Of bullies and their women

My socially-simpleminded Asperger ways are ever trying to comprehend the goings-on happening around me, among which I must survive. So sifting out the principles by which society is truly governed has to be done, seeing past all the razzle-dazzle facades, the smoke and mirrors, sweeping off the fluff to see just what is actually going on, with which I must cope insofar as possible, is a high priority.

Since my ability to socially cope rapidly diminishes with increasing numbers of people, myself and one other person is about it. Three or more people (including myself) puts my psyche into shock, the interactions seeming like multiple versions of "the old shell game" being played at once... what? ... what? ... are they asking me a question, what am I supposed to say, and quickly, what?.... Although when using writing to communicate so I have plenty of time to comprehend others and compose my messages to the world, the rapid-fire knee-jerk back and forth of "casual verbal conversation" puts me on the canvas real quick if there is a "rival" around.

So for companionship for me, the other one person must be a woman, to combine the needs, my one joy is to snuggle up with a slender happy woman, probably conditioned by my working-mother's trim teenage sister who babysat me.

Typically in my past I would give my all in total devotion to the woman that would have me, in desperate effort to retain her; but usually "my all" was not enough for her for very long; and once she had used me for a stepping-stone to greater conquests, or had used me while she was dusting herself off from previous relationships and headed for the next one, I would find myself alone again and despondent as a result, it being so extremely hard to somehow get connected with a new woman. I put a lot of thinking time, in my Asperger way, to what is really what in the man-woman thing, since the woman has to come from "out there" in that baffling social world; that is the only way to get a woman and thus live comfortably and usefully, in devotion to her and any children. What do non-Asperger men do about the man-woman thing, was the answer I sought.

So after sweeping away most of the fluff and almost endless levels of facade and posturing, a primary force emerged that there are a lot of men who believe that women are to be accessed only by the ... top dogs ... resulting from endless contests between those men who participate in that conflictual activity. And those men believe that their ranking in the resulting hierarchy establishes their rightful and exclusive access to women. Non-players, like me, are not to be permitted access to a woman, thus limiting women's options to the upper bunch of the "top dogs."

And more importantly for those men who, like me, are not involved in that endless measuring of whose is bigger, the men who are into that belief that men's access to women is only established by the "whose is bigger" (biceps, bank account, tennis winnings, etc) act in coordination to block any men who are not of them, who think they too deserve a woman, since statistically there is one woman for each man on this planet.

This seems such a core belief in those men born of bullies that it is considered a law of nature, not to even be mentioned.

A characteristic of this kind of man is that they seem to need to "bounce off of" other men. Their focus seems to be to interact with another man assaultively; in refined civilization this can take on quite a finesse in technique. They similarly need to form teams that need to "bounce off of" each other attempting to reach some achievement while also preventing the other man/team from making a similar achievement.

Instead of focusing on the entire world of nature and mankind's construction works around them, they focus on other men, either as one-on-one or as team-on-team, with intention to prevent the other from success.

There is an ancient archetype of the bull male of a herd banging into the other bull male to kill or wound it so severely as to leave the safety of the herd, leaving the "winner" to father the next generation exclusively; this is still practiced widely in the sea and jungle environment, as in walruses and elephants. The pattern displayed by the subject type of men is so very close in basic nature and effective function as to suggest its same origin.

And thus the women are "won" by default, a result of which man could do the most harm rather than who could cause the most well being.

That nature of that kind of men spills over into other areas of their life. They must be "tamed" enough to fit into a constructive society.

The cooperative part of these folks comes from where they are part of one team which is assaulting another team so that one team gets the winnings essentially abandoned by the more injured and unsuccessful team. So being part of a team brings out a cooperating function. Yet it has to be in the context of joining to assault others ... and that is where the basic problem comes in. When there is no conflict, there is boredom; so guess what is needed to get the excitement going again ... watch out, bystanders!

And so many women are in accordance with that activity whereby the women are "won and bought" by the doings of men with other men, not particularly with their doings with the woman. Those women are "tuned in" to the status of men they encounter, apparently going on the implication that a man who is "winner" in contests of men vs men, will be an equally good bet for being able to be supported by them and supporting children resulting.

And for the women's part, they paint up their face so perfectly, hang their currently stylish clothes on their frame so nicely, implying she will be a socially savvy helper to the man and that her bod will crank out progeny for him and be so very nice in bed to start the ball rolling.

Does it work? Are the men who are top abusers of other men, optimum providers for family? The shelters for abused women seem to suggest otherwise. Yet, along the way, life happens.

