Books and literature – Page 26 – a sibilant intake of breath

Natural selection and species self-destruction

Late in The Greatest Show on Earth, Richard Dawkins reiterates a key point from his earlier book The Selfish Gene: namely, that there is nothing in natural selection to prevent a species from engaging in behaviour that is profoundly self-destructive in the long run. As he evocatively puts it:

“But, the planning enthusiast will protest, when all the lions are behaving selfishly and over-hunting the prey species to the point of extinction, everybody is worse off, even the individual lions that are the most successful hunters. Ultimately, if all the prey go extinct, the entire lion population will too. Surely, the planner insists, natural selection will step in and stop that happening? Once again alas, and once again no. The problem is that natural selection doesn’t ‘step in,’ natural selection doesn’t look into the future, and natural selection doesn’t choose between rival groups. If it did, there would be some chance that prudent predation could be favoured. Natural selection, as Darwin realized much more clearly than many of his successors, chooses between rival individuals within a population. Even if the entire population is diving to extinction, driven down by individual competition, natural selection will still favour the most competitive individuals, right up to the moment when the last one dies. Natural selection can drive a population to extinction, while constantly favouring, to the bitter end, the competitive genes that are destined to be the last to go extinct.” (p.389 hardcover)

The natural response to reading such a passage is to consider how it applies to human beings. A superficial reading is a dangerous one, as Dawkins describes at length in The Selfish Gene. It is possible for human beings to plan and to avoid the kind of deadly spiral he describes; it simply isn’t an inevitable product of evolution that we will do so. Probably without realizing it, Dawkins uses a terrible example to try to illustrate this human capability. He cites the “quotas and restrictions,” limitations on gear, and “gunboats patrol[ling] the seas” as reasons for which humans are “prudent predators” of fish. Of course, we are anything but and are presently engaged in a global industrialized effort to smash all marine ecosystems to dust. Nevertheless, the general capability he is alluding to could be said to exist.

In many key places, we need to accomplish what Dawkins wrongly implies we have achieved with fishing: create systems of self-restraint that constrain selfish behaviour on the basis of artificial, societal sanctions. Relying upon the probabilistic force of natural selection simply won’t help us, when it comes to problems like climate change. So far, our efforts to craft such sanctions (which would probably include ‘positive’ elements such as education) have been distinctly unsuccessful.

Perhaps if people could grasp the fact that there is nothing in nature – and certainly nothing supernatural – to protect humanity from self-destruction, they will finally take responsibility for the task themselves. The blithe assumption that a force beyond us will emerge to check the excesses of our behaviour is dangerously wrong. Now, if only people could show some vision and resolve and set about in rectifying the most self-destructive traits of our species, from indifference about the unsustainable use of resources to lack of concern about the destructive accumulation of wastes. In this task, we actually have an advantage in the existence of states that exist largely to constrain individual behaviour. The kind of behaviours that produce the self-destructive spiral in Dawkins’ lions can potentially averted by putting their human equivalents into the shackles of law.

Our flawed retinas

In one of the later chapters of Richard Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth, he discusses a couple of curious characteristics of the sort of spherical lensed eyes that humans and other animals possess. Specifically, he describes how the human retina is essentially ‘backwards,’ with the light sensing components at the back and the nerves conveying the information in front of them. Because the nerves are in front, they need to assemble somehow and get through the retina, which they do by means of the blind spot (mentioned before). It would surely be more sensible to have the light sensors at the front, with an unimpeded view and the data-carrying nerves behind. The problems associated with the reversed arrangement are largely compensated for by the ways in which our brains process the information from our eyes; among other things, you need to use a test like the one in the post linked above to be able to see that you even have them.

Dawkins is pretty convincing in arguing that this is not the sort of ‘intelligent design’ we might expect if the spherical lensed eye was something consciously created by an intelligent being. Rather, the roundabout organization is the product of sexual selection and chance mutations. Like the corrections made to the flawed mirror on the Hubble Space Telescope, the ‘software’ processing of human vision allows for some of the problems associated with the physiology of our eyes to be mitigated.

