| 1.22 | Bureau of Intelligence Synthesis |
Dr. Delta: Virulence level is unknown and the meme may be beneficial. The infection level is high (3.8). The host manifests infection by either believing something like this meme exists or expressing support for the creation of an organization like the Bureau of Intelligence Synthesis.
FS: Just as the United States created the United Americas, my Earth’s US inteligencia (intelligence) agencias (agencies) created the United Americas super spy agencia known as the Bureau of Intelligence Synthesis or BIS.
DG: Like the FBI or the CIA?
FS: Neither, once upon a time the different militar services didn’t talk to each other, this was known as interservice rivalry, and long term and short-term solutions were implemented that have worked to a great extent. The First Gulf War showed this world what happens when your different services work like one finely tuned machine. My Earth learned this lesson earlier and to a greater extent.
DG: This is happening in our Earth as well.
FS: I’ll believe it when I see it. One short-term solution to the interservice rivalry problem in the militar of both Earths was the creation of the Green Berets.
DG: You got the best of the best from the different services and created a whole new militar culture that was synergic rather than incremental. What does this have to do with the BIS?
FS: The UA decided to apply this same concept to their inteligencia community.
DG: A Green Berets of Intelligence so to speak.
FS: Exactly, like the Green Berets the BIS recruited from existing services. In order to join the Bureau of Intelligence Synthesis, you had to have three years of experience in the CIA or FBI or NSA.
DG: Why did they have to have this experience?
FS: This meant the agents brought experience and contacts to the new agencia right off the bat but they had to work together. They resigned their old positions. You can’t leave an exit door.
DG: Why not?
FS: The situation in your Earth where the CIA agents are assigned to the FBI and vice versa won’t work. Ultimately, the agents know where their home is at the end of the day and don’t have an interest in cooperating beyond a certain level with the agencia they have been temporarily assigned to.
DG: So you think a new agency has to be created on this Earth?
FS: Yes, a new agencia, but more than that. It’s the elite, so it actually is something that top guys in their respective agencias want to join. This sends a message that synergy is good in a very direct manner and integrates this into the professional goal structure of members of the inteligencia community. This also means that everyone in this new agencia has very different backgrounds, but you get the best of the best, so they have the ability to learn, adapt and create a whole new synergic inteligencia culture.
DG: This would be a relatively small agency.
FS: Sure, you keep the operation lean and mean. The BIS had a lot of discretion and could access information from other inteligencia agencias in a more expedient manner and really were hot on the trail of leads rather than passively waiting for the CIA or FBI or NSA to hand them data. The BIS just showed up at the doorstep of any of these agencias and pursued leads across the inteligencia community.
DG: What about training?
FS: The BIS kept the Green Beret cross-training concept. The guys in this group were constantly learning new stuff and moving around and getting a breadth of experience that guys in other agencias didn’t get.
DG: Such as?
FS: They would have an internship with border patrol, a stint at customs, whatever. Even a week of this kind of experience gave BIS agents a feel for the ground operation that no lecture or book could give them.
DG: That would also be great fun for the right kind of person and one more incentive to join this agency.
FS: Sure, if you didn’t like learning then you didn’t want to join this organization, but if you liked a wide variety of experience then this was the place to be.
DG: This is the best and the brightest concept.
FS: Yes, but the agencia also focused on being bright in “connect-the-dot” intelligence.
DG: You know our Earth could use an intelligence agency that specialized in synthetic thinking. The BIS agency could be staffed by guys that scored above a certain minimum on the Miller Analogies test rather than the IQ test since the Miller’s is better at measuring synthetic thinking that is basically connect-the-dot thinking.
FS: Like I said before, I think a lot of ideas from my Earth can be applied to this Earth. The BIS kept the trained trainers like the Green Berets.
DG: Whom did they train?
FS: This agencia did have the very specific duty to come up with innovative, synergic ways of combating terrorismo and disseminating these techniques back to the other inteligencia agencias as well. The BIS were the kind of guys that did an internship at NASA and then did an internship at customs and suddenly realized there was some way to use NASA technology at customs. There was even a science requirement.
