craschworks

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A letter to the editor I wrote a long time ago, in response to this article:

Wet Thought
Drawing a line between software and consciousness.
By David Weinberger
July 10, 2001

http://www.darwinmag.com/read/swiftkick/column.html?ArticleID=130

My response:

Is uploading possible?
“Why are we so insistent on believing that thinking is a formal process, a type of information processing that is independent of hardware?”

Why are you so insistent that thinking can only be done with an organized blob of protein, sugar, and water?

Consider this thought experiment: we know that the individual atoms making up your brain and body are continually replaced over time. Our identity therefore, depends not on the individual atoms, but upon the pattern that those atoms make up in our brain.

If we can replace individual atoms, is there something special about microtubules, plasma membranes, and ion pores that would prevent us from replacing them with structures made of other materials? And if you accept that the individual components of neuron can be replaced, why not the neuron itself, say, with a chip that mimics the behavior of the neuron?

And if one neuron, why not them all?

“We live in bodies. We're going to die — yes, even us Boomers. Deal with it.”

Maybe Weinberger is right. Maybe uploading can never happen. Perhaps we will all die eventually. Is the best way to deal with death to resign ourselves to the execution date Mother Nature has set for us? Assuming that I'm in good health, I cannot foresee a time when I would want to die. There is simply too much novelty and beauty in the universe to even begin to explore in a measely 80 years.

Our understanding of human intelligence is evolving at a rapid clip, as are advances in computing, robots, imaging. Given the stakes involved–thousands of years of additional life, maybe more–it seems a little premature to throw up our hands at the putative futility of uploading.

Chris Rasch
July 12, 2001

What are your top three wishes that could plausibly be realized in the next 5 years? How much would you offer as a prize now to see your wish fulfilled within that time period?

1. Have enough “passive” investment income (stocks, bonds, mutual funds) to provide an income of at least $25 K/year. Assuming that a 4% drawdown is possible without affecting the principal, that would be savings of about $625,000.00 dollars in 2003 dollars.

Prize: $63,000 (assuming that my savings after payment would be $625 K)

2. Find a compatible mate. My “ideal” mate would be:

* Life-loving — Plans to be cryopreserved if she becomes terminally ill/injured. Has so many things that she would like to do it would take several lifetimes at least to achieve them all.
* Freedom loving — Supports the Free State Project and plans to move to the state when chosen.
* Health-conscious — Eats brocolli, fish, and other healthy foods.
* Athletic — Likes to run, lift weights, bike, rollerblade, mountain climb.
* Child-friendly — Wants to have 1 – 2 kids.
* Politically aware — Enjoys discussing politics and economics (among other things).
* Intellectually curious — loves to read on a wide range of subjects. Knows where all the bookstores and libraries are in town.
* Frugal — wants to be financially independent. Values freedom over material goods.
* Kindhearted — doesn't deliberately do anything to hurt anyone else. Makes amends if she does.
* Responsible — pays bills on time, and keeps commitments.
* Action-oriented — if confronted by a problem, she takes what action she can, then forgets about it. Doesn't complain fruitlessly.
* Self-reliant — Doesn't wait for somebody to come rescue her.
* Funny — Likes Simpsons, South Park, Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, Get Fuzzy. Laughs at my jokes.
* Optimistic — doesn't give up.
* Sexy — likes to dress in leather pants, reads excerpts from “Machinery of Freedom” while feeding me peeled grapes.

Prize: $5,0000

3. Successfully cryopreserve one of the following mammalian organs — liver, heart, kidney, brain — from one of the following species: rats, rabbits, dogs, cats, monkeys, humans. Successful cryopreservation is defined as cooling the organ below -130'C for 7 days, rewarming it, then transplanting it back into an animal, and the animal surviving using that organ as it's sole source of support for 366 days.

Prize: $10,000

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0223.htm

Is it true that running is hard on the knees, hips, and feet? Runners still hear about that supposed connection, and there seems to be a kernel of truth in the supposition. After all, running is the kind of sport which produces 'wear-and-tear' injuries, not traumatic ones, and one key form of arthritis – osteoarthritis – is a wear-and-tear disease, in which the cartilage inside joints is gradually eroded over time. But what does the scientific literature really say? Do the relentless impact forces of running (a force greater than two and one-half times body weight is transmitted through the leg with each footstep, 1700 times per mile) eventually cause the cartilaginous structures in the knees and hips to deteriorate into the inflamed, arthritic state'?

The most comprehensive study concerning running and disability was begun in 1984 at the Stanford Arthritis Center in the US. Initially, 863 people (632 males and 231 females) ranging in age from 50 to 72 took part in the research. 498 individuals were long-distance runners, while 365 subjects did not run at all. The runners averaged about 210 minutes (27 miles) of running per week, had been running for an average of 12 years, and weighed considerably less than their sedentary counterparts ( 147 versus 161 pounds). Some of the runners had logged as many as 17,000 total miles during the 12 years leading up to the study.

The first five years
Over an initial five-year period, the benchmark Stanford study found that runners did NOT experience higher rates of arthritis, compared to 'average' individuals in the overall population. In fact, runners actually had a lower risk of disability in their muscular and skeletal systems, despite all of the aches and pains which are usually associated with a regular running programme. Runners made fewer visits to the doctor, spent about 33 per cent less time in the hospital, missed half as many work days, and – as expected – had lower blood pressures and resting heart rates, compared to non-runners. In addition, runners gave themselves higher perceived health ratings. To put it simply, runners FELT healthier than non-runners, and in fact they were.

What about the notion that knees and legs are damaged by the miles and miles of hard pounding associated with running? Well, disabling problems in the legs were actually five times as likely to occur in sedentary individuals, compared to runners. Running was also linked with fitter upper bodies: disabling conditions in the arms and shoulders were 20 times as likely to develop in non-runners !

Although it was true that about 40 per cent of the runners experienced a running-related injury over a one-year time span, most of the injuries were slight, and the damaged runners recovered rapidly. In fact, just eight out of 498 injured runners had to STOP running completely because of injury. In spite of their greater need to seek medical treatment for running-induced injuries, runners actually used fewer medications than lethargic individuals and, overall, spent significantly less money on health care.

Then the critics pounced
At first glance, the Stanford study seemed to represent great news. After all, joint, bone, and muscular disabilities developed at a lower rate in the running population, compared to sedentary folk. There wasn't a shred of evidence to support the idea that running predisposed people to a higher risk of musculoskeletal disability; in fact, the reverse was true. Being sedentary was a big risk!

