because I'm a meat eater and I don't see that there's a hell of a lot of difference between what kind of meat you eat. So what? If I don't intend to eat you, it occurs to me that this is a ho-hum proposition, this cannibalism business. What you want to know is, do I eat people? Not do I say cannibalism is good. So you must come and live with me. Then we find out about these things. Now there's another old slogan that I thought of too and that is that those who live by the sword, you know the rest of it, I think it should be revised to say that those who live by the sword have recklessly restricted their armaments because the notion that there is a solution, even in armaments, it strikes me as a limited, a very limited notion. There's a greater solution in wits and in the condition of yourself. The greatest weapon you have is you. No artificial weapon will ever be quite as impressive as that and if you have not taken great pains about that weapon, the weapon of your wits and the weapon of your body, the weapon of your skills, then I do not think you can buy your way into a situation where Abercrombie and Fitch or Holland and Holland can provide you with substitutes. If you have not attended to those tools, you then belong over on the other side with the dummies. I'm working on a book now called A Plague of Dumb and it strikes me as a much better explanation of what is going on than the evil theory. I don't know about evil. I don't know about morality. I'm immoral. I'm probably evil. And I have absolutely no ideology and all of these terrible things. But I do know this, I think, that I observe that there are now, we may be speciating. This is an odd thing to digress and do, but it does happen. Simply because a person walks around and looks like a familiar creature, it is not safe to assume that they are human because evolution does work. And so there may be some people who have all of this appearance of being a human who are not. Now I think you know most of them, work with the federal government, either work for it or lead it. That's another aphorism, I think, neither a leader nor a follower be. But nevertheless, all of these people who are over there display as one characteristic a refusal to think. That they do not do. They will never think, particularly about the consequences of their actions. So you know who they are and you know who you are. Now they're not evil. They're not even immoral. They're just that kind of creature who does not think. Now it occurs to me that rather than thinking about abusing them, although it would be pleasurable to do so, the thing to do is to think about how to avoid them. To be somewhere else at all times. Now it is Harrison's a fine place to be. Rogue River, any place, go anywhere, but I would say as a prescription, do not under any circumstance at any time in your life support authority. Support authority. This does not mean that you should go around recklessly exposing yourself to penalties for flaunting it, but simply never support it. In all instances of a situation in which the greater good or any other glowing promises put before you and in which you are asked to serve simply say no. No is the most terrifying word in the language to authority. No. I do not think authority fears attack, subversion or anything as much as the simple statement, no. No, I will not. Non-servium. I will not serve. Everybody is capable of saying that. You do not have to be part of a movement. You don't have to have an ideology. You don't have to be in a party or anything. You can say no, and you can continue to say no, and you can continue to move away from it. Everything finally comes down to that, it seems to me. All of the grand talking about collapsing systems, about changing systems, comes down to what will you do? Not what will you do to the world, but what will you do individually? There is no limit to the range of action that individuals have. Everything that you complain about is solvable for yourself now and immediately. If you really think things are going to hell and you're miserable, it is nobody's fault, I believe, but your own. You are absolutely responsible for what you do. You create the entire world in your head anyway, and you can solve its problems using your head in the same way. You must do something. You must not constantly argue with your friends about the best thing to do, I do not believe. You must not denounce your friends because they take one course and you take another. It occurs to me that instead of all of these, this intellectual jolly business of carping that goes on so constantly, there would be much better if people simply did those things which changed the world for them immediately and now. They are all ever one of us is capable of doing that. Having done that, we then have a lot of time in which to engage in the production of new and interesting devices, social arrangements, and so forth. You first must make the decision that you will change your world and you can. Well, let's see, what else has come up lately? Nuclear war. Well, I now have a credential that makes me almost immune to concern about these things. In the mail about two weeks ago I got my official senior citizen card from the asshole governor of our state. And it occurs to me what a wonderful reminder this is. You know, I'm living on borrowed time already and I understand that if you're 16 years old it might seem terrible, but that brings up death, doesn't it? Why do you refer to that? Because we had a little discussion about that today. The fear of death occurs to me as being a foolish fear since it's likely to happen to everyone. Rather than fearing it, it occurs to me that first you must come to terms with it. And in no way is this more important than in opposing great authority. Because great authority has as its base the ability to kill you. Authority has so far as I know, particularly in the political sense, no other base. It has the single base that it can kill you. It has no base in reason. There's no particular reason for obeying laws. It can kill you. Now, if that panics you, then of course you say to authority, Christ, anything but that. Do not kill me, I will serve. I will do anything. Once you come to terms, I feel very strong, once you come to terms with the fact that this is inevitable, you're going to die at any rate. It's a matter of scheduling. And that as a matter of fact, that's