DG: This would severely limit the number of candidates you had available.
FS: They didn’t have to be rocket scientists but this agencia had a definite tech edge. Since very few agents had a science background, the BIS agencia suggested very specific educational remedies to potential applicants and told the applicant to come back after they had pursued these remedies.
DG: Current agencias rely on technology experts with a science background but I agree that having agents with their own science background would make this agency even more effective.
FS: The FBI wanted lawyers and accountants when it started. That’s great for old-style crime, but what about the new style terrorist? You can rob a lot more banks with a computer than a gun, and therefore you need guys who understand computers. Furthermore, the United Americas had terrorists killing Americans with jetliners not guns. On this Earth, this tech edge will only become more important over time.
DG: I agree, the terrorist attacks of the future will probably involve new technologies or old technologies being used in new ways.
FS: Of course, one of the BIS missions was to come up with ways to better use existing inteligencia assets across the inteligencia community in a more effective and creative manner. You need all five fingers to form a fist! This mission kept them in contact with the existing agencias and made them official cultural change agents.
DG: How would you compare the BIS with intelligence agencies in our Earth?
FS: No comparison, the Bureau of Intelligence Synthesis was the premiere inteligencia agencia on the planet in the area of intelligence synthesis and pretty much wiped out terrorismo after the 9/11 incident of my Earth. Of course the global political situation was very different on my Earth and this helped. Our 9/11 occurred about twenty years earlier when our Trump was President.
Dr. Gamma’s Notes: BIS invention is further extension of the patient’s paranoia.
DG: Why would a 9/11 happen on two such totally different Earths?
FS: Things are a lot more predetermined than most people realize. Intelligence analysis on this Earth uses deduction and linear methods. The FBI would be a good example of an agencia that uses this system really well. Intelligence synthesis uses analogical reasoning, non-linear methods and is ultimately preemptive.
DG: For example?
FS: The CIA would be an example of an agencia that uses a lot more intelligence synthesis than the FBI but is still not too far from its analysis roots.
DG: Perhaps this is one of the many reasons the two agencies have had a culture clash. The problem may be more rooted in a fundamental difference in cultures comparable to C.P. Snow’s ideas of a clash between humanities and the sciences. What you say does make some sense.
FS: Glad you think so. Intelligence analysis grew out of an industrial society and emphasized standardization of methodology, the use of rigorous scientific methods in the form of forensic science and the application of a classical bureaucratic structure to the problem of intelligence. Modern criminals such as the Mafia adapted industrial methods of organization to the business of crime and therefore there was certain parallelism between the enforcers and the criminals that made interactions predictable.
DG: Based on your logic, if an old style inteligencia uses industrial methods, then a new-style inteligencia agencia would use information age methods.
FS: Right, the new enemy on this Earth has adapted to the information age more quickly than the inteligencia community. The new enemy uses a web structure of organization.
DG: What do you mean web structure?
FS: They are small, mobile and do not meet in space but in cyber-space or space in outlaw countries. Most of all, the new enemy has an intuition of how to combine seemingly unrelated technologies in brand new ways that are incredibly destructive.
DG: You mean the Internet?
FS: Yes, the new information age requires an organization that has excellent intelligence analysis but can go beyond this. The information age provides a fast-moving environment where actors and knowledge bases change exponentially faster than in an industrial age.
DG: So what is the answer?
FS: Adaptability and creativity are no longer luxuries but necessities in such a fast moving environment. Dangers can arise quickly and agents have to be ahead of the wave not just playing catch-up.
DG: Intelligence synthesis sounds like a more formal way of thinking about connect-the-dot reasoning and its application to this fast-moving environment. What specific methods did the BIS use to accomplish inteligencia goals?
FS: A premium was put on recruiting agents that that have the four “inters” including interagency experience, interdisciplinary experience, international experience and interpersonal skills.
