Title: Two Plus Two Makes Crazy
Author: Sheldon, Walter J., 1917-
Language: English
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    _Walt Sheldon is bitter-bright in this imaginative short satire of
    Man's sell-out by a group of staunch believers in the infallibility
    of numbers._


   two
  plus
   two
 makes
 crazy

 _by ... Walt Sheldon_


 The Computer could do no wrong. Then it was asked
 a simple little question by a simple little man.


The little man had a head like an old-fashioned light bulb and a smile
that seemed to say he had secrets from the rest of the world. He didn't
talk much, just an occasional "Oh," "Mm" or "Ah." Krayton figured he
must be all right, though. After all he'd been sent to Computer City by
the Information Department itself, and his credentials must have been
checked in a hundred ways and places.

"Essentially each computer is the same," said Krayton, "but adjusted to
translate problems into the special terms of the division it serves."

Krayton had a pleasant, well-behaved impersonal voice. He was in his
thirties and mildly handsome. He considered himself a master of the
technique of building a career in Computer City--he knew how to stay
within the limits of directives and regulations and still make
decisions, or rather to relay computer decisions that kept his
responsibility to a minimum.

Now Krayton spoke easily and freely to the little man. As public liaison
officer he had explained the computer system hundreds of times. He knew
it like a tech manual.

"But is there any _real_ central control, say in case of a breakdown or
something of that sort?" The little man's voice was dry as lava ash, dry
as the wastes between and beyond the cities. Tanter, was the name he'd
given--Mr. Tanter. His contact lenses were so thick they made his eyes
seem to bulge grotesquely. He had a faint stoop and wore a black tunic
which made his look like one of the reconstructed models of prehistoric
birds called crows that Krayton had seen in museums.

"Of course, of course," said Krayton, answering the question. "It's
never necessary to use the _All_ circuit. But we could very easily in
case of a great emergency."

"The _All_ circuit? What is that?" Mr. Tanter asked.

Krayton gestured and led the little man down the long control bank.
Their steps made precise clicks on the layaplast floor. The stainless
steel walls threw back tinny echoes. The chromium molding glistened,
always pointing the way--the straight and mathematical way. They were in
the topmost section of the topmost building of Computer City. The
several hundred clean, solid, wedding-cake structures of the town could
be seen from the polaflex window.

"The _All_ circuit puts every machine in the city to work on any
selection-problem that's fed into our master control here. Each machine
will give its answer in its own special terms, but actually they will
all work on the same problem. To use a grossly simple example, let us
say we wish to know the results of two-and-two, but we wish to know it
in terms of _total security_. That is, we wish to know that two-plus-two
means twice as many nourishment units for the Department of Foods, twice
as many weapons for the Department of War, but is perhaps not
necessarily true according to the current situational adjustment in the
Department of Public Information.

"At any rate, we would set up our problem on the master, pushing the
button _Two_, then the button _Plus_, and the button _Two_ again as on a
primitive adding machine. Then we would merely throw the _All_ switch. A
short time later the total answer to our problem would be relayed back
from every computer, and the cross-comparison factors canceled out, so
that we would have the result in terms of the familiar _Verdict
Statement_. And, as everyone knows, the electronically filed _Verdict
Statements_ make the complete record of directives for the behavior of
our society."

"Very interesting," said Mr. Tanter, the little crow-like man. He
blinked rapidly, stared at the switch marked _All_ that Krayton was
pointing out to him.

Krayton now folded his hands in front of his official gold-and-black
tunic, looked up into the air and rocked gently back and forth on his
heels as he talked. He was really talking to himself now although he
seemed to address Tanter. "You can see that the Computer System is quite
under our control in spite of what these rebellious, underground groups
say."

"Underground groups?" asked Mr. Tanter mildly. Just his left eye seemed
to blink this time. And the edge of his mouth gave the veriest twitch.