not as important as what you're doing right now. Then finally the state has nothing left to do to you. There is no other thing they can do because you can say no ultimately. No. Simply no. Then they kill you. Well that's changed the schedule and nothing else about your life. I think it's comforting. It's also comforting to know it seems to me that you can turn it off any time you want. You see, so pain, agony, misery, all of these things become simpler and less frightening. Once this fear is gone in the first of the Dune books, I think one of the priestesses says, fear is the mind killer. And I'm rather convinced that that is true. Fearful people do not fight well. It is wise to understand the power of an opponent, but to fear it is to tremble before it and to tremble is to not be centered and to not be centered is to not be strong. And you become a victim, it seems to me. So at any rate, that's so much for death and so much for nuclear war. I mean yes, I suppose it's absolutely possible. It's very unlikely because of the dumb factor. Don't always take comfort in stupidity because in most of the missile tests recently, they don't launch. Now if ours don't launch, what the hell are the Russians doing? I mean those people are in... A mining engineer in the Soviet Union is somebody who can put in waterproof wires. I mean those people are... They have no... Nothing to recommend them whatsoever. And if our army is stoned, Christ think of what their army is. That six guys commit suicide by drinking tank brake fluid the other day. I was told because they were just bored to death. They should be bored to death. They live in a boring place. Well, at any rate, fear. Fear is a problem, it turns to me. I don't know. I really don't know anything as a matter of fact. I've discovered this lately after I got my card because it said that I was now wise. And I guess that's the wisest thing. I'll finish off finally by reference back to the great statements of the founding of our order. The first one which no one argues with, the sum of the whole of the law is do what thou wilt. Now the fact of the matter is you do it anyway. You bow to authority, that's what you do. You do that. No, not somebody else. They don't bring in a puppet to do it. You do it. You debase yourself before authority. All people do what they will. You have an infinite number of choices. On the second one, I think I heard some gasps when it was pronounced. There is no truth, that's the first part of it. That's simply a statement of the scientific method, which is one of the more interesting things that has come up in the world over the past few centuries. And the second one is everything is permissible. Anything is permissible. But of course that's the fact. You know that to be the fact, somebody can go berserk in here this afternoon and engage in a first class slaughter. It's all permissible. People can do anything. The remarkable thing is that they don't. We have the capacity both to do anything or to restrain ourselves from doing it. And I think that the summation of all of this is simply the notion of individual responsibility. We all practice it. The question is whether we practice it thoughtfully or simply reflexively. And I think the world is now divided. There is a great schism. There are the people who think about their lives and there are the people who do not. I once was concerned that it was part of my job in the world to save it. Now I'm not even convinced there is a world because I have little empirical proof of it as a matter of fact. But I know one thing. It is not my responsibility in any sense to save it nor is it my responsibility to identify with every human being in it and so on. There is so much to be done in Berkeley County, West Virginia and so much to be done on our homestead and so much to be done in the things I want to think about and there are so many dogs to be petted and so much love to be made and all of these terribly important things that I think it has to be a very low priority to become agitated by opinion. I'm back to that. I'll go back to it just once more. There's going to be more opinion around this place over the next few days than has probably been. It may reach critical mass and we will all implode into this sort of thing. But try to be patient even with me. Try to be patient. These are just people like me saying things that pop into their mind. It's like quantum mechanics. It's made up. It is not the real world. It is something we make up about the real world and so are all of these opinions. Nobody should be able in this room to say anything that would offend anybody. Now, if they go hit you in the face depending on the martial art you have studied you will of course either do this or do that but as for their opinion, sticks and stones. That's another old one that's so wise. Sticks and stones. In fact, can break your bones. Words cannot hurt you. The words have to attach themselves to a stick to hurt you. The vilest person in the world can proclaim a dictatorship but they must have sticks and stones to make it hurt. I'll end with a comment on rights because that will come up constantly too. I'm a barbarian. I'm a barbarian in nature by religious conviction or no conviction by every measure. And to criticize the dark ages as a matter of fact sort of following my own rule I don't take umbrage at it but I wouldn't mind it of living through them at all because it was a great barbarian age and produced a good deal of technology. But my feeling about rights is this they don't exist. There are no rights. We cannot proclaim a right and have an effect from the proclamation. You can stand in the middle of a field and say everyone has a right to be fed one of the sillier ones but nonetheless a popular one and nothing will happen. There are no rights. All rights are agreements and agreements where? Between human beings. Us. It's what we make up as ways we will conduct ourselves so that's what they are. It is not it seems to me possible to find in the material world in the natural world or even inside your head a set of absolute rules that had existed prior to human activity. If these are found I would be probably the first to exceed to them. They do not exist. All of these things are the result of human thinking first and so it occurs to me that it's a very shaky rope to hang on to, to proclaim rights. A much sturdier notion