However, the Stanford study quickly encountered a barrage of heavy-duty criticism. Critics contended (correctly) that people who quit running because of the development of osteoarthritis were unlikely to be included in the Stanford research, or in other similar research projects, because scientific investigators try to avoid using people who are already ill. Thus the incidence of arthritis among runners would likely be underestimated, since all the unfortunates who were hobbled by running would be excluded.
Partly in order to remedy that weakness, the Stanford scientists continued their study for an additional three years (to create an eight-year analysis) and also inspected their data in a novel way by dividing their subjects into two new groups. Whereas previously the Stanford white-coats had looked at 'runners' or 'non-runners,' according to who was CURRENTLY involved in a running programme, the investigators now divided their horde into those who had run for at least one month at some time in their lives (the 'ever' group) and those who had never run (the 'never' group). The plan behind creating the 'ever' group was to 'catch' some of the individuals who had tried running, sustained some musculoskeletal difficulties, and then dropped out of the sport. This might take away some of the glow from running, since even individuals who had only run for two months in their entire lifetimes would be considered 'runners.'

After three more years
Fortunately for running advocates, it didn't work that way: Differences in disability between the 'ever' and 'never' groups were still quite considerable – and sometimes even larger than the gap between current runners and non-runners. The extension of the Stanford study to eight years produced some other interesting results. One difference had to do with an event most of us are concerned about – death. Although both groups were similar in age, only eight of the runners died during the study period, while 30 sedentary individuals passed away. Significantly, 10 of the non-runners died from cardiovascular disease; only one runner met the same fate. Overall, 7 per cent of non-runners died during the study period, versus just 1.5 per cent of runners.
During the eight-year period, there was only one negative splotch on the runners' records: they did experience more bone fractures, mainly because of sports-related falls. However, breaks of the spine, wrist, and hip were significantly more common among non-runners, as were joint swelling and chronic joint pain.

Even better for women
Overall, male runners accrued musculoskeletal difficulties at rates which were 40 per cent lower than male non-runners. Running was even more important for ageing females: female runners accumulated problems at rates which were 89 per cent lower, compared to female non-runners. This may reflect the fact that sedentary females may be considerably more immobile than sedentary males. The more sedentary the lifestyle, the higher the risk of disability.

There did appear to be a 'dose effect' at work, with runners who ran very little experiencing almost three times as much disability as runners who ran more extensively. The threshold for achieving lower disability rates was quite modest, however. Running just 15 miles per week or so cut disability rates by 60 per cent, compared to running five or fewer weekly miles. Running more than 25 miles per week did not cut disability rates significantly.

Differences between the two groups became even greater as participants aged. In fact, the biggest chasm between disability rates occurred in the 75-to-79 age category, when musculoskeletal problems tended to skyrocket in the non-running group but stayed fairly steady among runners and others participating in regular aerobic exercise (cycling, swimming, etc.).

However, another kind of bias might have crept into the Stanford research. This potential prejudice could enter the investigation in the following way: people who are basically healthy often feel well enough to embark on a running programme. Their superior overall health might enable them to negotiate years of running without major problems. Meanwhile, people with niggling aches and pains and modest overall health would be less inclined to exercise and would eschew running. As the years rolled by, their nattering throbbings might change into arthritic aches, and since their overall health was not so good, the aches might develop quickly into major arthritic disease. Scientists watching these people might think that running brightened the horizons of the former group and that a sedentary lifestyle brought dark clouds to the latter, but the truth would be much simpler – that good health allowed people to run, while poor health prevented people from lacing up their jogging shoes. Activity might be the result of good health, not the cause of it.

Eliminating other slants
That kind of bias is nearly impossible to avoid. One way around it would be to ask some of the non-running subjects to take up the sport, to see if their disability rates became more like those of the runners. This was not done in the Stanford study. However, the Stanford scientists were able to eliminate other 'slants' to their data. They were able to show that the two groups did not have different family histories of arthritis or other skeletal and muscle diseases, and they monitored 'drop-outs' carefully, to make sure that runners weren't leaving the project because of injuries.

Although the Stanford researchers didn't ask their sedentary subjects to give exercise a try, other , scientists have done so. Notably, in a recent research effort a group of 50- to 65-year-old individuals who were previously sedentary embarked on a vigorous exercise programme and achieved considerable improvements in their musculoskeletal health. The bottom line? At present, it seems relatively certain that running and other forms of exercise are linked with positive health outcomes, including the well-being of the muscles, connective tissues, and joints. ('Ageing, Long-Distance Running, and the Development of Musculoskeletal Disability, ' The American Journal of Medicine, vol. 82, pp. 772- 780, 1987; 'Running and the Development of
Disability with Age, ' Annals of Internal Medicine, vol. 121, pp. 502-509, 1994)

Owen Anderson

http://www.todoinstitute.com/30KDaysAttnandGratitude.html

Exploring the Link between Gratitude and Attention
by Gregg Krech

“If the only prayer you say in your entire life is ‘thank you' that would suffice.”
- Meister Eckhart

Your eyes are still closed when you hear the beeping of your digital alarm clock go off on the small wooden table next to your bed. Without opening your eyes your arm naturally reaches over to press the black “snooze alarm” button – a motion you repeat just about every morning. But this morning nothing happens. The beeping continues – and is getting a bit irritating. So now you open your eyes and watch your index finger press hard on the correct button. More beeping. You hit another switch which should just turn the alarm off completely. Still more beeping. In a fit of frustration you finally pull out the cord from the electrical outlet. Ahh…. quiet at last. Perhaps it's time for a new clock.

A few minutes later you find yourself about to get up from a brief stop at the toilet when . . . . the toilet won't flush. “I'm really starting off the day in great shape,” you think. You get dressed and start the coffeemaker to give you a bit of a jolt, but when you come back to the kitchen there is hot water and coffee grounds all over the table. Now you're beginning to think that this is a bad dream and you must still be in bed. But it's not over. You open the door to grab the morning paper and quickly check the news before leaving for work but . . . no paper! You look to the left, to the right. Did someone take your paper? Did they forget to deliver it? No time to speculate further. Got to get to work. As you drive down the highway to work, you're thinking about how rough the morning has been when suddenly . . . the person driving in the next lane changes lanes – cutting you off and almost running you off the road. When you arrive at work your heart is still racing and you take every opportunity to share your “extraordinary” morning with your colleagues. What a relief it will be when this day is over!

If you've ever had a day when everything seems to go wrong you can probably sympathize with the subject of the story above and it appears understandable that he or she would feel frustrated and perhaps have a sense that the world is a pretty unfriendly place.

To begin to understand the relationship between attention and gratitude we need to turn the story around. Imagine a day when . . . .

- the alarm works perfectly
- the toilet flushes just the way it's supposed
- the coffeemaker produces a hot, aromatic cup of coffee
- your morning paper is waiting outside your door
- no other car crashes into you or cuts you off on the way to work

Now what happens? Do you arrive at work feeling overwhelmed with gratitude – with an attitude of appreciation for all the people and things that are supporting you on this glorious morning?

Probably not.

Habits of Attention

Most likely your attention has identified and attached itself to some other problems. If there's no particular problem going on that morning, your mind may ruminate about something that happened in the past or anticipate some difficulty that may occur in the future. It is common for our attention to focus on the problems and difficulties we are facing because we have to pay attention to such challenges in order to handle them. Unfortunately we can develop a “habit of attention” in which we fail to notice the many things that are supporting our existence – our health, our work, our family, and our efforts to accomplish the things we want to do. The more this “habit of attention” has developed, the less likely we will be able to experience gratitude.