DG: Can you give some examples?
FS: Sure, the CIA agents, on this Earth, currently being assigned to the FBI and vice versa are examples of agents with interagency experience that would be at a premium. Interdisciplinary experience would be persons that had formal education in different fields. Corporations have done this for years.
DG: Really?
FS: For example, Macrohard generally preferred an upper level manager that had formal education in robotics and business education to a candidate that was only strong in robotics. MBA’s and Law degrees are excellent but these soft disciplines are strengthened when allied with a hard science background.
DG: Macrohard?
FS: Macrohard was the biggest and most successful corporation on my Earth.
DG: Anything else?
FS: International experience is so obvious, given the increasing globalization of crime and terrorismo, that the need for this background need not be explored. The need for interpersonal skills was important for the BIS interagency mission. The three “inters” were given new breadth and depth as the career of the agente (agent) continued.
DG: How so?
FS: Advanced degrees were encouraged. A special emphasis was put on degrees in science and this was the most scientifically literate inteligencia agencia on the planet. International language and culture classes were taken throughout the career of the agente. Coursework that developed analogical reasoning in applied settings was created and implemented.
DG: How about any common training?
FS: Systems science was the core discipline that all agents had to study in a common setting. The BIS agents used this common familiarity with systems science to communicate with each other regardless of their particular technical background.
DG: How does systems science allow this?
FS: Problems have analogical similarities across disciplines, and this is one of the keys of creative genius. And if you can’t find the answer in the book, then you write a new book!
DG: Perhaps you are an analogical genius, since the universe you have created seems to be one giant analogy.
FS: Again, I am creating nothing. I am just remembering. The BIS had particular duties and responsibilities in the area of intelligence synthesis including developing interagency cooperation and synergies. The BIS also was in charge of optimizing systems of data sharing between agencias and creating new methods of intelligence synthesis. Finally the BIS focused on the more theoretical problem of how to best integrate human intelligence known as HUMIT and high tech resources in an optimal manner and create totally new technologies and methods in the area of inteligencia.
DG: How do you know so much about a supposedly secret agency?
FS: The Squares made sure it had key agents in this agencia, and they reported to Erotron. Erotron had shown me a flat screen monitor behind the Botticelli Venus. The monitor allowed Erotron to watch the BIS headquarters. Erotron said, “Who watches the watchers?” She started laughing and said, “I do, of course”
DG: What was she was watching?
FS: At that particular moment, she was watching the Director of the BIS and he was in the Memetic Map room. He was a funny old guy. He had a white beard, wearing a black, double-breasted, spider silk suit from Suzhou.
DG: Where is Suzhou?
FS: Next door to Shanghai.
DG: Spider silk sounds creepy. Why would anyone want a spider silk suit?
FS: Spider silk suits were snazzy but also bullet proof. Spider silk suits also ran over a grand each.
Dr. Gamma’s Notes: The Director of the BIS is yet another father figure. The white beard suggests a benevolent father figure. The spider silk suit suggests a sinister side. How can I move forward and create rapport with the patient?
DG: Never heard of spider silk. What is a Memetic Map?
| 1.23 | Memetic Map |
Dr. Delta: The virulence level is low (1.2). The meme is has a low infection level (1.3).
FS: No such thing on this Earth yet. The BIS had decided to integrate the data from the National Security Agency into a global information system so that that words intercepted were now placed on a global map that showed the movement of words in real time.
DG: How can you track words?
FS: The map also took all the semantic data from all the other UA inteligencia agencias and placed it on a map.
DG: What kind of semantic data?
FS: Most of the semantic data was gathered electronically by tapping all e-mail and all telephone conversations.
DG: That’s not so advanced. The NSA already does that on this Earth.
FS: A lot of the data was gathered by tapping into the video surveillance systems used by both government and corporations, that had become ubiquitous, and having AI systems read the lips of the persons talking. The map could literally portray the word on the street. All print data was also added to the map. The purpose of the map was not to trace a particular phone call but to get a big picture of the movement of memes from one region to another.