It is very probable that all of us have some of that heritage in our ancestry, if not in the immediate family. Thus the urge to join to assault and prevent other's success can easily become evoked. For example, join the military and you will have to take on that attitude to do your job; the focus basically is on harming others so they cannot harm you. Same old thing. When the big bulls are out there in the heat of battle ramming and banging without consideration of what or who else gets obliterated along the way, utterly focused on destroying the other bull, absolutely obsessed, a do-or-die instinct that comes from way back. Gets lots of attention; and that is part of the purpose of it all, to get the attention of the breeding females, that is how the next generation gets selected much too often, setting the continuing pattern.

Yet looking around at the construction works of civilization, like one's car, home, computer: somehow those of us who were of the harmonious constructive nature managed to make them happen despite that wildly destructive rampages of the big bulls with their focus on overwhelming other bulls instead of focus on the problems of survival of the whole system.

And those who believe they can't lose because the Big Guy is on their side, may find their opponent also believes they are the ones who can't lose because the Big Guy is on their side instead; just a somewhat different spelling of the name of the Big Guy. Does their Big Guy enjoy watching their romps, the pain and anguish of the losers and the triumphant adulation of the winners... what kind of Big Guy is that? Seems like a lot of bull to me; dangerous messy bull.

There is far better available leadership by the constructive Creator; and the choice is ever there. Not easy however when knee-jerk reactions are needed when things are getting crashed around us due to the hierarchical romps of the big bulls seeking their reproductive top dog status.

So surely it would be wise to watch for and successfully put down any urges we find in ourselves to assault others in the slightest way, as solutions to problems; and instead focus on the constructive harmonious natures we also have, continue with our good works no matter what; or we will all too quickly go the way of the millions of other extinct species. And from what can be seen, making a horrible mess of the planet in the rampages before going down the final time.

I would really like to see the constructive harmonious side of mankind be the focus of civilization, instead of the endless snazzy fracas among men for territory and reproductive exclusive access. There are 50% men and 50% women on this planet, one for one, none need go without. Maybe lots of shuffling around going on so as to serve all needs of the people would be needed, but with every night having every man with a woman (and of course visa versa) the craving to plunder might be on hold indefinitely. With the energy for butting horns being diverted to constructive use by civilization, surely mankind could do fantastic wonders, far beyond the pittance we now achieve.

And hopefully along the way I will once again have a fine woman to adore.

Yeah ... dreamer!

There is a human trait that has always enabled human beings to unite and have a higher utilization of their manpower. This human trait is not shared by the other mammals, however, and it makes a huge difference in the way humans function in harmony. It is a trait only possessed by the females, however; and it is a trait in fundamental conflict with the bully males and thus is ever under attack in various ways by the males who believe all women belong to them because they can and do assault other males. Besides the well-taught human traits of opposable thumbs, speech, writing, upright stance, big brain, the trait females have that other mammalian females lack is that of being sexually interesting and available to the males every day of their physically mature life. Other mammalian females are only attractive and available to males during their fertile periods, which is what enables the alpha male syndrome. Since all human adult females are always sexually attractive and potentially physically available to males al the time, every day of every month of every year, there is a huge amount of that resource potentially available, far more than a few alpha males can utilize, thus there is room for all males. Surely this has in a basic sense enabled the female to bring in menfolk close on a daily basis, where he then is handy for getting things done for her. If he is off doing battle games with the other males, he is not there to help her achieve her goals; so if he has to be with her every day to fill his sexual needs, she will have him there helping her constructively instead of being out ther a big nuisance to the world messing things up in battle games with other men. Simple as that, harmony and constructivity get maximized among humans, thus becoming a far more effective species.

This invention by the human female, however, is instinctively hated by the alpha male types, so they are ever contriving ways to block women's ways which are otherwise innately designed to leave no man out, plenty of room in there for all men all the time. The reproductive exclusivity demanded by the alpha-male bully types is in direct conflict with this; their urge to assault and control other males to force them to do their bidding (and of course to also stay away from the females in the process) instead of doing the females' bidding, with their furious bull rage inside almost of satanical nature if one really looks at it, thus has the opposing force of women's vast sexuality. This human female invention could possibly rule the world, essentially enslaving all the males, if let loose totally, so some balance seems prudent, but not nearly the level now generally practiced in the world by men. Some alpha-male-based "religions" then counter with violent oppression of women, which may enable monogamy truly but due to the requirement of females wearing apparel to hid them, lots of room for manipulation at strategic moments by the leader alpha males whom none dare challenge... same old herd-mammalian bull stuff.