I first made the connection between Gratitude and Attention when I discovered a Japanese method of self-reflection called Naikan (like the name of the camera). The word Naikan means “inside looking” or “inside observation.” This method of self-reflection is primarily based on three questions:

1. What have I received from others?
2. What have I given to others?
3. What troubles and difficulties have I caused others?

As you can see these questions are very simple. And when I participated in a 14 day retreat in Japan in 1989, these questions became the framework for me to reflect on my entire life. I reflected on each stage of my life and on every person who had playing a meaningful role in my life since my birth (my mom, dad, grandparents, teachers, friends, colleagues, ex-girlfriends, etc. . .) When I stepped back from my life and began quietly reflecting on everything that had been done for me and given to me (question #1) I was surprised and overwhelmed by how much I had received in my life. The day I left that retreat I felt more cared for, loved and supported than ever before. It was as if I had a blood transfusion and gratitude was now simply flowing through my veins and arteries. I had learned to notice what I had not been noticing. Through self-reflection I had learned about attention and gratitude.

That two week retreat inspired me to return to Japan many times to investigate, in more depth, the Japanese art and practice of self-reflection. I have yet to discover a more profound method for cultivating gratitude and reshaping our attitude and understanding of our lives.

Let's consider three of the greatest obstacles to gratitude. They are:

Self-preoccupation
We are so preoccupied with our own thoughts, feelings, needs and bodies that we have little attention left over to notice what is being done to support us. You might think of your attention as flashlight. As long as you shine the light on your problems, difficulties, and aches and pains, there is no light available for seeing what others are doing for you.

Expectation
When I turn the switch on my bedside lamp I assume the light will go on as it (almost) always does. Once I've come to expect something, it doesn't usually get me attention. My attention isn't really grabbed until my expectation isn't met (the light bulb doesn't work). So my attention tends to gravitate away from what I expect and towards what I don't expect.

Entitlement
The more I think I've earned something or deserve something, the less likely I am to feel grateful for it. As long as I think I'm entitled to something I won't consider it a gift. But when I am humbled by my own mistakes or limitations, I am more likely to receive what I am given with gratitude and a true sense of appreciation for the giver as well as the gift.

To experience a sense of heartfelt gratitude we most overcome these three obstacles. Self-reflection provides a path for doing so. It allows us to pause to appreciate what is being given to us rather than focus on what we don't have. It allows us to consider the countless objects and human beings that made it possible for me to get to work or turn on my computer. Through self-reflection, we can come to see everything we have, and are, as gifts. And through self-reflection we begin to train our attention to notice what we haven't noticed.

It is rare to meet a person whose life is full of gratitude. Many people don't truly appreciate what they have until it is gone. And having lost the opportunity to be grateful, they simply find another reason to be disappointed.

If you wish to cultivate gratitude you must develop a practice. Without practice, there is no development of skill – only an idea. You cannot become a grateful person just by thinking that you want to be grateful. Sometimes we are engaged in a practice, but we don't think of it as a practice. For example– complaining. Complaining is a wonderful practice if you wish to cultivate disappointment, resentment and self-pity. Have you ever tried this practice? It is quite effective. Each time you complain you get better at complaining. It is like learning to play an instrument.

Most of us are better at the practice of complaining than at the practice of self-reflection. We have developed a habit of attention – to notice the troubles others cause us. And we have developed a habit of speech — to complain to others about these troubles. But to cultivate gratitude, we need to develop a new habit of attention – to notice the concrete ways in which the world supports us each day. And we can then develop a new habit of speech – expressing our gratitude to others.

So start your practice today. Notice. Reflect. Express. Hey, what's that sound? Oh, it's the alarm on my watch reminding me I have an appointment. What a nice feature. It frees up my mind to attend to other things. Thanks, watch. And thanks to my wife Linda who gave it to me. And thanks to all the people who made it. And thank goodness my finger works well enough to shut it off. Time . . . . . to move on.

Gregg Krech is the Director of the ToDo Institute and the author of several books including A Natural Approach to Mental Wellness and the award-winning book, Naikan: Gratitude, Grace and the Japanese Art of Self-Reflection. In November, he will be conducting the ToDo Institute's annual distance learning course, A Month of Self-Reflection. More information on this course is available by emailing the ToDo Institute at [email protected]

Thirty Thousand Days (formerly the Constructive Living Quarterly) is a publication of the ToDo Institute. Each issue usually focuses on a range of topics related to living a meaningful and productive life; recent issues have covered anxiety, depression, finding your purpose, self-reflection, spirituality and getting organized.

Subscriptions are available for $15 per year ($22 outside the US), or you can order a sample issue for $4 post paid. To order, please send us email or call (800) 950-6034.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/22/magazine/22SAVANT.html?pagewanted=all&position=

June 22, 2003
New York Times Magazine

By LAWRENCE OSBORNE

n a concrete basement at the University of Sydney, I sat in a chair waiting to have my brain altered by an electromagnetic pulse. My forehead was connected, by a series of electrodes, to a machine that looked something like an old-fashioned beauty-salon hair dryer and was sunnily described to me as a ''Danish-made transcranial magnetic stimulator.'' This was not just any old Danish-made transcranial magnetic stimulator, however; this was the Medtronic Mag Pro, and it was being operated by Allan Snyder, one of the world's most remarkable scientists of human cognition.

Nonetheless, the anticipation of electricity being beamed into my frontal lobes (and the consent form I had just signed) made me a bit nervous. Snyder found that amusing. ''Oh, relax now!'' he said in the thick local accent he has acquired since moving here from America. ''I've done it on myself a hundred times. This is Australia. Legally, it's far more difficult to damage people in Australia than it is in the United States.''

''Damage?'' I groaned.

''You're not going to be damaged,'' he said. ''You're going to be enhanced.''

The Medtronic was originally developed as a tool for brain surgery: by stimulating or slowing down specific regions of the brain, it allowed doctors to monitor the effects of surgery in real time. But it also produced, they noted, strange and unexpected effects on patients' mental functions: one minute they would lose the ability to speak, another minute they would speak easily but would make odd linguistic errors and so on. A number of researchers started to look into the possibilities, but one in particular intrigued Snyder: that people undergoing transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, could suddenly exhibit savant intelligence — those isolated pockets of geniuslike mental ability that most often appear in autistic people.

Snyder is an impish presence, the very opposite of a venerable professor, let alone an internationally acclaimed scientist. There is a whiff of Woody Allen about him. Did I really want him, I couldn't help thinking, rewiring my hard drive? ''We're not changing your brain physically,'' he assured me. ''You'll only experience differences in your thought processes while you're actually on the machine.'' His assistant made a few final adjustments to the electrodes, and then, as everyone stood back, Snyder flicked the switch.

