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PARTISAN REVIEW
white bull ... What does it matter, Petrovich , how the Common Market knows
if computer knows! What's more important, cause or effect!
Effect of course .
IZ.ight, Petrovi ch. And hen ce computer knows. What to produce, in what vol–
ume, the raw materials, where to sell.
It sings! Spills the beans
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other words, blows the whistle .
Well, if you insist. The main thing is not to bust your brain, whether it's bacon
or soda or hc avy industry. Thereforc it decides: what! when! where'
Automatically. Scts th e tcrms.
Sentcnces, you mcan.
If you insist. Main thing, automatically. And olle doesll 't h:lVe to bust one's brain.
Neither we nor the population.
One docs time!
W ell , if you wish . Though terms vary.
Sure, people arc also not all alike.
Yeah, cvcn ours.
Finicky. Aspirations all the timc arc changing.
Uh-huh. Now give them this, now that.
All the time they arc comi ng up with all sorts of delllands.
W cll, this has all been programmed. It's all taken into accoullt, with a margin of
error of course.
Yct the population itself also varies.
Uh-huh. Thc growth, say, the mortality , imllligration .
It's all takcn into account, Gustav . Mortality especially. There is nothing easier
to
take into account than Illortality.
Yeah, cvcn we managcd to calc ulate it, in our time.
A regulator of living sta ndards, cOllle to think of it.
In some places, simply a guarantee of their rising.
Or of stabilization. Ethiopia, for instance.
Or Bangladesh .
No, there it's rising.
Macabre.
And if
SOIllC
guy decides not to go to work
l