"Oh, you know," said Krayton, "the organization that calls itself the
Prims. Prim for Primitive. They leave little cards and pamphlets around
damning the Computer System. I saw one the other day. It had a big title
splashed across it: OUR NEW TYRANT--THE COMPUTER. The article complained
that some of the new labor and food regulations were the result of
conscious reasoning on the part of The Computer. Devices to build the
Computer bigger and bigger and bigger at the expense of ordinary
workers. You know the sort of thing."

"But it is true that the living standard is going down all the time,
isn't it?" asked Mr. Tanter, keeping his ephemeral smile. "What about
those three thousand starvation deaths up in Hydroburgh?"

Krayton waved an impatient hand. "There will always be problems like
that here and there." He turned and stared almost reverently at the long
control rack. "Be thankful we have The Computer to solve them."

"But the deaths were due to diverting that basic carbon shipment down
here to Computer City for computer-building, weren't they?"

"Now, there--you see how powerful the propaganda of the Prims can be?"
Krayton put his hands on his hips. "That statement is not true! It
simply isn't true at all! It was analyzed on The Computer some days ago.
Here, let me show you." He took several steps down the corridor again
and stopped at another panel.

"We first collected from the various departments--Food, Production,
Labor and so forth--all the _possible_ causes of the starvation deaths
in Hydroburgh. Computer Administration had its machine translate them
into symbols. We're getting a huge new plant and machine addition over
at Administration, by the way.

"At any rate, we simply registered all the possible causes with the
Master Computer, threw in this circuit marked _Validity Selector_. Out
of all those causes The Computer picked the one that was most valid. The
Hydroburgh tragedy was due to lack of foresight on the part of
Hydroburgh's planners. If they'd had a proper stockpile of basic carbon
the thing never would have happened."

"But no community ever stockpiles," said the little man.

"That," said Krayton, "doesn't alter the fundamental fact. The Computer
never lies." He drew himself up stiffly as he said this. Then abruptly
he consulted the chronometer on the far wall.

"Excuse me just a moment, Mr. Tanter," he said. "It's time to feed the
daily tax computation from Finance. We have to start a little earlier on
that these days--the new taxes, you know."

As Krayton moved off Tanter's thin smile widened just a little. As soon
as Krayton was out of sight he stepped with his odd, crow-like stride to
the numerical panel, punched two-plus-two, then adjusted the Operations
pointer to HOLD. After that he punched three-plus-one, and HOLD once
more.

He moved over to the _Validity Selector_, switched the numerical panel
in, closed the circuit.

In his dry voice he murmured to the whole control rack: "Three-plus-one
makes four, two-plus-two makes four. Three-plus-one, two-plus-two--tell
me which is really true."

All through the master computer relays clicked and tubes glowed as the
problem was sent to all the sub-computers in their own special terms.
Food, Production, Labor, Public Information, War, Peace, Education,
Science and so forth.

All over Computer City the solenoids moved their contacts and the
filaments turned cherry red. Oscillating circuits hummed silently to
themselves in perfect Q. The life warmth of hysteresis pulsed and
throbbed along wires and channels. _Three-plus-one, two-plus-two--tell
me which is really true._ The problem criss-crossed in and out, around,
about, checking, cross-checking, re-checking as The Computer 'thought'
about the problem.

Which was really true?

Even before Krayton returned parts of The Computer had begun to get red
hot. It hummed in some places and in the other places relays going back
and forth in indecision made an unhealthy rattling noise.

Little Mr. Tanter beamed happily to himself as he recalled the words of
an old directive The Computer itself had issued in the matter of public
thought control. _When a brain is faced with two absolutely equal
alternatives complete breakdown invariably results._

Mr. Tanter kept smiling and rocked back and forth on his feet as Krayton
had done. Before nightfall The Computer would be a useless and
overheated mass of plastic and metal!

He took a printed folder from his pocket and casually dropped it on the
floor where someone would be sure to find it. It was one of the
pamphlets the Prims were always leaving around.



Transcriber's Note:

    This etext was produced from _Fantastic Universe_ March 1954.
    Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
    copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
    typographical errors have been corrected without note.





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