A series of electromagnetic pulses were being directed into my frontal lobes, but I felt nothing. Snyder instructed me to draw something. ''What would you like to draw?'' he said merrily. ''A cat? You like drawing cats? Cats it is.''

I've seen a million cats in my life, so when I close my eyes, I have no trouble picturing them. But what does a cat really look like, and how do you put it down on paper? I gave it a try but came up with some sort of stick figure, perhaps an insect.

While I drew, Snyder continued his lecture. ''You could call this a creativity-amplifying machine. It's a way of altering our states of mind without taking drugs like mescaline. You can make people see the raw data of the world as it is. As it is actually represented in the unconscious mind of all of us.''

Two minutes after I started the first drawing, I was instructed to try again. After another two minutes, I tried a third cat, and then in due course a fourth. Then the experiment was over, and the electrodes were removed. I looked down at my work. The first felines were boxy and stiffly unconvincing. But after I had been subjected to about 10 minutes of transcranial magnetic stimulation, their tails had grown more vibrant, more nervous; their faces were personable and convincing. They were even beginning to wear clever expressions.

I could hardly recognize them as my own drawings, though I had watched myself render each one, in all its loving detail. Somehow over the course of a very few minutes, and with no additional instruction, I had gone from an incompetent draftsman to a very impressive artist of the feline form.

Snyder looked over my shoulder. ''Well, how about that? Leonardo would be envious.'' Or turning in his grave, I thought.

As remarkable as the cat-drawing lesson was, it was just a hint of Snyder's work and its implications for the study of cognition. He has used TMS dozens of times on university students, measuring its effect on their ability to draw, to proofread and to perform difficult mathematical functions like identifying prime numbers by sight. Hooked up to the machine, 40 percent of test subjects exhibited extraordinary, and newfound, mental skills. That Snyder was able to induce these remarkable feats in a controlled, repeatable experiment is more than just a great party trick; it's a breakthrough that may lead to a revolution in the way we understand the limits of our own intelligence — and the functioning of the human brain in general.

Snyder's work began with a curiosity about autism. Though there is little consensus about what causes this baffling — and increasingly common — disorder, it seems safe to say that autistic people share certain qualities: they tend to be rigid, mechanical and emotionally dissociated. They manifest what autism's great ''discoverer,'' Leo Kanner, called ''an anxiously obsessive desire for the preservation of sameness.'' And they tend to interpret information in a hyperliteral way, using ''a kind of language which does not seem intended to serve interpersonal communication.''

For example, Snyder says, when autistic test subjects came to see him at the university, they would often get lost in the main quad. They might have been there 10 times before, but each time the shadows were in slightly different positions, and the difference overwhelmed their sense of place. ''They can't grasp a general concept equivalent to the word 'quad,''' he explains. ''If it changes appearance even slightly, then they have to start all over again.''

Despite these limitations, a small subset of autistics, known as savants, can also perform superspecialized mental feats. Perhaps the most famous savant was Dustin Hoffman's character in ''Rain Man,'' who could count hundreds of matchsticks at a glance. But the truth has often been even stranger: one celebrated savant in turn-of-the-century Vienna could calculate the day of the week for every date since the birth of Christ. Other savants can speak dozens of languages without formally studying any of them or can reproduce music at the piano after only a single hearing. A savant studied by the English doctor J. Langdon Down in 1887 had memorized every page of Gibbon's ''Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.'' At the beginning of the 19th century, the splendidly named Gottfried Mind became famous all over Europe for the amazing pictures he drew of cats.

The conventional wisdom has long been that autistics' hyperliteral thought processes were completely separate from the more contextual, nuanced, social way that most adults think, a different mental function altogether. And so, by extension, the extraordinary skills of autistic savants have been regarded as flukes, almost inhuman feats that average minds could never achieve.

Snyder argues that all those assumptions — about everything from the way autistic savants behave down to the basic brain functions that cause them to do so — are mistaken. Autistic thought isn't wholly incompatible with ordinary thought, he says; it's just a variation on it, a more extreme example.

He first got the idea after reading ''The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,'' in which Oliver Sacks explores the link between autism and a very specific kind of brain damage. If neurological impairment is the cause of the autistic's disabilities, Snyder wondered, could it be the cause of their geniuslike abilities, too? By shutting down certain mental functions — the capacity to think conceptually, categorically, contextually — did this impairment allow other mental functions to flourish? Could brain damage, in short, actually make you brilliant?

In a 1999 paper called ''Is Integer Arithmetic Fundamental to Mental Processing? The Mind's Secret Arithmetic,'' Snyder and D. John Mitchell considered the example of an autistic infant, whose mind ''is not concept driven. . . . In our view such a mind can tap into lower level details not readily available to introspection by normal individuals.'' These children, they wrote, seem ''to be aware of information in some raw or interim state prior to it being formed into the 'ultimate picture.''' Most astonishing, they went on, ''the mental machinery for performing lightning fast integer arithmetic calculations could be within us all.''

And so Snyder turned to TMS, in an attempt, as he says, ''to enhance the brain by shutting off certain parts of it.''

''In a way, savants are the great enigma of today's neurology,'' says Prof. Joy Hirsch, director of the Functional M.R.I. Research Center at Columbia University. ''They exist in all cultures and are a distinct type. Why? How? We don't know. Yet understanding the savant will help provide insight into the whole neurophysiological underpinning of human behavior. That's why Snyder's ideas are so exciting — he's asking a really fundamental question, which no one has yet answered.''

If Snyder's suspicions are correct, in fact, and savants have not more brainpower than the rest of us, but less, then it's even possible that everybody starts out life as a savant. Look, for example, at the ease with which children master complex languages — a mysterious skill that seems to shut off automatically around the age of 12. ''What we're doing is counterintuitive,'' Snyder tells me. ''We're saying that all these genius skills are easy, they're natural. Our brain does them naturally. Like walking. Do you know how difficult walking is? It's much more difficult than drawing!''

To prove his point, he hooks me up to the Medtronic Mag Pro again and asks me to read the following lines:

A bird in the hand
is worth two in the
the bush

''A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,'' I say.

''Again,'' Snyder says, and smiles.

So once more: ''A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.'' He makes me repeat it five or six times, slowing me down until he has me reading each word with aching slowness.

Then he switches on the machine. He is trying to suppress those parts of my brain responsible for thinking contextually, for making connections. Without them, I will be able to see things more as an autistic might.

After five minutes of electric pulses, I read the card again. Only then do I see — instantly — that the card contains an extra ''the.''

On my own, I had been looking for patterns, trying to coax the words on the page into a coherent, familiar whole. But ''on the machine,'' he says, ''you start seeing what's actually there, not what you think is there.''