DG: For example?
FS: Any time a new word popped up with increasing frequency, the database would automatically flag it. Most of the time this was a fad making its global rounds but sometimes a more significant idea was making the rounds of the planet. A BIS agente could look up a word and know the frequency that word was said at any point on the planet. The agente typed in the code war used by terrorists and were this code word had been mentioned was represented graphically on the map. The agente pressed another button and the map showed the ratio of electronic vs. printed vs. conversational use of the word with pie charts.
DG: What difference does that make?
FS: If there was very little e-mail about this explosive but lots of conversations then this was okay. On the other hand, e-mail usually meant something was being planned.
DG: The map was a map of word frequencies?
FS: More than that, the Memetic Map computer system automatically used structural analysis to figure out if a word was being used in a new way, the structural equivalent of a new word, and if the word was now being used to refer to a person.
DG: Sounds like some sort of linguistic map.
FS: Similar but the Memetic Map could trace patterns and real time and analyze the structure of these patterns.
DG: What some sort of structures?
FS: A web pattern of meme dispersion suggested a social hierarchy of some sort would be involved in this dispersion.
DG: What about something like a fad?
FS: Fad related words generally followed a pattern of dispersal that was more similar to the way a storm system moved. Fads started in the United Americas and then blew into the AU and finally settled in the European Union.
DG: How long did this dispersion take?
FS: A new word moving fast might take a week to make its way around the planet. If a word was globally distributed, but information about this word was difficult to find, then this word was a code word.
DG: Did the map figure out the code word?
FS: The map system couldn’t tell you what a new code word used by terrorists meant but could tell you it was a code word in the first place. The Asian Union is short for Asian Union and was one of the three unions including the UA and EU that dominated my Earth.
DG: Sounds like something the National Security Agency would come up with.
FS: Perhaps but our Memetic Map also correlated body temperature to memetic exposure.
DG: How?
FS: In the UA citizens were expected to take their temperature and send the data using their cell phone at least once a day. Pandemics plagued my Earth. This daily temperature reading considered a measure necessary for national security. The problem is you could get someone else to take your temperature for you in order to fool the government. The AU had larger problems with pandemics and had hardwired temperature sensors into the fiber optic network of the AU. Body temperature was correlated to memetic exposure.
DG: What do you find out when you correlate memetic exposure and body temperature?
FS: You find out that certain memes raise body temperature and can be considered hot memes that literally get people angry and/or excited. A very few memes lower body temperature and are considered cold memes.
DG: How do you know what a hot meme is or a cold meme?
FS: The identification and classification of both hot memes and especially cold memes was a major task of the BIS in the UA. The AU had its own similar agency. Over time both the UA and AU had developed computer based models that could predict how certain hot or cold memes would affect social, economic and/or political behavior. In general memes had no impact on body temperature and if a meme did have such an impact then you knew that it was a good idea to track it more closely.
DG: Body temperature fluctuates all day long.
FS: Yes but the average temperature of a large group of people with similar diet, culture and lifestyle is remarkably stable. In general a rise in the average body temperature of a group was not a good thing. Sometimes the BIS alerted the police if there was a temperature spike in a group that was known for rioting and other anti-social behavior but this was not a clever solution. The UA and the AU also inserted cold memes into the media to combat hot memes.
DG: I can understand how certain memes incite riots, in fact Blair seems to be in the process of banning certain types of speech due to the London subway bombings. I suppose radical speech from mullahs could be considered hot memes but what the heck is a cold meme?
FS: Certain types of music had charms that soothed the savage beast. Every social group had some version of music that did this function and in general this music was characterized by certain rhythms and tonalities regardless of the particular culture. Most church/temple type music had cold memetic properties. Also, most mood music fit into this category and was less obtrusive than piping religious music. Piping more cold music into the radio covertly was one way to lower the memetic temperature of a social group.
DG: What if the angry teenagers about to riot weren’t listening to the radio?