When it comes to blind spots, cephalopods like squid, octopodes, and cuttlefish are one up on us. Their eyes have no blind spots (since the photo receptors are in the front), and are also sensitive to the polarization of light. Perhaps one day people will splice squid genes into their children, in exchange for improved vision.

The Year of the Flood

Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood is a parallel story to her prior novel, Oryx and Crake. Set in two time periods with two narrators, it fills in a bit more of the dystopian world she created: one where the bulk of the horrors presented emerge primarily from the exploitation of genetic engineering and a return to gangsterism and anarchy. Climate change is part of it all, but definitely doesn’t have a prominent role among the causes of human downfall. While the book does expand the reader’s view into that world in interesting ways, it is ultimately less satisfying as a piece of speculative fiction. Nonetheless, it is well worth reading, for those interested in imagining the ways in which humanity might continue to develop.

In some ways, this is a female retelling of the previous story. The two narrators are both women, separated by a generation, and most of the key happenings centre around their treatment as women and engagement with other woman. This world certainly isn’t a pretty one, in that regard, with almost all men as enemies and a terrible lack of personal security for almost anyone. This is a book that will have parents enrolling their daughters in karate lessons and, perhaps, rightly so. Being able to defend yourself is clearly important, when the future is uncertain. At the outset, the two narrators can be somewhat hard to distinguish, but as the book progresses at least one of them develops a distinct and interesting perspective and approach.

The Year of the Flood incorporates many of Atwood’s favourite issues and motifs of late, including sex, debt, religion, corruption, and the nature and corporate manipulation of human desires. Along with being interweaved with Oryx and Crake, this book is connected with Atwood’s recent non-fiction writing on debt. It certainly explores the question of ecological debts and the responsibility of human beings towards nature. In Atwood’s world, humanity has filled the world with splices and custom creatures, while allowing almost all of the planet’s charismatic megafauna – from gorillas to tigers – to become extinct. The God’s Gardeners, the cult the novel focuses on and whose hymns it reproduces, have beautified the environmentalists of the 20th and 21st centuries, despite how their efforts have apparently failed, at least insofar as conserving nature goes. Humanity has certainly been able to endure as an industrial and consumerist society in Atwood’s world, which means they must have learned to be more effective than we are at securing resources sustainably and disposing of wastes likewise.

The novel’s plot involves rather too many improbable meetings – so many as to make Atwood’s fictional world extremely small. People run into members of their small prior groups far too easily, and sometimes make implausible jumps from place to place. In some cases, connections with characters from the previous novel feel trivial and unnecessary. A few of the motivations of the characters are unconvincing. All in all, this book rests against the structure of Oryx and Crake, sometimes adding to it in interesting ways, sometimes stressing the integrity of the amalgamation. The strongest portion of this novel is definitely what it reveals about the dynamics of small community groupings in times of danger. When it comes to broader questions about society and technology, it tends to treat those as already covered or not of enormous interest.

The plausible nature of Atwood’s dystopia remains disturbing. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine some of the elements of these stories not coming to pass within the next few decades. In particular, it seems all but certain that we will use new genetic technologies to go even farther towards exploiting animals, building on the already impressive record modern factory farms have on that front. One prediction I have doubts about – but which is common in science fiction – is the decline of the power and influence of states. Sure, corporations have become powerful; nevertheless, governments push them around easily and frequently when they have a strong reason for doing so. To a considerable extent, corporate power is reflective of the fact that many states find it agreeable to delegate at this time.

Even so, Atwood’s depiction of relative security inside corporate bubbles and relative insecurity outside is one with considerable contemporary relevance, when it comes to the kind of societies and situations in which people find themselves today. The contrast is revealing both in terms of the impact on the lives of those on either side of the divide and in terms of suggesting what kind of political, economic, and military structures exist to maintain the distinctions between outsiders and insiders, safe lives and unsafe ones.