So a quite familiar old pattern is still active, where the ancient herd-mammalian alpha male types are ever working to have exclusive reproductive access to the females by assaultively driving the other males away, no longer able to help the species and the group; while the women are doing what they can to counter this by their wonderful invention of their ever-available sexuality, insofar as the social system enables, which would have effect of bringing all men into closeness with them on a daily basis and therefore available for helpfulness to the women to provide for her and progeny, a far more successful species technique than the jungle mammal alpha male controlled herd critter types.

Talking with someone

I would do well to remember that when I talk with a person, they are not looking at the me that I know as me, but instead they are experiencing their fantasy of who and what I am and what I seem to be saying to them. This talk they hear has to fit in the context of the situation as they perceive it, which includes their fantasy of who/what/why/how of me as originator of the talking. If what I say is too far from the center of what they think I could be saying in the circumstances and other context ongoing, either they will shift it into something that seems fitting to them, or it will completely escape them as to what I just said.

Interpretation is ever ongoing in conversation, as in other kinds of experiences, becoming their best guess as to "truth." Another person, seeing it through different eyes, might interpret it all quite differently in part or completely, based on their fantasy of what the relevant context is, and thus discover quite a different best-guess "truth" for themself.

This is also happening in myself at the same time, of course. But, seeing out of different eyes than they do.

Probably people tend to use their own self as a model for creating the fantasy of the other person. Their Jungian "shadow self" can easily be part of this context fantasy, thus providing all sides but also thus assigning valence depending on that side choosing. If all people were identical, then they would interpret the same but they would have little to say to each other, already knowing it all themselves. But if people were all extremely different from each other, they would not have any idea what the other people were saying. In the real world, we are all somewhere in between these two extremes, producing a mix.

What this boils down to, as a reminder to myself, is to remember that the person I am talking with does not see me nor hear me, but instead are experiencing their fantasy of my voice and appearance. There may be ways to communicate through their fantasy so as to communicate what I intend to communicate, and that is worth seeking. Otherwise, we just have two fantasies making noises fulfilling each other's expectations of their own worlds, to some extent, and the rest just bounces off.

On reflection about this, I now realize that people do this deliberate preparation for other's fantasies a lot. Women putting on makeup, for example. Style in attire another. Men displaying their alpha-male-implying musculature; females advertising how nice it would be to cuddle with them, by looks, actions, energy radiated out to the folks around. Even a fisherman's fly lure on the fishhook is there to convey a fantasy to fish that might be in the area looking for a meal. Soldiers are conditioned to physically assault monsters and the "enemy people" have "monster" image painted over themselves in the soldier's fantasy world so they can deliberately cause harm to others that otherwise they would be ignoring or being friendly with, maybe conducting business; but with "monster" painted over the eyes of the soldier, soldier attacks the "monster" in his mind while physically assaulting the person the image has been painted on in the soldier's fantasy. Possibly all assaultiveness involves this kind of fantasy-experience while acting on physical level. All these are things deliberately contrived to provide a fake message to provide input to others' fantasy generator, so as to manipulate their physical actions.

So this looks like it gets kind of messy. My original intention was of a lesser goal. Is there a clean version of the communication process?

Albedo effects from using black solar panels

I have some questions regarding use of the recently announced new cheap solar power panels.

As background, the announcement of low cost solar cells is exciting because it looks like it could economically make direct conversion of sunlight into electrical power, mounted on roofs of homes and vehicles .. I feel very eager to get some of this cheap solar foil on the roof of my desert home for $2/W local electrical power supply. And, for SPS, the low implied mass of aluminum-foil backed solar cells would be more easily lofted into space by conventional launch vehicles, improving the economics of such ventures to some extent. In fact, solar panels competitive with coal burning power plants would at first seem to make the need for SPS obsolete.

However, there are some tough questions which include environmental system effects when used on the ground so as to prevent need of SPS to produce CO2-free electrical power; and structural stabilization of large foil structures in orbit, and orientation of that foil toward the Sun while also aiming millimeter-wave tight beams at specific rectenna sites on the Earth's surface, ever moving targets, much worse if the SPS is not in GEO.

