Clarke's First Law, as modified by me

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably may be right or wrong.

"When anyone at all states that something is impossible without thinking about it, they are wrong by definition. Even if they're right." (bits in italics mine)

Distrust the instant reaction, the snap judgment, the casual dismissal. Distrust it in yourself and in others. Distrust the people from whom you learned it, and the people from whom they learned it. It's a human thing, everybody does it, everybody wants it done, but it is not to be trusted. Nobody expects you to know for certain about everything...but unless you do know for certain, don't pretend that you do, and don't let anyone else get away with that pretence.

Distrust contempt, pity, indulgence, the easy emotions that jack you up above the people you feel them for. They're a cheap drug that atrophies your brain if you don't exercise some self-control, get back down, try seeing things the way those people actually see them. Once you start making up your own other people's viewpoints, the door of your own head clangs shut and you become a lonely superbeing in a world of worthless cattle. And then you are lost.

Distrust reductionism, fallacy hunting, all the tools of reason that promise you quick and infallible answers to tough questions. The answers you will get will depend on what the questions are and who's asking, and that is always governed not by reason but by emotion. Reason's tools are just that, tools. A hammer doesn't know where to hit. You are not your thoughts; thoughts can be thought by anyone. You are your feelings and desires, and those will always drive and direct all your reasoning, whether you know it or not.

You don't have to know what nobody knows. You just don't have to pretend, to yourself or to others, that you do. Don't assume these things are always wrong. Just don't trust them.



(Idea: a whodunit written specifically for audio, in which an audiobook narrator is murdered and her last recording is the only clue. Title, obviously: Listen With Murder. Dammit, I hate getting ideas I can't use. Paging Simon Brett...)

Sometimes things itch

(I typed up a great long piece from an old diary and right at the end LJ chucked it out and claimed to know nothing about any draft. So you may or may not get that at some point in the future when I have the heart to do it all again. In the meanwhile, an exorcism.)

"So how did you escape?" Soren inquired, as Zander settled into his armchair.

"Just a little ingenuity," Zander said modestly. "I figured out that their weapons were powered from the same source as their teleport bracelets. So all I had to do was use my plasmatic probe to collect the shots they fired and run them through the bracelet I'd stolen. Blew it up, but it got me out."

"Oh," Soren said. "Hang on," he added. "So you, what, you used a precision scientific instrument to collect at least six extremely high wattage charges of coherent heat and light, which must have been aimed directly at it rather than you, and then convert them back into the original form of energy that powered the weapons, and introduce that energy somehow into the bracelet--which I'm fairly sure wasn't designed to take energy that way--such that it actually worked before blowing up, while with your other hand programming a destination that wasn't inside a mountain or a hundred miles up, and all this while being chased and shot at?"

There was a moment's pause.

"'Course not," Zander said, relaxing. "That would never have worked. I questioned their status as authentic security guards, convinced them that all real guards spend all their time playing scamblewacket in their ready room, challenged them to a game, and won all their weapons, their uniforms and their leg assemblies. Then I just walked away. I left the legs outside the staff entrance--someone will have found them in the morning."

"There's always a way out," Soren said, and grinned.

"Yes," Zander agreed, laying in a course for the homeship, "but you have to work for it."

(This week's episode, on the other hand, verged on good, though not without several argh moments. This is what stops me giving up on the thing, every time.)