Snyder's theories are bolstered by the documented cases in which sudden brain damage has produced savant abilities almost overnight. He cites the case of Orlando Serrell, a 10-year-old street kid who was hit on the head and immediately began doing calendrical calculations of baffling complexity. Snyder argues that we all have Serrell's powers. ''We remember virtually everything, but we recall very little,'' Snyder explains. ''Now isn't that strange? Everything is in there'' — he taps the side of his head. ''Buried deep in all our brains are phenomenal abilities, which we lose for some reason as we develop into 'normal' conceptual creatures. But what if we could reawaken them?''

Not all of Snyder's colleagues agree with his theories. Michael Howe, an eminent psychologist at the University of Exeter in Britain who died last year, argued that savantism (and genius itself) was largely a result of incessant practice and specialization. ''The main difference between experts and savants,'' he once told New Scientist magazine, ''is that savants do things which most of us couldn't be bothered to get good at.''

Robert Hendren, executive director of the M.I.N.D. Institute at the University of California at Davis, brought that concept down to my level: ''If you drew 20 cats one after the other, they'd probably get better anyway.'' Like most neuroscientists, he doubts that an electromagnetic pulse can stimulate the brain into creativity: ''I'm not sure I see how TMS can actually alter the way your brain works. There's a chance that Snyder is right. But it's still very experimental.''

Tomas Paus, an associate professor of neuroscience at McGill University, who has done extensive TMS research, is even more dubious. ''I don't believe TMS can ever elicit complex behavior,'' he says.

But even skeptics like Hendren and Paus concede that by intensifying the neural activity of one part of the brain while slowing or shutting down others, TMS can have remarkable effects. One of its most successful applications has been in the realm of psychiatry, where it is now used to dispel the ''inner voices'' of schizophrenics, or to combat clinical depression without the damaging side effects of electroshock therapy. (NeuroNetics, an Atlanta company, is developing a TMS machine designed for just this purpose, which will probably be released in 2006, pending F.D.A. approval.)

Meanwhile, researchers at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke found that TMS applied to the prefrontal cortex enabled subjects to solve geometric puzzles much more rapidly. Alvaro Pascual-Leone, associate professor of neurology at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston (who, through his work at the Laboratory for Magnetic Brain Stimulation, has been one of the American visionaries of TMS), has even suggested that TMS could be used to ''prep'' students' minds before lessons.

None of this has gone unnoticed by canny entrepreneurs and visionary scientists. Last year, the Brain Stimulation Laboratory at the Medical University of South Carolina received a $2 million government grant to develop a smaller TMS device that sleep-deprived soldiers could wear to keep them alert. ''It's not 'Star Trek' at all,'' says Ziad Nahas, the laboratory's medical director. ''We've done a lot of the science on reversing cognitive deficiencies in people with insomnia and sleep deficiencies. It works.'' If so, it could be a small leap to the day it boosts soldiers' cognitive functioning under normal circumstances.

And from there, how long before Americans are walking around with humming antidepression helmets and math-enhancing ''hair dryers'' on their heads? Will commercially available TMS machines be used to turn prosaic bank managers into amateur Rembrandts? Snyder has even contemplated video games that harness specialized parts of the brain that are otherwise inaccessible.

''Anything is possible,'' says Prof. Vilayanur Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California at San Diego and the noted author of ''Phantoms in the Brain.'' Snyder's theories have not been proved, he allows, but they are brilliantly suggestive: ''We're at the same stage in brain research that biology was in the 19th century. We know almost nothing about the mind. Snyder's theories may sound like 'The X-Files,' but what he's saying is completely plausible. Up to a point the brain is open, malleable and constantly changing. We might well be able to make it run in new ways.'' Of those who dismiss Snyder's theories out of hand, he shrugs: ''People are often blind to new ideas. Especially scientists.''

Bruce L. Miller, the A.W. and Mary Margaret Claussen distinguished professor in neurology at the University of California at San Francisco, is intrigued by Snyder's experiments and his attempts to understand the physiological basis of cognition. But he points out that certain profound questions about artificially altered intelligence have not yet been answered. ''Do we really want these abilities?'' he asks. ''Wouldn't it change my idea of myself if I could suddenly paint amazing pictures?''

It probably would change people's ideas of themselves, to say nothing of their ideas of artistic talent. And though that prospect might discomfort Miller, there are no doubt others whom it would thrill. But could anyone really guess, in advance, how their lives might be affected by instant creativity, instant intelligence, instant happiness? Or by their disappearance, just as instantly, once the TMS is switched off?

As he walked me out of the university — a place so Gothic that it could be Oxford, but for the intensely flowering jacaranda in one corner and the strange Southern Hemisphere birds flitting about — and toward the freeway back to downtown Sydney, Snyder for his part radiated the most convincingly ebullient optimism. ''Remember that old saw which says that we only use a small part our brain? Well, it might just be true. Except that now we can actually prove it physically and experimentally. That has to be significant. I mean, it has to be, doesn't it?''

We stopped for a moment by the side of the roaring traffic and looked up at a haze in the sky. Snyder's eyes contracted inquisitively as he pieced together the unfamiliar facts (brown smoke, just outside Sydney) and eased them into a familiar narrative framework (the forest fires that had been raging all week). It was an effortless little bit of deductive, nonliteral thinking — the sort of thing that human beings, unaided by TMS, do a thousand times a day. Then, in an instant, he switched back to our conversation and picked up his train of thought. ''More important than that, we can change our own intelligence in unexpected ways. Why would we not want to explore that?''

Lawrence Osborne is a frequent contributor to the magazine.

This is
LONDON
27/06/03 – News and city section

Couple to have first 'Internet baby'
By Elaine Galloway, Evening Standard

Britain's first known DIY internet baby will be born next month, it was revealed today. A married couple from the South-East conceived the child using sperm bought from a website.

After paying a fee to browse the site, they were able to check criteria such as race, eye colour, height and weight of prospective donors, as well as details about their background, educational history and artistic ability.

They were then sent a home ovulation kit. When the woman, who is in her twenties, was at her most fertile, the website was alerted. A sample was collected from the donor and rushed to their home by courier. The couple were then left to carry out the procedure themselves.

News of the impending birth is sure to cause controversy. Supporters say the site provides a vital service for women who need a sperm donor to conceive but don't wish to use a conventional clinic. Some clinics will not treat women who are single, above a certain age or in a lesbian relationship.

But critics say selling sperm for commercial gain is unacceptable as is denying the child the right to know its father.

The Standard can reveal that 16 women are currently carrying babies conceived with sperm bought on the site Man Not Included, which was launched 12 months ago. The birth will be the first and the couple have asked not to be identified.

But another couple who are also expecting a child after using the site have gone public.

Jamie, 26, from Liverpool, turned to the service after deciding she wanted children with her partner of four years, Sarah, and getting no help from her GP.

She said: “We had been thinking about having children for about two years, but I was starting to think it would never happen.”

The couple registered immediately they discovered the website.

Jamie said: “It was fantastic. Everyone was really helpful and we found the whole process simple. Everything happened when they said it would and doing everything at home meant it was private and comfortable.”