The novel is also disturbing in terms of the acquiescence of aware consumers towards the monstrous things the corporations populating this universe are doing. If people today are mostly happy not to think twice about what is in a Chicken McNugget, would they really go along with the blatant recycling of corpses into food in the future? The degree to which Atwood’s world doesn’t grate too much against our aesthetic expectations is suggestive, in this regard. We now expect corporations to largely get away with whatever they think people will tolerate, and we expect little from one another when it comes to outrage.

All told, the book is an interesting expansion upon Atwood’s previous novel, but it does not match the original in terms of the importance of the message or the crafting of the story. In that sense, it is akin to Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Shadow: set around the events of his magnificent Ender’s Game, and told from a new perspective. While it provided some pleasing new details for fans of the series, it was an engaging but secondary contribution.

Plato and evolution

Early in The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, Richard Dawkins raises the question of why the idea of evolution took so long to emerge. The basic concept that life forms change as successful ones multiply and unsuccessful ones die off didn’t require any technology to come up with. So why did it emerge so much later than abstract ideas about mathematics, physics, etc?

One explanation he gives – and which I find interesting – is that people were captivated by a Platonic notion of essential forms. Dawkins convincingly uses the example of rabbits to illustrate what he means:There is no permanent rabbitness, no essence of rabbit hanging in the sky, just populations of furry, long-eared, coprophagous, whisker-twitching individuals, showing a statistical distribution in size, shape, colour, and proclivities.” (p. 22 hardcover)

What we call ‘a rabbit’ now is just a kind of snapshot in the development of that organism, between the ancient emergence of chordates and mammals and the emergence of whatever it is the descendant’s of todays rabbits will become. Given enough time, they will surely include creatures that no modern person would put into the category of ‘rabbit.’

Dawkins suggests that the categorical way in which children learn has something to do with why the Platonic view is so intuitively appealing. Presented with the overwhelming complexity of the world, they begin to put this and that into different conceptual boxes. That habit, useful as it is for making do in the world, may have blinded humanity to one of the most powerful explanations to the very nature of our world and the beings in it.

It is, of course, equally true to say that there is no permanent ‘humanness.’ As a species, we are only human temporarily. Over time, we will inevitably change; and if we were separated into groups that strictly did not interbreed, we would eventually become incapable of doing so. Indeed, given the limitation of the speed of light, that may be precisely the rate of any humans who leave our solar system in order to try to colonize planets orbiting other suns.

The ICRC and neutrality

I am still in the process of reading Michael Ignatieff’s The Warrior’s Honour, written when he still had the kind of freedom of speech that puts academics at an advantage relative to politicians. One situation described therein does a good job of encapsulating the complexities involved in trying to mitigate the savagery of contemporary war.

It concerns the choices made the the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) during and after the wars that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia. The ICRC is a unique institution, legally mandated to implement the Geneva Conventions. A key element of that arrangement is neutrality; the ICRC does not distinguish between good wars and bad wars, nor between aggressors and victims. By not doing so, it maintains the kind of access that other organizations are denied.

In the wake of the Yugoslav wars, the ICRC had the best records on who was massacred, where, when, and by who. Such records would have aided the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), in seeking to prosecute those responsible. The ICRC refused to provide the records, arguing that if the combatants had thought that ICRC records might eventually be used in war crimes trials, they would not have permitted the ICRC to provide the kind of aid it was able to.

The neutrality of the ICRC was subsequently rewarded, when they ended up being the only aid organization not expelled from Bosnia during the Croat-Muslim offensive against Serbs. Ironically, this included the single greatest instance of ethnic cleansing: a term generally associated with actions Serbian forces had undertaken previously, including by using released and trained prisoners as unofficial proxies for acts that violated the Geneva Conventions.

As this example illustrates, contemporary conflicts are often deeply morally ambiguous, on everything from the role of child soldiers to whether it is truly possible for aid organizations to be impartial. To me, there seems to be considerable importance to maintaining an organization like the ICRC, simply because it can get the kind of access that others cannot. When it comes to more judgmental organizations, there are plenty to choose from, including Médecins Sans Frontières, which also has a headquarters in Geneva.

