Stanislaw Lem - The Cyberiad

“Either you’re a complete idiot or a monster!” cried Klapaucius, while I gulped and blinked. “How dare you boast of such foul deeds?”

“I do not boast of them, but confess them,” the voice calmly said. “The point is, we tried every conceivable method. On various planets we unleashed a veritable rain of riches, a flood of satisfaction and well-being, and the result was total paralysis; we dispensed good advice, the most expert counsel, and in return the natives opened fire on our vessels. Truly, it would appear that one must alter the minds of those one intends to make happy…”

“I suppose you can do that too,” grumbled Klapaucius.

“But of course we can! Take our neighbors, for instance, the ones who inhabit a quasiterran (or, if you prefer, geomorphic) planet. I speak of the Anthropods. Now, they devote themselves exclusively to obbling and perplossication, for they stand in mortal terror of the Gugh, which according to them occupies the Hereafter and waits for all sinners with open jaws and fangs of hellfire. By emulating the blessed Dimbligensians and walking in the way of Wamba the Holy, and by shunning Odia, where abound the Abominominites, a young Anthropod may in time become more industrious, more virtuous and more honorable than ever were his eight-armed forebears. True, the Anthropods are at constant war with the Arthropoids over the burning question of whether Moles Have Holes, or, contrariwise, Holes Moles, but observe that as a rule less than half of each generation perishes in that controversy. Now you would have me drive from their heads all belief in obbling, Dimbligensians and so forth, in order to prepare them for rational happiness. Yet this is tantamount to psychic murder, for the resultant minds would be no longer Anthropodous or Arthropoidal—surely you can see that.”

“Superstition must yield to knowledge,” said Klapaucius firmly.

“Unquestionably! But kindly observe that on that planet there are now close to seven million penitents who have spent a lifetime struggling against their own nature, solely that their fellow citizens might be delivered from the Gugh. And in less than a minute I am to tell them, convince them beyond a shadow of a doubt that all this effort was in vain, that they had wasted their entire lives in pointless, useless sacrifice? How cruel that would be! Superstition must yield to knowledge, but this takes time. Consider the hunchback we spoke of earlier—there Ignorance is indeed Bliss, for he believes his hump fulfills some cosmic role in the great work of Creation. Telling him that it’s actually the product of a molecular accident will only serve to make him despair. Better to straighten the hump in the first place…”

“Yes, of course!” Klapaucius exclaimed.

“We did that too. My grandfather once straightened three hundred hunchbacks with a wave of the hand. And how he regretted it afterwards!”

“Why?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Why? One hundred and twelve of them were immediately boiled in oil, their sudden and miraculous cure being taken for a sure sign that they’d sold their souls to the Devil; thirty, no longer exempt from conscription, were promptly called up and soon fell in various battles under various flags; seventeen straightway succumbed to the shock of their good fortune; and the remainder, since my esteemed grandfather saw fit to further bless them with great beauty of form, wasted away through an overindulgence in erotic activity—deprived of these pleasures for so long, you see, they now hurled themselves into every sort of debauchery, and in such a violent and unbridled fashion, that within two years not one was left among the living. Well, there was an exception… but it’s hardly worth mentioning.”

“Go on, let’s hear it all!” cried Klapaucius, and I could tell that he was greatly troubled.

“If you insist… Two remained, actually. The first presented himself before my grandfather and pleaded on bended knee for the return of his hump. It seems that as a cripple he had lived comfortably enough on charity, but now had to work and was quite unaccustomed to it. What was worse, now that he was straightened, he kept bumping his head on door lintels…”

“And the second?” asked Klapaucius.

“The second was a prince who had been denied succession to the throne on acount of his deformity. In light of its sudden correction, his stepmother, to insure her own son’s position, had him poisoned…”

“I see… But still, you can work miracles, can’t you?” said Klapaucius, despair in his voice.

“Bestowing happiness by miracle is highly risky,” lectured the machine. “And who is to be the recipient of your miracle? An individual? But too much beauty undermines the marriage vows, too much knowledge leads to isolation, and too much wealth produces madness. No, I say, a thousand times no! Individuals it’s impossible to make happy, and civilizations—civilizations are not to be tampered with, for each must go its own way, progressing naturally from one level of development to the next and having only itself to thank for all the good and evil that accrues thereby. For us, at the Highest Possible Level, there is nothing left to do in this Universe, and to create another Universe, in my opinion, would be in extremely poor taste. Really, what would be the point of it? To exalt ourselves? A monstrous idea! For the sake, then, of those yet to be created? But how are we obligated to beings who don’t even exist? One can accomplish something only so long as one cannot accomplish everything. Otherwise it’s best to sit back and watch… And now, if you’ll kindly leave me in peace…”

“But wait!” I cried in alarm. “Surely there’s something you can give us, some way to improve the quality of life, if only a little! Some way to lend a helping hand! Remember the Golden Rule and Love Thy Neighbor!”

The machine sighed and said:

“My words fall on deaf ears, as usual. I should have dismissed you to begin with, like we did the last time… Oh, very well then, here’s a formula that hasn’t been tried. No good will come of it, you’ll see—but do with it what you will! All I wish now is to be left alone to meditate among my many theostats and deiodes…”

The voice faded away, the console lights dimmed, and we stood and read the card the machine had printed out for us. It went something like this:

ALTRUIZINE. A metapsychotropic transmitting agent effective for all sentient homoproteinates. The drug duplicates in others, within a radius of fifty yards, whatever sensations, emotions and mental states one may experience. Operates by telepathy, guaranteed however to respect one’s privacy of thought. Has no effect on either robots or plants. The sender’s feelings are amplified, the original signal being relayed back in turn by its receivers and thereby producing resonance, which is as a result directly proportional to the number of individuals situated in the vicinity. According to its discoverer, ALTRUIZINE will insure the untrammled reign of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Compassion in any society, since the neighbors of a happy man must share his happiness, and the happier he, the happier perforce they, so it is entirely in their own interest that they wish him nothing but the best. Should he suffer any hurt, they will rush to help at once, so as to spare themselves the pain induced by his. Neither walls, fences, hedges, nor any other obstacle will weaken the altruizing influence. The drug is water-soluble and may be administered through reservoirs, rivers, wells and the like. Tasteless and odorless. One millimicrogram serves for one hundred thousand individuals. We assume no responsibility for results at variance with the discoverer’s claims. Supplied by the Gnost. computerized representative of the Highest Poss. Lev. Devel.