The average albedo of a desert city changes when its light colored structures are changed to the dark color of solar panel material. Its air conditioning power needs become worse in the summer, already stifling when the wind is not blowing. Of that heralded incoming 277.8 W/sqft which had previously gotten mostly bounced back into space by light colored roofs and walls, now is getting absorbed and converted into structural and local atmospheric heat. And just when it is least welcome; Los Angeles area brownouts already happen in these conditions, what if the city is now largely blackened by the huge amounts of solar panels needed to power residences and businesses and most of all transportation? Even the light colored concrete pavement gets too hot to touch with bare skin, what happens when roof and wall surfaces are now solar panel colored black as asphalt but now also on walls and roofs big time? A square foot of black roof solar panel that is producing say 10% electrical energy from an increased energy influx of say 150W/sqft to run an air conditioner, is having to use its generated 15W to get rid of the 135W heat load added by the panel to the roof. That added 135W/sqft eventually has to heat the surrounding air, which is where the problem came from in the first place. When wind comes along, it just blows the heat problem next door, and it is a crowded city.

Looking again at a somewhat larger picture, when the Pop-Sci article quoted 277.8W/sqft solar influx is considered for that $2/Watt figure, are we again forgetting to consider that things cut into that influx big time here on the ground, things like nightime's darkness daily, cloudy weather, and latitude's slope and season's changing slope? Figures used to be stated like on average only 1/7 to 1/10 of that solar energy influx can be gathered on the ground. Large scale energy storage needs to provide load leveling, and individual homes might be able to utilize flywheel energy storage; nature stores some of that energy that we can tap off as hydroelectric power, wind and wave motion of course. Solar Power Satellites in GEO were conceived so as to provide that load leveling and efficient solar power collection up there where that 277.8W/sqft actually is continuously received.

Much lower satellites in LEO also have the Earth shading the satellite's solar collectors every once around; and they would be able to zap rectennas only intermittently as they pass by in low orbits. The aiming of the low orbit SPS would probably need phased array antennas (how power efficient are the drivers for the phased array antennas?) to track the rectennas it beams to during its "daytime" each orbit; GPS-like fleets of such orbiting power sats might be able to coordinate their energy beams to rectennas scattered around the planet, yet their beam angle variation and relative phase problems if receiving more than one sat's transmission would cancel out the other's energy to some extent.

Large foil structures in orbit likely need to be spin-stretched and structurally stabilized, and the gyroscopic action maintaining orientation toward the Sun is helpful; but if in low orbit, how is the ever changing angle of the beam toward the earth surface rectennas and the equally rotating transmitting antenna dealt with, including phase angle? A rectenna on the ground can be optimized for aim at the antenna fixed in position in GEO, that was part of the beauty of the original SPS in GEO concept.

The new low cost foil solar panel material might be best used in solar panel "farms" to augment wind farms and wave and tidal action energy extraction systems, but large scale blackening of already hot desert cities may not be wise in the larger picture. Even large desert areas now black with solar panels will add a huge warming effect to the planetary atmosphere; like stated in above example, at 10% conversion efficiency, the new solar panel adds 135 Watts of heat load to the planet for every 15 Watts of electrical energy it provides the electric power system. This is not CO2 greenhouse effect, but has a similar quality. So there are tradeoffs involved in use of these great new low cost solar panels.

To deal with the big picture for energy to power civilization, it still looks to me like we still need abundant SPS in GEO built as soon as possible to power civilization cleanly; and that means we need far more efficient transportation ways than rockets to build and maintain them up there in GEO (a subject which I have written about extensively, of course, see
http://www.escalatorhi.com for references.)

Yet, along with the use of intelligently placed low cost new solar panels on the ground, it still seems useful to use rockets to lift materials to build small scale SPS in LEO to gain experience with some facets of SPS technology, and the availability of low mass solar panels that can withstand the space environment ought to make that more possible.

To get everybody into the productivity loop

It is said that wasting a human life is a terrible waste indeed. For the huge majority of senior Americans, life after retirement could well be much less wasted, if some principles were enabled. Indeed, the enabling of efficient partial productivity could extend to many other categories of people. But for now, let's think of those senior folks who are "retired" and struggling to live adequately on Social Security retirement; thankful as they are on this provision for their present and future, maybe there can be more to life for them, beneficial to everyone while making them feel more useful and interested in life's activities.

Something of the "volunteer" quality to the activity, in that it involves voluntary participation doing things the person would like to do for the experience or for the sense of doing something worthwhile. Working at one's own natural pace at the moment, for the reward of just doing it, as well as financial reward and other perks. Activities which have been designed to add a cheerful and fun quality to some extent; no ogres and slavemasters permitted here; life is to be made more fun and with a sense of being worthwhile for both the individual and the group, the nation, the world, civilization, the planet.

Perhaps as important, is the potential to make America again competitive in the international manufacturing system, which has now mostly gone offshore to other countries. We could again produce a significant amount of what we consume of manufactured products, and surely have some to sell to other countries in return for what they make over there and we buy over here. We Americans get back into the manufacturing game, as well as some other forms of human useful productive function currently not economical to be done here anymore.