Jamie conceived on her first attempt and is expecting a child in January. She said: “It is amazing. I jumped around the house when I found out and Sarah just sat in shock.

“We know that some people will be against what we've done and they are entitled to their opinions. As long as our child is loved and does not want for anything, I can't see how it is wrong.”

Sarah, 31, said: “We're so pleased we didn't have to go through a lot of trauma. We always knew we wanted to be a family and this means the world to us.”

Jamie added: “We've got the support of both of our families and there will be plenty of men in its life so the baby will not be deprived of a male role model.”

Man Not Included was launched in July 2002 and was initially intended for lesbians and single women, who are often excluded from fertility treatment.

Founder John Gonzales, a 40-year-old former City headhunter, said that more than 5,000 women have registered on the site since then and more than 800 men are listed as donors. About 60 women a month decide to go ahead with the service after registering.

The basic service costs £830. For £1,365, sperm from the donor can also be frozen to provide biological siblings in future years.

But Josephine Quintavalle from the campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics said: “A child has every right to know its father. Sperm donation has been going on for years but there is something incredibly crass and commercial about this. The rights of the children are being ignored in the interests of selfish adults.”

– —————– R. A. Hettinga The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA “… however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience.” — Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

Those of you may have been dawdling about signing up for the FSP should sign up now if you wish to have an influence on which state is picked. The 5000 member mark is rapidly approaching, and the deadline for signups has been set for August 15, 2003. Ballots will be due by September 8. Here's the relevant message from Jason:

Due to recent rapid membership growth, the Board decided to set vote dates
now and finalize the rest of the ballot process later. We plan to send
out ballots to existing members on July 15. The deadline to sign up to
participate in the vote will be August 15 (if we haven't reached 5000 by
then, the date will be postponed, but it looks as if we will easily reach
5000 by then). The deadline to return ballots to the vote counting
company will be September 8, then the ballots will go online, with member
# listed, so that each voter can check his ballot and make sure it was
counted correctly. On September 15 the results will be officially
ratified.

Here are some other salient features of the ballot report being analyzed:

# Ballots will be paper, they can be returned by mail or by e-mail as
scanned attachments (if the voting company allows this)

# A single double-sided sheet will be allocated to each state to make its
case, these will be included in the ballot mailing – start putting
together your reports NOW (use the state email lists)

# We will use an independent vote counting company (we've asked
election.com to do it, but haven't gotten a quote yet)

The reason we haven't been able to approve the report is that there's
still discussion over whether to require either notarization, a document
with name & address, or a phone number. I think that tripartite system
should work pretty well, provided not too many people opt for the phone
call.

There's still hope for liberty in France

[Swoon]

'You work so hard – I love it'
(Filed: 26/06/2003)

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2003/06/26/ftsab26.xml

Sabine Herold, 21, has been called France's answer to Margaret Thatcher. Alice Thomson brought her to London and showed her the sights

Sabine is my new French exchange partner. She is a political science student, very beautiful and speaks perfect English. She has also just become the most famous 21-year-old in France.

Dubbed France's Lady Thatcher by the newspapers, Mademoiselle Herold has been leading the rallies against the unions who have been crippling her country. Standing on a telephone box in her pearl earrings and high heels, she addresses crowds of 80,000, urging them to rise up against the striking teachers, Metro workers, rubbish collectors and air traffic controllers who are ruining people's lives. With her student friends, she has set up an organisation: Liberte J'Ecris Ton Nom, which has thousands of members, demanding that France reforms.

Now, she wants to come to Britain. Her email is simple: “I would like to spend my time meeting politicians. I don't wear jeans; I like red meat; please could I bring a camera crew?”

Here, she has been called Joan of Arc. “That is stupid,” she says. “I love Britain. I love Margaret Thatcher. I love the way you have overcome the unions and are not afraid to privatise. I love the way you work so hard. In France, we have become lazy and staid. We think only of weekends, holidays and how great we once were. We need a dose of Thatcherism.”

She doesn't want to go to Wimbledon. “No, I am here to work. Margaret Thatcher lived on five hours' sleep; so can I.”

As it is Sunday afternoon when she arrives, I explain that most politicians are in their constituencies. “Well, maybe I have time to shop,” she says. Going down Oxford Street, she is thrilled. “All your shops are open. In France, nothing is allowed to open on a Sunday.”

She has been to Britain before – as an exchange student in Birmingham for a year, where she earned extra money as a “dinner lady” in a canteen. Was the food awful? “No – in France, our supermarkets close at 6pm, so I never get there in time. In Birmingham, the supermarkets stayed open all night, and I cooked myself delicious suppers. My hobby is cooking five-course dinner parties to relax.”

Back on Oxford Street, she wants to go to the cheapest stores. “Our Left-wing newspapers say that I must be rich not to champion the workers. They say I dress only in Hermes. But my coat is from Etam. My mother is a school teacher who refuses to strike, my father a professor. My brother is a table-tennis player. We are from a small village near Reims. We work hard but I have no family money.”

Next, she wants to go to Speakers' Corner. In one corner, a Christian is ranting against sex in public lavatories; in another, a Muslim is sounding off against the Iraq war. “In France,” says Sabine, “we have no freedom of expression. Being different is frowned upon. Everyone must conform. I want to give power back to individuals.”

At supper, she meets three of the youngest high-flying Tory MPs: Boris Johnson, MP for Henley; David Cameron, MP for Witney; and George Osborne, MP for Tatton. She is smitten. They start talking about the 48-hour working week. “In France, it is 35 hours – ludicrous, no?” George Orwell's Animal Farm, she tells them, was the first political tract she ever read. “It blew me away. In France, communism is not a dirty word – many of the trade unions are openly communist. Being Right-wing and libertarian is considered dangerous.”

She asks them for advice on addressing crowds of 80,000. “After 10 minutes of shouting, I lose my voice,” she says. They explain that they have never addressed rallies that large, and are more used to village fetes. “But you must,” she says. “It is the most exciting thing in the world, getting up in front of a huge crowd. I have had a few threatening letters, and I have two student bodyguards, but it is worth it for the adrenalin.”

They suggest whisky, explaining that this is what Margaret Thatcher drank. “I will try some,” she says, taking a sip. She nearly chokes, but keeps going. “Very earthy,” she says. “In France, we are told that British Conservatives are all stuffy reactionaries. But you're very open-minded. You shall be my pen friends.”

The next day, we go to the Palace of Westminster. We take the Jubilee line which, amazingly, is extremely prompt, clean and efficient. “In Paris, I never know whether I will get to my lectures on time. The crowds who joined our rallies are young, working people who have had enough of their lives being disrupted by workers who are just greedy for more money, more pensions and less work.”

David Cameron takes her on a guided tour of the Palace, where one of his constituents recognises her. “Aren't you the new Margaret Thatcher?” she says. Sabine is amazed. She wants to touch the foot of Winston Churchill for luck. “I have studied his speeches, they are incredible,” she says.