FS: Angry teenagers are always listening to the radio but you could also fight hot memes with hotter memes. The insertion of more erotic memes into the local media could distract those teenagers and cause them to think about sex instead of violence.
DG: Female primates do use sex to calm down angry male primates. Actually more than one female human has figured out this tactic. I suppose it’s another version of bread and circuses. You channel the social anger into another outlet. So why not just pipe erotic memes into the neighborhood all the time?
FS: If you inserted the erotic memes all the time then habituation occurred and the erotic memes would no longer work so you wanted to insert more erotic memes in a controlled manner.
DG: So you are using music and sex to seduce social groups instead of your date?
FS: The highest level of political leadership is the seduction of the masses.
DG: I’ve heard that line before. The idea of hot versus cold memes is a little like Marshal McLuhan’s idea of hot versus cold media and I might buy into the concept. I could see the Memetic Map as some sort of memetic weather map. The big assumption in your idea is that body temperature has some relationship to memes. Who knows? If there was such a relationship then maybe somewhere down the road you could build a model that let you predict memetic behavior. After all we do predict the weather. Control? No way! No government is that smart. Enough about the Memetic Map, why did Erotron spy on the BIS?
FS: The Squares in the BIS used their knowledge to protect Squares on both sides of any conflict. For example, there was a huge exodus of Iraq Squares from Iraq long before Desert Storm. Erotron knew a lot about the secret history of the formation of the United Americas. I would like to write about that sometime.
DG: I don’t even want to ask about the AU. Squares put biology over nationality?
FS: Totally, as I mentioned Squares and Sloppy Squares also perceived space very differently. Both Squares and Sloppy Squares had the concept of sloppiness vs. neatness, which was a type of spatial aesthetic sense.
DG: But Homo sapiens have the concept of neatness.
FS: Both species agreed that objects should be in particular spatial relationships for a certain amount of time and/or moved in some sort of correct order. The difference is that Squares were much, much, more sensitive to such spatial relationships.
DG: Squares were neat.
FS: Squares were super neat. A noise analogy is helpful in this case as it was in the HKP case. Both humans and dogs can hear noise but dogs are sensitive to noises humanoids couldn’t even perceive. The same noisy environment is much more likely to drive a dog crazy than drive a human crazy. Squares hated the spatial noise that Sloppy Squares generated because they were so insensitive.
DG: How so?
FS: Sloppy Squares were always moving things around. Sloppy Squares moved furniture, decorations and even buildings around with no regard for spatial constancy.
DG: Anything else?
FS: Humans move their own bodies in random and spontaneous manners. They do the same task a thousand different ways.
DG: So, Squares moved around like robots?
FS: I wouldn’t call them robots but they did like to move in a more ordered manner. The children of Sloppy Squares were especially noisy in the spatial area. They were always jumping up and down and running around. Square children were much better behaved than Sloppy Square children were.
DG: Do you have any children?
FS: I had a son a long, long, long time ago, but it is a painful subject that I would rather not go into right now.
DG: Why not?
FS: I just don’t okay. Sloppy Squares also do not seem to derive pleasure from geometric, ritualized forms to the same extent that Homo erectus members did. As Squares saw the situation, Squares must try to govern Sloppy Squares, or be driven mad by them or worse be destroyed by them. The Money Square organization has existed in one form or another since the dawn of human civilization.
DG: The situation you describe is much worse than any conspiracy nut could ever imagine. What did the Squares do with their power?
FS: Plenty! For example, great geometric monuments had been built whenever Squares were dominant. Stonehenge was one of the earliest Square monuments. The Nazca Lines in Peru were created by the Squares. The Pyramids were also the products of the Squares. Ley lines connected the Old Square monuments.
DG: Ley lines?
FS: Ley lines are straight lines that connect ancient monuments. The Squares liked straight lines and used a system of straight roads in straight lines to connect their monuments that acted as social centers for the Squares. The roads themselves were clearly marked for someone with tetrachromatic vision.