Thinking of the American view, of the country; and disregarding for this abstraction, the plethora of franchises, territories, and domains virtual, real or implied that will need to be consulted before real implementations.

Referencing the common terms "telecommuting to work" and "home business" perhaps these concepts could be expanded intelligently. People would perform some tasks at home that might otherwise be done in some business or manufacturing physical site. Computers and the internet have potential to link it all together on the informational level and the managerial level. Where there is physical product involved, the USPS, UPS, Fedex type services could pickup and deliver between homes and distant destinations; and among local neighborhoods, some people could shuffle containers of subassemblies between homes in a certain area which coordinate to build a specific product. A system like the old Japanese Kanban system of a container which carries a partially completed product, along with a checklist of what needs to be done to produce the completed product, moves from station to station until it is finished and tested. Each station receives a Kanban, removes the partially finished product from it, reads the instructions, adds parts to the device as is defined by the parts on hand from separate source, using the person's skill and tooling on hand. Then the Kanban is then moved to the next station for the next step in assembly; at times, a station does not add to the assembly but instead applies quality control measurements and testing to verify it is up to spec so far. Eventually the Kanban reaches the end of the stations on its checklist, after final inspection, and gets boxed for shipment for use by a customer.

In the system being envisioned, however, the Kanbans are moved from home to home, instead of workstations in a large manufacturing facility. A lot more time and energy is involved in the processes of shipping from home to home; this is less efficient. However, looking at the overall picture, energy efficiency is improved by the employees not needing to commute back and forth to a common manufacturing facility; and the resources that would have been consumed by the manufacturing facility are saved, in the big picture. But from that savings consider the reduction in efficiency required by usage of home space for the process, perhaps involving construction of an added room, instead of using a room vacated by departing children as they grew up. Specialized tooling such as computers and microscopes and drill presses might need to be acquired for the particular kind of steps that are done at that home facility.

More inspection time would be needed, sometimes repetitious, which reduces efficiency. So, lots of plus and minus for the evaluation of this concept. The big plus is that people who would not have otherwise have been in the productivity loop, are back in it again, even though at a lower productivity rate. One-quarter of one-time level of full productivity is a lot more than no productivity, for example.

A goal of the system would be to get everybody into the productivity loop, doing one or more functions, and being compensated for doing that function. At first, whoever is making this all happen, is likely to create tasks of the nature of "digging holes and filling them up again" to do, such as picking up trash from the street and putting in garbage cans, or taking some gadget apart while somebody else puts them back together again, just to get the feel of doing it all in a coordinated fashion. Eventually slip in some paying item for assembly or disassembly; like shifting from taking apart wrecking yard car alternators or engines piece by piece and putting them back together again along an assembly line among many homes, to the assembly and inspection of new engines, for example. Practice makes perfect and the experience is what counts at this point; in the KanBan system, each workstation (each home facility in the proposed scenario) includes ability to set up and use several kinds of tooling; and daily activity involves learning even more new kinds of knowledge and acquiring new skills as part of the daily routine.

People could become known, via their practice and performance, for their ability to make clean 3 mm holes drilled in 0.5 cm steel plate; or the programming of a small benchtop assembly robot to do a microscopic subassembly of a certain form.

Result is first to have people, all people, find a new level of usefulness in their life, whether a teenager looking for a first job; to a housewife with 15 minutes available off and on in her daily routine; to a retired senior who still has a lot of mileage left, just not at full speed, yet still can get there. "Homeless" people could be brought into the loop, with tasks found to be at their level for their self-esteem and a bit of productivity in it all somewhere. Not wasting all those partial human lives is a national reward as well as to the individuals; and the country may once again be able to produce some products at low enough overall cost here at home.

Health money health

I think that not all is being done in the medical health system that could be done; but then, I realize I too am not getting nearly as much done in my own life as could be done. There seems to be so many mental blocks into which I invisibly bump, hard.

Maybe it is a national handicap happening. And the massive inertia of the immense medical system cannot do much different than it has been doing. Anything that tries to change that juggernaut's course, does so at its own risk.

I wonder, what happens when a country that worships the business dollar maximum for minimum value added, instead of the maximum human benefit, finds its dollar is not worth much internationally any more?