it seems to me is to make agreements. If you believe in a certain set of rights it occurs to me your wisest course is to live with and make agreements with people who will observe and put those rights into practice. And then you have something very sturdy but I don't think you should go up to a member of the Gestapo and say something like you can't come in here I have my rights. That's an unconvincing argument to an IRS agent as I have discovered. You must be prepared again to do whatever you want to do to them. It's your responsibility. It's not the responsibility of a political party to save you from it it's your responsibility. You must deal with this other human being doing the swinish thing and I don't think you can have reference to anything but that immediate relationship. Oh my, well hi Ho, I don't know that's all I wanted to say if anybody's got any questions I wish I'd ask them. Barbara? Well, yes there certainly are a lot of sticks and stones. First I believe it is wise to recognize that they're wielded by morons generally and by cowards. And that your first line of defense is to be courageous. Certainly to cower before authority is the worst part of it. And I don't think that's the right thing to do. I don't think that's the right thing to power before authority is the worst possible tactic it seems to me. So first to be courageous, to be prepared to be prepared to suffer if necessary to be indomitable. Why not be indomitable? It's better than being indomitable. So I think again all of the preparations takes place first in your mind and then in your body I would certainly I don't know it almost seems a detail and yet I'm more and more impressed by it. I just think that I wasted so much of my life not understanding the use of my body and now that I'm a student of Ikea and a very clumsy one I feel it even more sharply. So I recommend among other things that you might give about as a much attention to this thing that you cart around with you as you do to your opinions. I mean I find there's something of a discontinuity there between people who will spend thousands of dollars on a library of other people's opinions and then grow to have a lack of musculature to be not graceful and so on. I just seem to mean that that's a wrong priority there. Yes sir? I'll wait until it's a very interesting question. I'll save I think for later. I want to ask you another one. You said one thing Carl and I think I've heard you say it before if not you I've heard from others and that you don't want to speak truth to power for real. That baffles me a little bit but I suspect that my bafflement arises out of not quite having you define your term so that I know precisely what you are saying. It has generally come to me the passionate belief that if you could just get the ear of the monarch you could set him or her right. That's true. I think it is nonsense but it's a powerful attraction for a number of people and so there are many hours spent on trying to figure out how to do this. The phrase as you used it seemed almost an invitation to speak something other than truth. To power I think is probably well but I don't think that's what you meant. You are not saying tell me so if it is. I rely to the Gestapo. Always? If convenient. Oh for a purpose. I don't think there's a principle involved. I think they are on the other side that's all. That brings the second question that I had first. You made a number of statements to the effect that you didn't believe in morality. I had no. That's what you said. I'm glad I'm quoting you correctly. Etc. Of course you stated that anything is permissible by means of which you went on to explain that you went by that that human beings can do anything. That it is a practical fact. Of course I agree. But again in the usage of the term by saying that anything is permissible it appeared that you were engaged in sanctioning anything that they might want to do. But then you went on to give us a very fine set of moral injunctions. About the things we ought to do and not not to do. What was that? Well in fact your latest one actually related to the values of a person who doesn't take care of his body because in your judgment that's stupid you should have taken care of it. But that's all it is. It's just inconvenient. But you get my point. I think I do but I resist it only because Do you know what my point is? I believe I do. You believe that there are things in which Well I don't either. My point is this No my point is this Carl I think that you could help certainly me and other dummies like me But you're not. Others who are not like me of why. If you would define your terms a little more clearly you see when I I know you very well and I adore you as a matter of fact but I don't want anybody to know that in Arkansas. Well I guess I would have to say back to you that I'd prefer that you define the terms and I'll just stop using them. I don't think there's anything and I've heard you like on several occasions that you have ever said that I really disagreed with once I knew what you meant but often Maybe I'm not saying anything. No you are. You are saying very profound things very wise things and I love them they're great but you sometimes put them in a context where I think this man is now saying the opposite of what he said before but then it comes on that you really aren't. That's good exercise. Oh of course it is. I'm not trying to debate with I just wonder if you'd like to think about this No I do very well. I'll do it for you. Yeah I wish you would because thinking has become I'm a very good welder and I'm not too sure about the thinking but that's another point God damn it look I have heard 10 times today people talking about their lack of skills why why do people boast of this it's not that big I don't think it's a virtue to be skilled but on the other hand I don't think it's a virtue to be unskilled I mean there are things that it might be convenient to learn certainly if you do posit the notion of a collapsed society you cannot safely posit it and think you have a place in it if you have no skills if you cannot manipulate things in the material world I mean Gulch was a bullshit place it was full of bankers who the hell needs bankers in a collapsed world but Christ's sake what you need in a collapsed world are my neighbors you need somebody who had the foresight to save some seed you need and