Securing the City

Christopher Dickey’s Securing the City: Inside America’s Best Counterterror Force – the NYPD describes the evolution of New York’s counterterrorism capabilities following the 2001 attacks against the World Trade Centre. Much of the responsibility is attributed to Raymond Kelly, who still serves as Police Commissioner, and David Cohen, his intelligence chief. Key among the changes was the development of much greater intelligence capabilities: everything from officers posted with federal agencies and overseas to developing a broad array of linguists, radiation detection systems, and advanced helicopter optics. All in all, the NYPD developed capabilities to become a mini-CIA, while also strengthening their policing and tactical capacity. All this was done in the face of considerable bureaucratic resistance, particularly from the federal agencies who felt their role was being subverted by the new developments.

Much more than Fred Burton’s book, Securing the City considers the checks and balances associated with greater police power. For instance, Dickey discusses the intelligence operations against people protesting the Republican National Convention in New York in 2004. Dickey also makes passing reference to torture and rendition (without considering the ethics of either at length), as well as surveillance and entrapment-type operations where intelligence officers pretend to help advance terrorist plots, so as to incriminate the others involved. Dickey comes to the general conclusion that the new NYPD capabilities are justified, given the situation in which the city finds itself. He does, however, worry if those capabilities will be properly maintained as budgetary pressures tighten, or when Kelly and the other key architects leave.

Some of the book’s chapters break out from the broad narrative to discuss specific topics, such as weapons of mass destruction or the dangerousness of ‘lone wolf’ operatives who operate independently and without the links to others that make most attackers detectable. While such treatment does make sense, the placement of the chapters can make the book feel a bit randomly assembled at times. Similarly, long italic passages (several pages long) are annoying to read. One other complaint is that the book includes a massive number of names, which can be difficult to keep track of. A listing of ‘characters’ with a brief description of the importance of each would be a nice addition to the front materials.

Dickey is harshly critical of the Iraq war, arguing that is was a distraction that undermined American security. He also argues that the ‘Global War on Terror’ was deeply misguided: “dangerously ill-conceived, mismanaged, and highly militarised.” He is also critical of Rudolf Guliani, who he accuses of taking credit for the successes of others, as well as making poor decisions of his own. His general position on the risk of terrorism is an interesting one. Basically, he thinks the capabilities of Al Qaeda and their sympathizers to carry out attacks in the U.S. has been exaggerated, as demonstrated by just how inept most of the post-9/11 plots were. Nevertheless, he sees the consequences of a terrorist attack as being so severe that even dubious plans being made by incompetent terrorists need to be tracked down and broken up. He repeatedly cites the example of the first World Trade centre bombing, where an inept group failed to advance their aims until Ramzi Yousef joined them and carried their operation to completion. Because of this, he agrees with Burton in thinking that terrorism cannot be treated primarily as a criminal matter. The standard of collecting courtroom-usable evidence is too high to disrupt plots early and effectively, while maintaining the covert capacity to do so again.

Overall, Securing the City is a worthwhile read for those with an interest in security, intelligence, or policing. It’s a nice demonstration of the global importance of some cities in the present age, and the special characteristics of New York. In particular, he praises the role of immigration in the city, citing it as one of the reasons why the NYPD was able to assemble such a diverse and effective capability. Those wanting more context in which to think about the strategic, tactical, and ethical issues surrounding modern terrorism would be well served by giving this book a read.

Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent

I became aware of Fred Burton through the free weekly defence briefings put out by STRATFOR, his current employer. They stand out from other media reports, both as the result of the details they focus on and the thrust of their overall analysis. While I wouldn’t bet heavily on them being entirely correct, they do play a useful counterbalancing role when read alongside media stories that are generally rather similar.

Ghost describes Burton’s history with the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) between 1986 and 1993, with an epilogue in 2004. Burton’s work involved collecting intelligence, investigating plots and attacks, protecting diplomats, and so forth. He goes into detail on several of the investigations he was involved in, including the assassination of Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and the capture of Ramzi Yousef. He also describes some of the tactics and strategies employed by the DSS, as well as by other law enforcement and intelligence agencies. These include the operation of motorcades, cover techniques, and countersurveillance: a tactic he claims special credit for deploying in the protective services.