Masters of the Trading Game

"Masters of the Trading Game" a Science Fiction short story by Jim Cline

The engine of the little aircraft he had rented had suddenly quit, and soon stalled, now heading rapidly toward the rough terrain below. He had a toolkit which quickly showed him that the engine had quit because its flight controller had been sent a signal by an airport ground control that the plane had landed and was to shut the engine down and let the passenger out. Unable to change the instruction to the autopilot, he activated his suit's buoyancy control, needed to live on this heavy gravity planet, set to a negative average weight, opened the door and jumped out. The plane sped downward past him; moments later it hit the ground, splattering pieces all over the mountainside. Reaching the ground, he adjusted his average weight for some traction, and bounded lightly across the terrain. Reaching the wreckage, he retrieved his luggage and lightly bounded away to a place that provided concealment yet he was able to view the wreckage. Soon a helicopter arrived out of nowhere in this desolate place, and it squirted a stream of liquid fuel all over the wreckage, ignited it; hovered awhile to watch the inferno, then flew off.

So far, his day was not going well. Up until today, things had seemed to be quite reasonable. He had arrived as an ambassador to this planet, with a specialty in sociology, to determine how the beings here needed to be treated for a harmonious trade relationship with the Federation of Planets. It was not a judgmental activity; merely standard research to determine the data needed to establish the optimum trade relationship parameters.

They had no intention to interfere with any planet's doings; all they wanted was the working trade relationship so as to acquire needed goods in exchange for goods of which they had too much. The people here generally understood that. And yet, one of the natives had only yesterday acted odd and quietly told him to mind his own business or he would be in trouble, then the native faded away into the crowd.

Feeling a bit hungry, he carefully selected leaves from the thorny tree which hid him, taking select leaves from the outside where it would let more sunshine in for inner leaves to relish and grow faster. Putting the leaves into his pocket snack converter, soon it produced a refreshing sip of nutritious liquid and some tasty munchies for him. Now what? He had noticed the same corporation markings on the helicopter as had been on the rented aircraft, apparently associated with this particular territory he had just begun to gather data within. It appeared clear that some quite competent group had worked to destroy him, and probably of the control of this territory. To go into a nearby town would likely invite another destructive effort, maybe one he would not be able to avoid. His sociological research report would have to incorporate the social phenomenon which had produced his current predicament, so making it look like he was missing while he was continuing his data gathering project seemed most likely to determine pertinent data. An observer always had to be careful to not significantly alter the workings of the social system that was being documented, and it appeared that the social forces here had considered his presence much disruptive. Opening his suitcase, accessing the data store, found a map with his location on it, and located the nearest large town. There were none nearby, however, so he chose to head back to the place from which he had rented the aircraft, and where his other belongings were presumably still located. But he would remain on the outskirts in hiding; see what he could discover from there as to what was going on now.

He traveled in the twilight hours, when the desert mountains were most active with animal life, hiding out both in daylight and the deep of the night, motion too risky. He was in no hurry; data was data whenever he obtained it. Arriving on the outskirts of the city, he squirreled a secure hiding spot where he could see the area where his motel room was located, and his rented ground vehicle. It was still in the parking lot; he saw no one entering his motel room. The security cameras were not aimed at him nor his vehicle nor his room, just at their usual views of access passageways. He needed to report in, so as dusk fell he set his suit to high buoyancy and lightly bounced across the intervening space, coming in at an angle not observed by the cameras; touching the motel roof, he flipped over the eaves to be in front of his motel room door, and was soon inside. Odd, the couple of electric sparks he felt doing tiny stings on his skin. This door opening would be signaled to the office, surely; so he quickly gathered supplies and his communicator, leaving everything else as it was he left the room, bounced to the roof and off across several roofs to gain a probably unobserved return to his hideaway. His suit was the equivalent to a portable airship inflated by hydrogen; it had already been determined that this civilization had abandoned rigid airship transportation due to a spectacular accident long ago, and had used powered airfoils for airlift since then.

Back in his hideaway, he quickly set up the sub-space communicator and filed his report update. Then he switched the communicator to "observe local news" mode, suppressing its normal "interactive news" mode which would have given his continued existence away, making his job more difficult than it already had become. The folks receiving his report on his home planet would merely file it away; they had seen about anything possible, among the many planets which had been brought into the Federation; they had, however, cautioned him to be more careful about triggering activities by his presence that would further disrupt data acquisition and maybe even terminate him. Replacing him and his equipment would be costly and delay the acceptance of this planet into the Federation, so be more careful; end of message.

So he resigned himself to a long stay in this rather uncomfortable quarters, furtively watching. It was going to be a longer time until he would be back in the comfortable embrace of his wife; instead, he was here in this hole made among sharp rocks and thorny leaf-bushes. His buoyancy suit was made of sturdy cloth and when partially inflated, it provided a barrier between his body and the uncomfortable rocks surrounding him, so he at least could be somewhat comfortable when sleeping.