We arrive at the paintings of the Battle of Trafalgar and the Battle of Waterloo. “It is a pity that France and England still fight,” she says. “President Chirac was spineless over the war. I led a pro-war rally. I almost collapsed in shock when I heard he was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. It was Saddam Hussein's regime, not President Bush's, that was despicable. I adore France. I will never leave – I love my cafes too much – but that does not mean I hate Britain or America.”

Lord Deedes takes her to lunch in the Lords, where she orders steak (English beef) and chips. “I don't have to call them freedom fries, do I?” She has no problem with McDonald's, either: “The French should be allowed to eat them if they want, even though they taste disgusting.”

She asks him if he ever met Friedrich Hayek, her favourite philosopher (and Margaret Thatcher's). Lord Deedes explains that he gave Hayek his first typewriter after he had commissioned him to write an article. Then he talks to her about the General Strike in the Thirties and the miners' strikes in the Seventies and Eighties, assuring her that the moment is right for a woman of her mettle.

Sabine can't believe that, at 90, Lord Deedes has not only been a Cabinet minister, but also a soldier, a newspaper editor and a columnist, as well as being best friends with Denis Thatcher. She has found a new hero. He tells her how to address a large audience: “Never speak on a full stomach – a tankard of champagne is all Anthony Eden needed.”

She asks him advice about her career. Should she become a politician straight away, or get a job first? She would love to become an MEP. “But, in France, these pathetic rules mean I am not allowed to until I am 23, so I will miss the next Euro elections by one month.” Also, there is now positive discrimination for women who want to go into politics. “And I would hate to be pitied as a token.”

In the afternoon, we hear Tony Blair report on the EU summit. The House is rowdy but she insists that our seat of government is not as raucous as it is in France. She is dismayed that her new Tory friends are against further integration with the European Union. “Why take it so seriously? I am a classical liberal, but I am also pro-European. So maybe I wouldn't fit so well into your Tory party.”

She admires Mr Blair. “He was very brave in Iraq. But now he is starting to raise taxes, and that is very bad.”

We have an hour's gap – would she like to rest? “I would like to go on the London Eye,” she says. “Your publicly financed Dome was a fiasco, but your big wheel is an example of private enterprise.” On the wheel, she notices all the cranes. “There is so much building work going on in Britain – that is good. Paris is a very beautiful city but it is becoming like a museum.”

In the evening, we go to a drinks party with Lord Black, the proprietor of The Daily Telegraph. She is fascinated by William Hague, “the child politician who eventually became leader of the Tory party”. She is more cautious about David Blunkett. “Is he a libertarian?”

Lord Powell, Lady Thatcher's former adviser, explains how Britain cracked the unions. He is helped by Michael Howard, the shadow chancellor, who tells her that he was the minister who finally abolished the closed shop. Jonathan Aitken, the former Tory minister, adds a note of caution. “We're not there yet,” he explains. “The prison unions still have a vice-like control.”

Anji Hunter, Tony Blair's former aide, explains how to get the best out of the unions. Sabine agrees: “I am not anti-union, just anti the communist ones.”

The next day, her mother, who “wishes I'd keep my head down”, rings to tell her that there has been a big article about her in Liberation, the Left-wing French newspaper. The French press are in a frenzy about her stay in London. Is she being a good ambassador for France? “Of course. It is because I love my country that I want to reform it.”

Every 10 minutes, another French cabinet minister is on the phone, asking her to lunch. She explains that, before her first demonstration, politicians were desperate to distance themselves from the student rabble. “Now that they see the rallies are attended by ordinary, fed-up people, rather than nutters, they are all saying they are my best friend – when I haven't even met them. But I think I will meet the Prime Minister.”

The stories in our newspapers fascinate her. “What is this anti-smacking law? What is wrong with a quick smack? I thought only the French liked these silly laws. In Finland, men are made to do 40 per cent of the housework. Libertarians in every country should rise up against this madness.”

She wants to go to a bookshop. We pass the pile of Harry Potters, but she heads straight for Wilkes and Burke: “Your great writers about freedom”. She is surprised by the amount of books that are anti-American. “I thought it was just us. In France, we are taught in school about American imperialism, that all Americans are either fat or work in sweatshops.”

Iain Duncan Smith is waiting for her in his office. “My son has just been to an Eminem concert. You can't fight American culture,” he tells her.

They get on so well that it looks as though Mr Duncan Smith wishes she were one of his own MPs. He asks her whether she will side with the Right in France. “It is difficult for me with French conservatives,” she tells him. “My group is completely liberal, both economically and morally. We support gay marriages, decriminalising soft drugs and prostitution, and decentralisation. But they are paternalistic and into big state government.” Mr Duncan Smith gulps.

A French businessman who has offered to finance her group meets her for lunch. Businessmen, he says, are also sick of the unions, but unlike Sabine, they haven't got the guts to say so. She tells him that the unions have stopped protesting for the moment – “But they will be back this autumn after their long holidays, and we must be prepared.”

After lunch, we arrive at the Foreign Office to meet Denis MacShane, the Europe minister, who offers her a glass of champagne and speaks immaculate French. From his windows, we watch the state visit of President Putin. “He used to be a communist, no? It is funny to see him surrounded by gold carriages, when his people killed some of your Royal Family.”

Denis and Sabine get on famously, agreeing that there is a need for the European constitution. They admit that Le Pen is France's best speaker. “It is such a shame that what he says is so dreadful,” says Sabine. As we head for the Eurostar, she is wistful. “I would love to live here, but my place is in France. I want to make us great again.”

Wanted: One State for a Political Experiment
Trish Anderton, 2003-06-23

For decades, Libertarians have warned that big government is eroding basic American rights. The Libertarian party advocates low taxes and a bare minimum of laws and regulations. Now some activists have formed the Free State Project to demonstrate that such a government would work. Their plan is for 20-thousand members of the organization to move to the same state. With that critical mass, they'd try to reshape how that state is run. New Hampshire Libertarians are holding events all week to convince the Free Staters to make the Granite State their political Laboratory.

[RealAudio and Windows Media files of interview available at link]

http://www.nhpr.org/view_content/4899/

NHPR's Trish Anderton reports.

listen:
Did we forget something? Tell us what we missed!

Below is a rough transcript
for your convenience only.
It is not word for word accurate.

IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR A UTOPIAN SETTING, IT'S HARD TO BEAT THE WHITE MOUNTAINS ON A SUMMER AFTERNOON. AT THE ROGERS CAMPGROUND IN LANCASTER, ABOUT FIFTY PEOPLE HAVE GATHERED FOR A SERIES OF EVENTS BEING BILLED AS
“ESCAPE TO NEW HAMPSHIRE.” HERE THEY'LL MINGLE, ADMIRE THE VIEW, AND
LISTEN TO SPEECHES.

38 I'd like to say this is a celebration but the title is escape to nh which I think belies the seriousness of the project.