The book’s greatest strength lies in the details it includes, on everything from the character of different intelligence agencies to equipment used to various sorts of tradecraft. While the breathless descriptions can sometimes feel like the content of a mediocre spy novel, the detailed technical discussions offer insight into how clandestine services actually operate. Of course, it is virtually certain that security and secrecy led to parts of the book being incomplete or distorted. Still, it has a candid quality that makes it an engrossing read. One interesting perspective offered is on the connections between different states and terrorist groups: particularly the relationship between Iran and Hezbollah; between the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat, and various terrorist groups; as well as the ways in which modern terrorist tactics evolved from those developed by Black September, the group that carried out the massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

At times, the book’s language is overwrought, especially when Burton is discussing the innocence of the victims of terrorism and the ‘evil’ nature of those who commit it. His reflections on his own ethical thinking may be genuine, but seem somewhat hackneyed and unoriginal at the same time. He never portrays American intelligence or police services as having any flaws, with the exception of when bureaucrats get overly involved and stop brave and effective agents from doing their work well. No consideration is given to the abuses that can occur when effective oversight is not present. Burton is also unrelentingly hostile towards the media: accusing them of offering superficial analysis and being eager to divulge information that undermines the clandestine efforts of intelligence organizations. The book is also a bit too well sprinkled with cliches, such as decisions being made and information being assessed ‘above Burton’s pay grade.’ In general, Burton seems a bit too willing to assume that all US intelligence agents are working on the side of the angels and that oversight and accountability can only hamper their efforts.

One interesting passage mentions how little time was required to circumvent the encryption on Yousef’s laptop. This makes me wonder what sort of algorithm had been employed and how it was implemented, as well as the techniques used by those breaking the encryption. I suspect that the actual encryption algorithm is not what was overcome, at least not through some brute force means. It is far more likely that they were able to compromise the password by comprehensively searching through the data on hand, including temporary files and perhaps contents of RAM. It does you little good to have a hard drive encrypted with AES-256 if it is possible to recover or guess the key in a short span of time.

In general, the book is one I recommend. It has a good authentic feel to it and includes some unusual perspectives and operational details. Burton’s personal dedication, as well as that of the agents he serves with and admires, is both convincing and commendable.

Problems with revocable media

One of the biggest problems with the way information is now distributed is the increasing limitations on how you can use it. With physical media like books and CDs, you had quite a few rights and a lot of security. You could lend the media to friends, use it in any number of ways, and be confident that it would still work decades later. There is much less confidence to be found with new media like music and movies with DRM, games that require a connection to the server to work, mobile phone applications, Kindle books, etc. Companies have shown a disappointing willingness to cripple functionality, or even eliminate it outright, for instance with Amazon deleting books off Kindles. Steven Metalitz, a lawyer representing the RIAA, has stated explicitly that people buying digital media should not expect it to work indefinitely: “We reject the view that copyright owners and their licensees are required to provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works.” Of course, the same people argue that they should be able to maintain their copyrights forever.

The solution to this, I think, is to make it legal for people to break whatever forms of copy protection companies put on their products, as long as the purpose for which they are being broken is fair use. It also wouldn’t hurt to clarify the ownership of such materials in favour of users. A Kindle book should be like a physical book – property of the person that bought it, and not subject to arbitrary modification or revocation by the seller.

Of course, politicians are under more effective pressure from media companies than from ordinary consumers. Perhaps a strong Canadian Pirate Party, asserting the rights of content users over content owners, would be a good thing. Of course, stronger support from mainstream parties that actually hold power would be of much more practical use.

Sci-fi as a prescriptive genre

Science fiction may be the most prescriptive fictional genre. Firstly, it forces people to consider the consequences of actions and choices across a long timespan. Secondly, it helps to reveal the core ethical values people have: it presents both our aspirations and things that inspire fear, disgust, and outrage. Finally, it makes statements about contemporary ideologies by presenting them with false hindsight.