you need Colonel Applegate for God's sake to keep the people off your back it would be better if you didn't need Colonel Applegate the desirable situation it seems to me is where everybody is capable of doing all of these things now people are capable of doing all of these things there's no reason why you have to shut your life off from these things everybody must program now it seems to me to be adequately prepared for the collapse you must be a marksman you must have a healthy supple body you must be able to farm to till to build to read to write philosophies subtract any of these from a person and what have you less than you had before why do you want to be less seems to me being more and more is the proposition Thomas Wolfe the older one used to go into the library at the university attended and weep because he had never read all of those books but he wanted to I weep when I know that I'll never have my own particle accelerator but I want one I'll try I'll try anything more more I mean this thing is empty it has nothing in it you can fill it up with everything this it's nothing it's always imperfect it can be a thing of iron and steel and water and fire but it rarely is but you can try why say oh to hell with it why be a cog when you can be a machine or whatever why be an acorn when you can be a tree be a forest be the whole goddamn galaxy so far as we know that's all there is in it your mind your fiction your a fiction this thing creates the universe now why treat it so shabbily well and kids god kids operate an underground railway get them out of that thing that public school system public or private if it's a system get them to places where they can be creative where they can begin to educate themselves in the classical way what the hell is science observation all children observe they must observe they have eyes some of them most of them so do a favor to get the kids out you can at least do that if you produce the damn things you ought to take care of them and taking care of them if the state have them for a minute not a second get them away from that withdraw retreating is not an ignoble activity retreating stupidly is a stupid activity curts absolutely correct about that but to retreat is fine who wants to be out there with them workers of the world dispersed galt was right about that those poor companions for the trip you made a comment a little while ago about keeping the others off your back now the world that I see when I look out there is a world that has a lot of dumb people in it with a lot of weapons and I will never be able to accumulate enough weapons to keep them off my back if they intend to come after me true what I was going to bring up is your comment that there is no truth and there are no rights now that I understand what you're talking about I agree with you however those are my defenses those are the things I use to keep the dumb people off my back fine if I can convince them that there is truth and that there is rights these are propaganda and propaganda is the way you keep the dumb people from attacking you it may be if it works fine I think you should do it it's the only thing that can work because we can't that would be like my saying that what I said is the only thing that can work I think we'd both be suspicious of that the alternative is either you fight him or you convince him not to fight you well not necessarily you can also be someplace else you can turn aside it's just another possibility you figure out your own way that's right you see I just would explain to you why I wouldn't depend on your way that's trivial who cares certainly you don't care and I don't care if your way works I'll be the first to be scurrying around to do it I've had some experience with your way I wouldn't trust it across the street anymore that way does not work now because propaganda has started to deteriorate but this country started 200 years ago with a something of a success of that propaganda tax collectors did generally leave people alone it was successful and so you did not need to have a gun and shoot it out with a tax collector that country does not exist right it's gone now but I don't want to live in a world where I constantly have to look over my shoulder but you do so the question is when you look over your shoulder what do you do with the information you received I mean that's crucial now you've looked over your shoulder you see that it is dominated by very vicious people who do not think much who act like the great slug or some sort of creature in a slime mold they ooze around just covering up things and now you know that do you still want to talk to them about your rights if you can do it I think that's fine there are some bizarre variations of that there's a wonderful attorney in Alaska John Matonis who was offered to defend free of charge anyone accused of slaughtering an IRS agent and that's a creative use of the court system but it's neither an activity I would recommend to people nor a defense that I'd recommend to them I don't think you should kill IRS agents because they're not worth the powder and I don't think you should go to court to defend yourself against them but that's just what I think I live in a place where it works you live in a place where you must do something else as somebody once said let a thousand flowers bloom yes individual mind and the individual body and I'd like to know how you deal with what seems to me a trend in the world towards a time when we aren't going to have individual minds and individual bodies we started with blood transfusions we're up to organ transplants it doesn't seem long before we really will become interchangeable as far as bodies go there are all kinds of ways already of manipulating our minds it seems to me we're only at the beginning of that and very soon we won't have much autonomy over our minds anymore it's just another one of those pesky things that comes along and I think one of the things again resort first to the understanding that the brightest and most creative people are not doing that for that purpose that they may may be you and so that if you're terribly worried I take a genetic engineering may disturb you I think it's wonderful myself but that shows that there's a look at it from several different ways if you're terribly worried about it I suggest you immediately embark on an intensive study of it and become a