Opening his briefcase, he activated half of its fleet of micro-vehicles, programmed to scamper around the nearby city until hearing audio or observing activity, then transmit what ever they observed back to the suitcase along subspace channels; periodically the raw data was sent in a packet through subspace to the home planet data center mindless recorders, just in case. A few of the micro-vehicles were hovering around his hideaway and if something suddenly obliterated him there, they would have described the incoming missile and so the home planet would have that data at least. Few ambassadors had ever been lost, and it was considered incompetence that led to their demise; and data as to causes was merely added to the vast database. He was on his own; no rescue would be sent. If he really messed up, he would merely be replaced, quickly forgotten. The Prime Directive was to not disrupt trade activities among planets.

So. What had he done to offend these people so much? This was the fourth territory which he had explored on this planet; this one seemed much the same as the other three, bland and understandable. That is, up until his aircraft crashed several days ago. Must be something different happening here. What was it? He examined the statistics. People were busy making things, buying and selling, growing food, marrying having offspring and getting divorced, same old stuff. The next level deeper among the data showed something a bit odd, there were far more females here than males, as compared to ratios in the prior three territories. That was something for the micro-vehicles to ferret out a bit deeper. He compared the current findings to the planetary library history set. There were as many females as males born, on the average, everywhere. It was the same on the birth record in this town too, just as many males as females born each year. There were a large number of divorced females with children, single moms were quite well supported by the system. Soon another irregularity was found, that even among the relatively few males here, many of them were living together in group living situations, some with a female among them, others not. eventually he discovered that there were only a few males who were active in procreation; they were marrying a female, procreating, divorcing them, supporting them while going on to another single woman; he periodically visited all his former wives, who did not seem to have any other relationship but with him. Odd, how did that happen? The community was thriving; monogamy was part of the law here as elsewhere, but divorced moms were of course allowed to have relationships. So it was not obviously polygamy, but effectively so, staying within the law.

Where had the extra females come from? Records seemed oddly scant, as if they suddenly appeared. There were several groups living in the city besides the one that had the group of men who had many former wives who all formed a mutual support group.

He focused upon a young couple who had moved into town, he having been lured here by a high paying nice job. The micro-vehicles clustered around the area, where their new home had been, he on his job, and their shopping. Things had looked fine looked fine. Then they registered to receive an offspring permit; immediately there were odd changes. The micro-vehicles discovered that the woman had been surrounded during shopping by the most handsome men among the sales staff, smiling and being helpful. Meanwhile, her husband was being assaulted by nearly invisible electric sparks shot by devices carried by the leaders of the area, and also were mounted in vehicles and at doorways, all quite hidden. The man, increasingly unfocused, gave up trying to figure out what had pricked him out of nowhere over and over again, and his body chemistry became altered, befuddling his thinking increasingly. When he came home, his wife wondered why he was being so dopey and no longer coping with life; he began to tell her that his boss on the job was not giving him a good job review. She liked the town there, the handsome salesmen and the smiling and very helpful women ever busy around when something was needed, who seemed ever ready to give her whatever she needed even before she needed it.

Finally her husband came home one day and said he had lost his job; he could not figure out what was going on, felt sleepy much of the time. There was a divorce clinic in town so she went there, found it was a quick and easy process, and soon she was a free woman, the law forcing her former husband to support her. Meanwhile, her former husband could find little work, and that was of low skill, and he was ever sleepy and now was being assaulted by pre-sonics which were used in stores to direct staff, but now directed mysteriously to the now loner male. Eventually he could not endure it all, wifeless and alone, friendless, and he left town. Thus, another female added to the territory's population, not balanced by a male's equal presence. Eventually the woman got involved in the town's group meetings and support systems, leading to occasional contact with the males who were former husbands of lots of the women; soon she was to be added to the list of re-married, reproduced, divorced again, and living just fine with children, occasional visits by former reproducing mate. So that was the phenomenon.

Comparing with the other three territories he had observed, he found that they too had the same subgroup among them, quietly gathering other females from among the other groups nearby. Yet they had not yet taken over the other three territories yet.