MICHAEL BADNARIK IS A LIBERTARIAN CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004.

I think the fact we have to escape implies we have let fed govt get way out of control.

THE FREE STATE PROJECT DOESN'T REALLY HAVE A PLATFORM. ITS MEMBERS DON'T LIKE TO BE PIGEONHOLED. BUT THEY BELIEVE PROPERTY RIGHTS AND FREE MARKETS CAN SOLVE MOST PROBLEMS. THEY GENERALLY OPPOSE DRUG LAWS AND GUN CONTROL. THEY TEND TO SUPPORT THE RIGHT TO GAY MARRIAGE. GARY NOLAN IS A TALK SHOW HOST AND ANOTHER PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL. HE SAYS IF THOSE PRINCIPLES BECOME REALITY IN JUST ONE STATE, SUCH AS NEW HAMPSHIRE, THEY'LL SPARK AN EXPLOSION OF PROSPERITY.

businesses will relocate here. manufacturing will be here. for massachusetts and delaware and ohio to be viable, they'll have to follow your lead. if they follow your lead, canada's in trouble, europes in trouble, the world is in trouble, bc no one can compete with Americans when they're free.

THE FREE STATE PROJECT IS YOUNG. IT WAS LAUNCHED AFTER THE 2000 ELECTIONS. FOUNDER JASON SORENS IS ALSO YOUNG. HE'S JUST FINISHING UP HIS PhD DISSERTATION AT YALE. SPEAKING FROM HIS SUMMER HOME IN NORTH CAROLINA, SORENS SAYS HE WAS DISSATISFIED WITH THE LIBERTARIAN PERFORMANCE IN THOSE ELECTIONS. HE BEGAN WONDERING HOW MANY LIBERTARIAN-MINDED PEOPLE WOULD BE WILLING TO CONCENTRATE THEIR IMPACT BY MOVING TO THE SAME STATE TOGETHER. HE THOUGHT HE COULD GET 20-THOUSAND PEOPLE.

46 130 Later I researched what 20k people could expect to accomplish and judging from political data I gathered that in states of 1.5 million or less they could have a significant effect.

SORENS FLOATED THE IDEA ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB. WITHIN A WEEK, 200 PEOPLE
HAD EMAILED HIM SAYING THEY WERE WILLING TO MOVE. THE GROUP CHOSE TEN
POSSIBLE DESTINATIONS BASED ON SMALL SIZE, A DECENT JOB MARKET, AND FRIENDLINESS TO LIBERTARIAN PRINCIPLES. THE LIST INCLUDES FOUR IN THE EAST: NEW HAMPSHIRE, VERMONT, MAINE, AND DELAWARE. THERE ARE FIVE IN THE WEST: WYOMING, MONTANA, NORTH DAKOTA, SOUTH DAKOTA, AND IDAHO. ALASKA ROUNDS OUT
THE LIST.

bbq/kids amb

BUT WILL 20-THOUSAND PEOPLE IN MODERN AMERICA REALLY UPROOT JUST FOR POLITICAL REASONS? AS MEMBERS' KIDS SCAMPER AROUND AT A BARBECUE LATER THAT EVENING, SEVERAL FREE STATERS SAY YES. AMANDA PHILIPS LIVES IN MASSACHUSETTS. SHE'S A SINGLE MOM WHO WORKS FOR A COMPANY THAT MANAGES NURSING HOMES. SHE ADMITS IT WOULD BE DIFFICULT TO REARRANGE HER LIFE. BUT
SHE SAYS SHE DOESN'T MIND.

for what I'm getting out of it -liberty and a free society – I'll uproot. its worth it.

OTHERS AREN'T READY TO COMMIT YET. JOE POMPEI IS A HIGH-TECH ENTREPRENEUR WHO'S SOMEHOW HOLDING ONTO HIS VIEWS IN THAT HOTBED OF LIBERALISM, CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS. HE'S VERY TEMPTED BY THE IDEA OF A FREE STATE, BUT HE'S STILL DEBATING WHETHER TO SIGN UP.

20 00 its mostly just considering the practicality. how much my lifestyle needs to be adjusted. all the little nuts and bolts things.

NEW HAMPSHIRE LIBERTARIANS ARE PULLING OUT THE STOPS TO CONVINCE FREE STATERS THIS IS THE PLACE TO BE. THEY'RE SPENDING THE WEEK SHUTTLING PROJECT MEMBERS TO SOME OF NEW HAMPSHIRE'S MOST BEAUTIFUL SPOTS. THEY TOUT THE LACK OF SALES AND INCOME TAXES HERE. AND, AS LOCAL LIBERTARIAN DAN BELFORTI POINTS OUT, THERE'S THE FAMOUS STATE MOTTO.

live free or die. its part of our culture to be independent rather than rely on govt.

BUT NEW HAMPSHIRE'S NOT ALONE. THE WESTERN STATES RECENTLY HELD A MEETING IN MONTANA TO MAKE THEIR CASE. AND ARGUMENTS ABOUT THE RELATIVE BENEFITS OF EACH STATE RAGE ON THE PROJECT'S WEBSITE. JOHN BARNES, CHAIR OF THE NEW HAMPSHIRE EFFORT, FEARS THE COMPETITION COULD PULL THE YOUNG ORGANIZATION APART.

the westerners don't want to move west, the easterners don't want to move west. so the trick is to convince people they have to stick together and put aside preferences and all go to whtever state is chosen. itll be interesting to see if that ever really develops.

THE GROUP MAY FIND OUT SOON. IT'LL VOTE ON A STATE ONCE ITS ENROLLMENT REACHES 5-THOUSAND. ORGANIZERS EXPECT THAT TO HAPPEN THIS SUMMER. IF AND WHEN THEIR MEMBERSHIP REACHES 20-THOUSAND, EVERYONE WILL HAVE FIVE YEARS TO MOVE TO THE CHOSEN STATE. ONCE THERE, THE PLAN FOR GAINING POLITICAL CONTROL IS TYPICALLY, FREESTYLE. ELIZABETH MCKINSTRY IS VICE PRESIDENT OF THE FREE STATE PROJECT.

there will be some who are politically active and there will be some who don't buy into the political machine at all and prefer to work outside of it. // we're not going to direct that. we trust that once people have right info they'll do the right thing, that's what this is all about

FREE STATERS KNOW MANY AMERICANS ARE SKEPTICAL OF THEIR APPROACH. THEY KNOW SOME PEOPLE DON'T THINK SLASHING GOVERNMENT REGULATION WILL LEAD TO A CLEANER ENVIRONMENT. THEY UNDERSTAND OTHERS ARE ALARMED BY THE IDEA OF GUNS BEING CARRIED EVERYWHERE AND ANYWHERE. BUT, THEY SAY, ONCE THEY GET A CHANCE, THEY'LL PROVE THOSE WORRIES ARE MISPLACED. FOR NHPR NEWS I'M TRISH ANDERTON IN LANCASTER.