genetic engineer for several reasons defensive reasons subverting the system if you find it to be pernicious or comforting yourself if you find that it isn't but it occurs to me that these are the activities that sensibly suggest themselves it is not I believe sensible to take the view that the federal government should pass a law against research I mean that salvation that occurs to me is not useful so you must do something yourself so long as there is one individual left untainted by the fears that you suggest that individual can if the person chooses fight and that's the way it is I would choose to I think today tomorrow I may choose to surrender because tomorrow the cells are different everything's changed you've got to leave some room open for maneuvering here yes I have a slight problem with the feeling to take comfort from the fact that the world's full of dummies although I agree with you it seems to me that there are enough smart people that are willing to sell anything to the dummies to make this up a few years ago we took the missiles apart they were full of RCA chips I had no RCA stock but I would have skipped a dividend we didn't have to sell those chips it's hard to take comfort from the fact that some people may be running things because there's always enough people that are smart that are willing to take the profit I think the thing is those chips were obsolete by the time they were sold they still work but there will be something better that you can do and that somebody else can do and so I think that the clever people are always a step or two ahead I agree with you that the selling of these things or the selling out of these things that occurs to me is always a step back it's always it's always yesterday as they said this morning those were the good old days the thing to do is when you're worried terribly about that is just to go do something better now is the time there's really no excuse for not well I have a favorite scenario there I just trust that some molecular biologist friend of mine I've tried to make friends in certain crucial areas will cure supposedly cure cancer and will then take the view that the only people who can be cured of cancer are those people with whom they spend an evening corousing and so that you can check out their personality because it wouldn't be much sense in curing everybody of cancer if they had terrible personalities and that you see that's not terribly far-fetched because somebody in this room I'm sure is capable of doing something so impressive that if they did it and then said I will deploy it only to certain people that it would make quite an impact they wouldn't even have to say it they might just have to do it and that would give us again another edge I think everything that my feeling is that everything I can think of is simply an extension of the presentation this morning Donegan's presentation and it was brilliant and accurate that now we are armed and I don't think it has happened before we really have better equipment we have the smarter people we have the more energetic people the fitter people all of these things now are what we refer to as our friends our friends are now smarter than our enemies and I think we can take advantage of this I don't know how and if I did know how and you listened to me you'd be the great and of course horse's ass because the thing is we are all armed to be able to do it ourselves in many different ways isn't it? Carl you pointed out let me add to it we also have always been armed with brains that we could use yes true and we have neglected that but I think you made a powerful point the state has been able to buy its way into these things in the past always in many different ways I don't think that's possible anymore although I would be willing to predict there will be an attempt to pass federal statutes limiting the amount of storage for home machines within the decade but I can also predict that of course it won't work it never will work I sometimes try to place revolutionary moments not that I believe there are any but there are some that you have conceits about it that the CB radio might have been that moment that the state passed in to a secondary position the CB radio was the first time I can think of including prohibition when the state was absolutely unable to control the technology and gave up with prohibition they were unable to control it but they didn't give up for a while this time they surrendered imagine Liberty won while we were just sitting around theorizing about it Liberty won a great and it was the battle of hastings has happened and now we just have to proceed on to another a few skirmishes here and there and we're bound to win or die happy which was a form of victory because they would dislike that most of all I mean if you went smiling I think they would really they'd curdle inside because they are such small warped mean petty little beasts I don't know what their species is is it's like was it pit set about bear baiting that the Puritans didn't mind the discomfort of the bear but only the pleasure of the onlookers and that's that's part of this thing but anyway take heart I mean the collapse isn't a it may collapse in Kurt's terms but that's not a collapse that is simply a demolition of an old termite ridden structure we don't need it doesn't do anything for anybody in particular yes a lot of people will be hurt but what the hell it's a glorious beginning it's the happiest thing that can happen it will happen in one way or the other either tumultuously in Kurt's view or in sort of a dull way in my view we'll just wake up one morning and Richard Nixon will be trying to get a job as a soda jerk and Ronald Reagan will be trying to get back into the movies and creative people will be everywhere being creative and these uncreated people I don't know what to do with them I guess keep them for pets or what just leave them alone I'd love to see a group of managers left alone somewhere wouldn't that be wonderful be cruel but then I don't mind that God let the punishment fit the crime excellent idea but anyway that's the final thing we have won we are winning we will win even if we don't it's worth trying you wouldn't want to live any other way for God's sake you can be free you can be free today not tomorrow and a dillard dollar ten o'clock scholar and six or seven other things and thank you for inviting me