DG: A lot of people died to make those monuments.
FS: I am talking about the monuments on my Earth. I have no idea why these monuments were built on this Earth. As far as the Squares were concerned, Sloppy Squares will use any excuse to kill each other. At least while working on the monuments they weren’t killing each other.
DG: Tell me more about your father. Did he have HKP?
FS: Mind reading was a big part of my papá’s magician act. My mamá had been his stage assistant. She always assumed that he had some kind of trick to read minds. I thought at the time that my papá was actually using his HKP ability in his act. My papá mysteriously disappeared. At the time I thought that perhaps he had violated the code of hiding his HKP abilities and paid the ultimate penalty.
DG: Your records indicate you come from a single parent household. There is very little information about your father.
FS: I don’t know who my papá’s counterpart on this Earth is or what he does or doesn’t do.
DG: Why did your father break the rules? Didn’t he know he would get killed?
FS: I think my papá was ambitious. I have no proof, but I think he had a dream of a world in which Squares and Sloppy Squares lived together as equals. Mating between Squares and Sloppy Squares wasn’t common. I think that my papá must have had an ideological reason for doing what he did.
Dr. Gamma’s Notes: What accounts for Dr. Arrow’s hatred of me? I am more successful than he is, and jealousy may be his main motivation. Dr. Arrow’s extreme interest in the case of FS is also strange. I am the primary therapist in this case, yet whenever I see Dr. Arrow he asks me many questions about FS.
DG: How do you know this if you never met him?
FS: Just an assumption. Squares could control facial vascularity to a much greater degree than a Sloppy Square.
DG: Facial vascularity.
FS: Facial vascularity refers to the blood flow to the face. In layman’s terms, a Square could control blushing. Squares could deliver more or less blood to a sector of the face and make a picture the size of a pinhead.
DG: If the pictures were so small then how could you see them?
FS: You are forgetting about superior Square vision. Early Square facial languages were pictographic and the Square would form a picture of the object discussed on their cheek.
DG: I am sure so-called Sloppy Squares would notice little pictures on someone’s cheek.
FS: The picture would not be bright red but very subtle. Even if pointed out, a Sloppy Square would barely be able to discern the picture on the cheek.
DG: So Squares talked to each other by making little pictures on their cheeks?
FS: Right, but the early picture languages became more abstract over time. The facial pictographs had become facial ideographs. All square facial languages did share one common trait. The subject of the sentence was generally formed on the right cheek. The object of the sentence was generally formed on the left cheek.
DG: So as is the case in Sloppy Square verbal languages, your hyperkinesic languages have grammatical rules that deal with the object or subject of the sentence. The right-to-left order probably would in theory have something to do with the hemisphere specialization of their cerebellum, if I bought into your theories. Did Squares have other parts of speech besides subjects and objects?
FS: Other microkines such as eyebrow movement, nose twitching, lip movement, ear-twitching and pupil dilation acted as adverbs and adjectives. Sentences generally followed a subject –adjective/adverb-object order.
DG: How could you have any kind of order with this kind of language?
FS: For example, the subject of the sentence was formed on the right cheek followed by say a nose twitch, of which there were twenty distinct types, and the object word being formed on the left cheek.
DG: So what did Squares talk about?
FS: Mostly death. Squares considered their current existence as a form of hell in since they live in a world filled with Sloppy Squares. Squares believed that when they died then they went to another world where there were no Sloppy Squares and Squares live alone in harmony with all the other Squares that have ever lived.
DG: Always, death is in the back of our minds.
FS: Maybe your mind. Sex is always in the back of my mind. What the Sloppy Squares call death is considered birth by the Squares.
DG: You say that Squares see the world as hell, but at least they live in a world without lies since you can tell when someone is lying by looking at his face.
FS: Not so, Squares could lie to each other. Some Squares had more facial language production ability than other Squares. Some Squares were better liars than other Squares. Squares often communicated to other Squares on television secretly. Most television newscasters on my Earth were Squares and communicated secreto messages to other Squares on a daily level.
