out more of its ramifications: How could such a system be implemented?
And what would be its long-term effects on society? They concluded that
it could only be done in a closed system: In other words, an entire
society, out of touch with any other society, must do it, so there are
no contrast cases that could give birth to a we/they boundary, or any
sense of stigma, deprivation or abnormality. And their prediction was
that these children would grow up into an altruistic society, where
everything would be shared and no one preferred, rather the way the
socialists had hoped a mere change in political system could bring
about. No, human nature had to be modified, not genetically, by
rearranging our selfish genes, not through behavioral engineering, by
rescheduling our rewards and punishments, but by reshaping our brains
through universal early experience.
Then an unusual series of things happened. It cannot be said that Freida
had the genius to implement this system. It was chance that had thrown
her together with a population of disaffected ACLU lawyers and clerks.
She singled out a subset of them who were childless, unmarried, and not
in especially committed relationships. That was not difficult, because
it was the time when "free love" was one of the slogans of the day. But
these were not disaffected, drugged free-lovers. These were social
activists, and they had like-minded friends, who had like-minded
friends. Freida conducted seminars and expounded Evan's scheme to this
growing circle, some of them coming from quite prosperous families.
Before long, they felt they had reached critical mass, and were ready to
establish a colony that would implement the "aggregates-in-flux."
Funds were pooled and negotiations were conducted with a slightly dotty
English Lord who owned an offshore island near the UK that had legal
independent-nation status. The Lord had not had much of an agenda for
his little country. He had populated it with his own household servants
and hangers-on, but he owned many other properties and was prepared to
decamp in favour of this Utopian experiment that went far beyond his
expectations for his country (and far beyond his capacity to understand
abstractions). So he gave them, for free, a lease-hold for 100 years for
the Republic of Huma, as they decided to call it.
The population of Huma, mostly American, but with recruits from many
other countries too, mostly intellectuals, but with a reasonable blend
of subsistence skills from the greens among them, was "seeded" with
approximately 10,000 individuals, childless and of breeding age, around
50% male and 50% female, with all agreeing that, just as their progeny
would be raised in constant flux, their matings and pairings would be in
constant flux too. Among them were Freida and Evan. Like all the others,
they had bidden their families farewell, explaining that their
experiment depended critically on making sure that Huma was a closed
system, with no outside influences.