The library yielded lots of this kind of activity in history; it was a pattern where a small group of males somehow figured out how to deprive lots of other males of women, and thus had large groups of females by which to reproduce, and all their sons were now bonded by genetics, a genetic mark that caused them to unite against the world cleverly. Unmated, the genetics of the other males faded out of existence. The more subtle levels of living system, sometimes called spiritual equivalents, were involved, the groups which were growing under the united membership requiring only male dependancy of their unique male ancestry, a subtle psychic bonding and monitoring system that mystified non-members and eventually caused their downfall, freeing their women to be acquired by the in-group. Such systems had happened several times around the world and throughout history, but eventually all the other groups had become amalgamated to a large extent into the larger society of which they were part. But the current group in this territory was of a fairly new such group; wars were not being fought to dispose of neighbor males and free their women to be taken; but rather this time it was an insidious war against the individual males of the larger group, all done mysteriously to the non-in-group males. With the available females being taken in by the very supportive expanding group fathered by the founding fathers of the group, the other males of the original 50-50 gender ratio at birth, deprived of mating and progeny, faded away early in life. Laws enforcing monogamy were being skirted thereby; and anyway the law enforcers were among the reproductively privileged males, and no way were they going to disrupt a good thing for themselves.

So the micro-vehicles had found the raw data and his suitcase data processor and communicator had sifted out the patterns. Yet it did not seem to be cause of the attack on himself; was it that they were afraid he would observe the phenomenon and spread the word? Not likely; they knew his mission was to enhance trade between planets and did not care who it was with whom they traded. More data was needed.

He expanded his library searches and searches of archives of the larger territory, even of the world, randomizing the searches so as to not leave too obvious a pattern for any who might wonder at the curiosity. Billions of news articles and writings of all kinds in the public system were evaluated, and a shadow process began to be sifted out, something that had been going on a long time, and rapidly getting more powerful, yet still not noticed by those squarely in the obvious path of ruin for the chosen target ones. It was one of the groups of the same leadership which had taken over this town, one woman at a time, by disposing of one man at a time via social crushing, mysterious estrangements. The shadow pattern took on probabilities way above random, that showed that the national and international spread of this group had expanded enormously under the cover of being just another group. They were very supportive of each other, whereas much of the rest of the world was intensely rivalrous to each other, each man an island, slowly drowning as the social water rose around him, ever shrinking his territory to nothing. The percent of women they would have had as mates, were easily lured into the spreading group, much as within this city he was observing. Yet it was a big nation, and a bigger world. In the past, this group had become too noticed by the men who had been deprived of mates, and in one case were declared unwanted and so they had moved elsewhere; yet their great mutual support system among the females had supplied abundance and good living, unhindered by taboos against the psychic side of spirituality common elsewhere; no part of life was taboo and therefore all were resources, thus maximum success was theirs. The only losers were all men who were not genetically related to the founding fathers of the seminal group a hundred years before. Yet now their wealth and quiet power had gotten an incompetent greedy government into power, which had led the country into financial ruin by expending resources fighting shadows in far lands and causing havoc there, generating growing world hostility.

Meanwhile, the spread word was that the whole world was overpopulated, so everybody stop having many children, and this was being followed willingly or unwillingly by increasing numbers of people, many threatened by new diseases and strange toxins and disruptive pseudo-hormones. All except a couple groups, that is, and the group who were acquiring women by the truckload like in this town, were reproducing as fast as possible. It was clear by drawing the projection curves, this group would soon have overrun the whole country; and they were making efforts for formal leadership of the country, even though they had long had virtual control of the country through their vast network of normally peaceable mind-their-own-business people who only rarely responded to requirements to do an occasional dirty-work of the eldership, to trigger some event in unobvious fashion.

Ok, he now had the larger shadow social pattern, which clearly would coalesce most anywhere he tested; it was a deliberately guided subtle takeover of the nation. It would be they with whom the Federation would trade, so what? The Federation does not care whom they traded with. So why had there been an attempt to terminate his research as ambassador here? It had been clearly an unemotional assault, they just pulled the plug on him, then went to make sure nothing remained to show it.

So he provided his data set of the social evaluation via subspace communication to the home planet, then recommended that a perfunctory search be made for his crashed aircraft and his remains, making an official end to the investigation of his mysterious disappearance ... and by the way, happening to make a pit-stop here at his hideaway hole in the twilight so he could jump in and head back with them to home, along with his equipment; these people were too quietly ruthless to be trusted with knowledge of such advanced technology as he had here. His job was done here; soon he would be in the comforting embrace of his wife. Criteria for the trade negotiations were about to change on this planet, but now they knew what the new social system would be, and they would be ready to make profitable trade with it. No problem.

He was getting oddly sleepy now, and as he dozed off he vaguely remembered the man who had come to do an ordinary job in this town, but it had cost him his wife; he had lost all to the hidden alpha-male masters of the business game. He was getting ... so ... oddly ... sleepy ....

Copyright © 2007 James E. D. Cline