DG: Why didn’t Sloppy Squares have this hyperkinesic ability?
FS: The facial muscle structure of Squares may be inherently different than that of Sloppy Squares. Sloppy Squares certainly didn’t have the ability to control facial vascularity to the same extent as Squares.
DG: What about facial muscles?
FS: Sloppy Squares may have had the ability to control individual muscles in the face but never developed this ability, because they had no facial language for which this was needed. Some apes have fairly complex vocal cord systems but do not use them to their full potential.
DG: Did any Sloppy Squares show some HKP?
FS: Strangely, some schizophrenics could perceive what the Square television newscasters were doing. One schizophrenic complained of psychic killers on the television after the Square TV announcer listed who was to be eliminated that week, but of course no one believed her.
DG: The TV delusion you describe is a very common schizophrenic condition on this Earth. There are no Squares in this Earth, therefore there should not be this condition therefore your theory is not correct.
FS: Or maybe you should watch TV more carefully. If a Square had been in the room before, and returned to the room then he would notice any changes in the room. This means it was impossible for a Sloppy Square to secretly search the room of a Square. The desks of a Square were super-tidy and they would spend twenty minutes putting the stapler in exactly the correct place. One quick test to figure out if someone was a Square was to bump into his or her desk, accidentally, and watch the Square flip out.
DG: Why are there so many more Sloppy Squares than Squares?
FS: Before the Flood, the numbers of Squares and Sloppy Squares were about equal. After the flood, the Squares were vastly outnumbered and realized they had to join Sloppy Square communities and learn their ways in order to survive.
DG: Why?
FS: The Square Bible explained how the Flood was a disaster to both species but the creative powers of the Sloppy Squares enabled them to create new technologies in order to survive. According to the Squares, Noah’s Ark was only one example of a technology that the Sloppy Squares created in order to survive.
DG: You think there was a Noah’s Ark?
FS: Noah’s Ark is a symbol of the first ship developed by the Sloppy Squares. Sloppy Squares also developed fishing technologies and other marine technologies that the Squares could only copy after they had joined Sloppy Square communities.
DG: Were the Squares everywhere?
FS: As mentioned, Squares were mostly found in Asia but there were Squares in all countries and among all groups. Squares could care less about race. Actually, race phenotype was less stable among Squares than Sloppy Squares.
DG: As I recall genotype is the actual genes, while phenotype is how you look due to the genes. What do you mean race phenotype was less stable among Squares than Sloppy Squares?
FS: For example, a Square with obviously Caucasian features could in theory have children that looked fairly Asian or vice versa. This was especially true of mixed-race marriages. Erotron made a point of telling me this. I asked her if she was pure Asian and she refused to answer. Erotron did tell me that Squares are a minority and reserve their prejudice for the majority of Sloppy Squares.
DG: According to you, Squares had their own little private facial language but they also had verbal language. So, I guess they were bilingual like most minorities. They could talk the minority language and the majority language.
FS: Squares weren’t totally bilingual. In general, they were pretty good at dealing with the form of language but not the subtle meanings of Sloppy Square verbal languages.
DG: What sort of meanings?
FS: They had a very hard time with allusions, metaphors, symbols and other devices that played with the meanings of words.
DG: So what language could they handle?
FS: Squares liked regularity in speech. They loved chants. They liked poems that rhyme. Squares hated poems that didn’t rhyme. They hated improvisational jazz.
DG: Certain types of music got Squares angry?
FS: Music hath charms that inflame the savage beast.
DG: Hard rock does that to me.
FS: Me too, Squares didn’t really understand someone like Shakespeare with all his symbols and allusions. Squares tended to be quite literal in their communication. Squares did like to use forms and form letters. Squares liked jobs where forms were the dominant means of communication, such as in the militar.
DG: Squares sound like they have autism or schizophrenia.
FS: Schizophrenics may be focusing on the spatial-temporal patterns in language, i.e., form at the expense of meaning. Doing this in a creative manner gets you into trouble.