As such, though sci-fi has a sometimes deserved reputation as an escapist genre, it can also be among the most directly ethically and politically engaged. It also serves a historically valuable purpose, by revealing how those in the past imagined the future. For instance, look at Asimov’s projection that everything would be nuclear-powered in the distant future, even small toys for children. It is no surprise that today’s sci-fi has ecology as a key focus. It would be fascinating to know how it will be read in a century.

In Mortal Hands

Stephanie Cooke’s In Mortal Hands: A Cautionary History of the Nuclear Age is a four hundred page account of the major problems with the global nuclear industry, both civilian and military. It argues that the costs associated with both nuclear weapons and nuclear energy have been hidden by self-interested governments and organizations, and that nuclear energy should not be part of our future energy mix, despite concerns about climate change and energy security. The book’s unceasingly critical position leaves one longing for a more comprehensive account, where arguments in favour of nuclear energy would at least be more comprehensively rebutted. Nonetheless, Cooke’s book does a good job of reminding the reader of the many special dangers associated with nuclear energy, and the risks associated with re-embracing it, due to our concerns about fossil fuels.

In Mortal Hands argues convincingly that most of the costs associated with nuclear energy are hidden, and not borne by the utilities that provide it or the people that use it. These costs include wastes, contaminated sites, decommissioning of plants and related facilities, risks of accident, nuclear proliferation, providing targets to enemies and terrorists, routine radioactive emissions, the redirection of capital and expertise from potentially more positive uses, and the further entrenching of secrecy and self-serving pro-nuclear entities within government and industry. Certainly, the issue of secrecy is an important one. Along with concealing costs and subsidies, it is demonstrated that the nuclear industry has misled policy-makers and the public about the risks associated with the technologies, timelines and costs associated with the emergence of new technologies like reprocessing and ‘breeder’ reactors, and the number and severity of nuclear accidents. The industry knows that another Chernobyl or Three Mile Island could undue their anticipated ‘renaissance,’ so they are arguably less likely than ever to disclose accurate information on dangers, or on incidents which do occur. Governments that authorize, encourage, and fund new nuclear facilities will be in a similar situation, in terms of the harm awareness of risks and accidents could do to them politically.

Cooke raises a number of important points about regulation, both nationally and internationally, and the conflicts that exist between commercial pressures to get reactors sold and keep them running and concerns about safety and proliferation. None of the big nuclear states has a good record on preventing sales to states secretly working on nuclear weapons. Lack of toughness on the part of international and national regulators is a major reason why countries like Israel, South Africa, and North Korea have been able to use the cover of civilian nuclear programs to get themselves nuclear weapons. Lack of rigour is also clearly evident in nuclear programs, in terms of making sure facilities have been built and operated properly, bombs are secure, and the massive contamination is avoided.

The book is arguably weakest in its discussion of technical matters, which are not discussed at great length or in a way that seems entirely credible and convincing. Opportunities to elaborate and justify claims made about technical matters are often missed, and the book includes at least a few claims that seem likely to be erroneous. For instance, Cooke misrepresents where most of the energy in a thermonuclear explosion comes from, and fails to point out that the START-II agreement never went into effect. More than a discussion about the physics and engineering of nuclear technology, this book focuses more on the regulatory, political, and economic aspects. While that might annoy those with more technical inclinations, it is probably the right approach for a volume with the ultimate intention of informing public policy choices about whether to use nuclear energy for electricity production.

Cooke’s response to the question of how the energy currently being provided by nuclear plants could be replaced is especially unsatisfying. Essentially, it is: “Wind energy is growing very quickly, and perhaps distributed microgeneration could be the solution.” Some consideration of scale, such as that provided by David MacKay, is essential here. Small wind turbines on the roofs of houses as not a viable alternative to gigawatts worth of reactors. At the very least, those who advocate using renewables in place of nuclear need to recognize the enormous scale of deployment that would require, and the various associated costs. While Cooke’s book does not provide a sufficiently broad-minded basis for reaching a final judgment on nuclear energy, it is a convenient antidote to some of the current industry messaging that new plants will be safe and cheap, proliferation isn’t much of a concern, and even Chernobyl wasn’t so bad.