David Brin - Existence

What has Betsby done now? He caught himself smiling in anticipation, as if relishing the next clever move of a worthy chess opponent.

Fishing in his jacket pocket, Hamish brushed past the small contaict lens container, choosing instead a larger, rectangular shape that he swiftly unfolded into a pair of tru-vu goggles.

“Show me,” he commanded Wriggles.

But, even expecting something unexpected, what erupted before Hamish struck him numb with shock.

If you are watching this, it means that I’m dead, or missing, or so mind-altered that I can no longer transmit the complicated daily stop-code on this, my final statement to the world.

My name is Roger Betsby. I am… or was… a physician serving one of the refugee communities in the Detroit Renewal District. Blink here , and my homunculus will take you on a tour of who I was and what I stood for. But I bet you are more likely interested in hearing my deathbed denunciation.

First a confession. On October the twelfth of last year, while pretending to be a waiter at a luncheon of the First Americans Club, I slipped a substance into the beverage consumed by Senator Crandall Strong. Among THESE links are vid recordings showing me in the act. There are also clips-redistributed by scores of newsnexers-of the senator’s subsequent speech, which started in his normal fashion, with a low, mild voice, but soon rising in tone and volume as he typically recited from a long list of complaints and grudges.

With increasing vigor, Strong condemned the current U.S. Congress, for refusing to fully fund the Second Reparations Act. He disdained the present administration, for ceding more environmental authority to UNEPA. The Canadians, he excoriated for limiting New Lands immigration, and the courts, for constraining the damage awards won by Victims of the Melt, in their lawsuit against the Denialist Cabal.

Soon, as usual, he moved on from enemies who were merely social, legal, or political. and laid into those he has long proclaimed the real villains-all the would-be “godmakers,” using technology and science to arrogate powers of the Almighty.

Millions have watched this particular speech, which-as usual-built toward a powerful, fuming rant. Only, this time, going well beyond a mere rant, it spiraled out of control! Instead of maintaining a high-but-controlled level of righteous anger, all the way to a thundering end, it became pyrotechnic, racist, scatological even for Crandall Strong.

You can see the transition, about eight minutes in-right here-as he starts looking perplexed, licking his lips and then pressing them together, hard. At this point, he begins gesturing more dramatically than usual, pounding on the lectern. Observe his voice growing incrementally louder, his complaints more florid and accusations more intense. But note, underneath it all, an expression of puzzlement, worry, and something else… a growing sense of frantic need .

His regular stump speech always starts with contemporary political complaints, but then moves on to condemnation of modernity and technological “progress,” culminating in calls for all such matters to be placed in better and wiser hands. Only this time, the smooth sequence, ramping up from low, reasonable tones to vehement indignation, seems off-beat.

See? Clearly, he knows that something has gone wrong. But his response is not to finish early and seek help. It is to push ahead. Raising the stakes. Upping the ante and doubling-down. Getting more vehement… then choleric… then apoplectic!

Now, you may have guessed that I have a low opinion of this politician. I consider him to be a mean-minded demagogue of the worst order. It happens that I also dislike his particular views on a wide range of matters. But my purpose in slipping him a mind-altering compound was not to undermine the Renunciation Movement. I think they are wrong, but they have a legitimate right to make their points and to argue rationally with the rest of us. Who knows? They might even be partly right about human destiny.

No, what I did on that day was perform a medical experiment. If Senator Strong did not suffer from a diagnosable mental illness, then the drug that I gave him-a completely legal substance- would have had no effect at all. He would have given his usual, overly dramatic and illogical polemic, without any ill effects.

So why did it have the effect of ultimately driving him into a pyrotechnic fury, screaming vicious epithets and a series of horrific racial slurs?

Let’s rewind to the first time Senator Strong got that baffled look on his face. See here? I’ll overlay a flush tone analysis. And now add a voice stress graph. Compare the overlays to these other frames, taken from very similar speeches, at almost the same point, where he’s peaking at his first big polemical crescendo. His first dramatic thump on the lectern.

In those other speeches, the stress and flush-tone data show that he’s derived a jolt of intense pleasure from the moment. And yes, that is common with dramatic extroverts. But note here on October the twelfth. The jolt-the sudden wash of enjoyment isn’t there. And hence the puzzled expression. Clearly, he had been counting on getting that usual bump, from indignantly denouncing his enemies.

When it did not come, what was his response? To just go on with giving his speech, performing the day’s task with professional skill and accomplishing his goal? Or to pull back, when something has gone wrong, and to reassess the situation?

No. He did neither thing.

Instead, watch as Senator Strong pounds harder. He bears down, grinding his teeth between the sentences, growling, even shouting the same words he had spoken, on other occasions, with mere, measured anger.

Can you see, yet, the effect of the drug I fed him? It did not cause his vehemence or loss of control, nor does it have any known effects upon cognition or judgment.

It simply quashed the chemical-hormonal pleasure jolt that he normally receives from righteous indignation! That and nothing more.

Go ahead and blink here to look up Anhedonium. It is a recent advance over naltrexone, which was long used to suppress the surge reinforcements of heroin and other addictive substances. Anhedonium acts with accumbenol to block dopamine receptors only in the nucleus accumbens and two other carefully targeted sites. It is increasingly used in drug abuse clinics like one I operate in Detroit. Its simple effect is to interrupt the reinforcement cycle of most addictions.

Now, almost any habit can be called an “addiction” if its repetition is reinforced in the human brain, by rhythmic release of pleasure-mediating chemicals. The core process is not, in itself, harmful. Indeed, it is deeply human and essential! Pleasure-based repetition reinforcement is partly responsible for our tight bonding to our children, our husbands and wives, or the tendency to keep returning our attention to music, or beauty, or the glorious exercise of skill. It contributes to the joy that some derive from prayer. These are some of the good and wholesome things that we are glad to be addicted to!

Lately, experts have come to view drug abuse as little more than a hijacking of this normal human process. Heroin and ecstasy and moondust all offer shortcuts into brain mechanisms that served a real, evolutionary function. Only, their crude, sledgehammer attack upon the pleasure-reinforcement process seldom helps to make lives better… more often it ruins them.

We now know there are other ways to hijack this system. In some people, a hedonic gratification pattern can be achieved simply by entering certain frames of mind. For example, the cyclical jolt from gambling can be a genuine addiction, requiring as much effort to break as cocaine or kicx. Habitual thrill seekers, video game potatoes, and Wall Street “wizards” have all been shown to follow similar patterns. Once aboard the roller-coaster, they cannot let go. One mild version can be seen in those riveted to spectator sports…