DG: That is true, some schizophrenic’s talk in rhyme and this suggests a preoccupation with the form of language. Did Squares talk in rhyme?
FS: Speaking in rhyme all the time is totally beyond the ability of any Square because of the creative ability needed.
DG: You seem to be unusually well informed about schizophrenia.
FS: Thanks, I guess. Many schizophrenics play around with the form of language to the point that this game interferes with daily functioning. Schizophrenics generally have a high level of verbal creativity, special perceptions of reality and a lack of social judgment.
DG: If I bought into your ideas then perhaps Squares would be in mental institutions, if they hadn’t created cultural adaptations that allowed them to function in Sloppy Square society.
FS: I agree, a schizophrenic may be a Sloppy Square version of a Square without the social support network of the Squares. Ritualism, of course, was a Square trait. An obsessive-compulsive Sloppy Square had inherited the ritualistic Square trait without the ability to control the trait.
Dr. Gamma’s Notes: Rational discussion of schizophrenia is a common symptom of metaschizophrenia as opposed to normal schizophrenia.
DG: Do Squares learn verbal language differently than Sloppy Squares?’
FS: Yes Squares do. There was a huge debate on my world about how you teach language. One side favored phonics that focused on teaching basic literacy and sight-sound correspondence. The other side favored whole language and wanted children to focus on the meaning of what they read and make them lifelong readers.
DG: This is a language and literacy debate. What does this have to do with Squares?
FS: Well on my world the Squares were solidly behind phonics that Square children excel at. Many whole language professors had been assassinated by the Squares.
DG: You mentioned symbiotic evolution but the two hominids had in fact evolved very differently.
FS: In the Square Bible there is an explanation of why Squares have HKP but not Sloppy Squares. According to the Square Bible, Sloppy Squares started to build a tower that would reach God known as the Tower of Babel.
DG: I take it there is a Square version of the Tower of Babel.
FS: In the Square version, God punished the Sloppy Squares by taking away their universal language i.e. God took away their HKP abilities. This meant that Sloppy Squares had to rely on verbal language to communicate unlike Squares.
DG: So your Squares believed in the Tower of Babel.
FS: Erotron later explained to me that most Squares thought the tower of Babel wasn’t an actual tower but was a symbol of how Sloppy Squares create a technology that they then couldn’t control. Squares would have never created an atom bomb, unlike the Sloppy Squares.
DG: Maybe, limited nuclear warfare is the price of progress.
FS: A pretty high price, if you ask me. As far as Erotron was concerned, the Sloppy Squares were children that liked to play with nuclear matches that needed to be governed for their own good.
DG: What happened then?
FS: I sneaked back to the office building. I noticed a picture of my father in a golden frame on her desk. The picture hadn’t been there before. I guess she had gotten the picture to understand me better. I had asked about Erotron about my father again and again.
DG: What did she tell you?
FS: She told me that information about my father was top secret but she could assure me that he had been very, very special. Once when she was super drunk she told me that my father was one very clever Hans.
DG: Who is Hans?
FS: Probably some Square that was very clever. I was told that Erotron wasn’t in, but one of her assistants let me sleep off the jet lag on a sofa in one of the offices. I was awakened several hours later. I had a dream about two people playing a card game. I tried to look at the cards, but they were always just past my field of vision.
DG: So who was playing cards?
FS: I tried to see who was playing the card game but they always were just out of the range of my eyes or in the shadows. There were thirteen cards and they were laid out is an equal armed cross. I vaguely knew that the two players were very, very powerful and very similar.
DG: How were they different?
FS: One of the beings was older and one of the beings was younger. I have had this dream over and over again throughout my life. A hand shook me. Ant even, soft voice said, “Wake up!” It was Erotron and she was frowning and looking at my face carefully.
DG: Tell me about Erotron. How did she become a Money Square?
WereVerse Universe Baby!
Dr. Hugh Fox III 