how are R-Bombs prevented?

SWM wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:Thanks. So, your read on O'Hanrahan is that she, despite not living in the Alignment echo chamber, really is simply that unmoved by the scale of suffering the Plan embraces and/or puts such a value on the Detweiler Vision that it's worth it?

It does jack up the credit she's due as an actress.

That's my read, yes. After all, I think she knew the truth about what happened at Monica, New Tuscany, and Green Pines, and didn't seem to have any problems with it. But I am uncertain exactly how many details she knows, so I am open to the possibility that there are some Alignment plans she might be uncomfortable with.

I'd be particularly interested in the things that aren't "OFS With More Brains and Different Bosses" scheming, the things that go beyond underhanded power politics. Like consigning most of humanity - including almost all the people O'Hanrahan has worked with, had as friends or lovers, and defended in public against the abuses of power - to reproductive dead-ends in a society ruled by their genetic masters. It wasn't stuff like Monica or New Tuscany that flipped Jack McBryde, for instance - it was the treatment of and attitudes toward Francesca and Herlander Simoes.

And I wouldn't say that she is outside of the echo chamber. Just being out in the "real world" does not mean being out of the echo chamber. To be outside the echo chamber, she would have to hear someone proposing that the Alignment's plans might fail or that their goal might not be the best future for mankind, or that this or that plan might have flaws. Since there is no one outside the Alignment who knows enough about the Alignment to make such statements, and no one inside the Alignment is making such statements, I would say that O'Hanrahan is just as enclosed in the echo chamber as Detweiler. Possibly more so, since all she knows about the Alignment plans are carefully filtered by her superiors.

Granted, but then we're quibbling around the use of the phrase "echo chamber" a bit. Unlike Detweilers, she does live among, work with, and in particular play professionally to, people outside the Onion and with very different values. Even if none of them are in a position to tell her, "Hey, Audrey - this Plan is messed up!", she's certainly in a position to be well aware of that stance. Heck, as a crusading muckraker, she lives on exposing powerful people relegating the masses to mere tools to be exploited and cast off. She's heard her targets offer the same sorts of justifications for their abuses as the Alignment may offer for its own. It'd take very little self-awareness to consider that point of view with what she knows and suspects, and being able to see things from the other side is (I would think) an important skill for her both as a journalist and as a provacateur. (Provacateuse?)

She puzzles me.

JeffEngel wrote:It'd take very little self-awareness to consider that point of view with what she knows and suspects, and being able to see things from the other side is (I would think) an important skill for her both as a journalist and as a provacateur. (Provacateuse?)

She puzzles me.

Look up Walter Duranty.

JeffEngel wrote:

SWM wrote:That's my read, yes. After all, I think she knew the truth about what happened at Monica, New Tuscany, and Green Pines, and didn't seem to have any problems with it. But I am uncertain exactly how many details she knows, so I am open to the possibility that there are some Alignment plans she might be uncomfortable with.

I'd be particularly interested in the things that aren't "OFS With More Brains and Different Bosses" scheming, the things that go beyond underhanded power politics. Like consigning most of humanity - including almost all the people O'Hanrahan has worked with, had as friends or lovers, and defended in public against the abuses of power - to reproductive dead-ends in a society ruled by their genetic masters. It wasn't stuff like Monica or New Tuscany that flipped Jack McBryde, for instance - it was the treatment of and attitudes toward Francesca and Herlander Simoes.

But that's the part of the plan we can be absolutely certain she does know about. The text tells us that she is inside the Onion and knows the goal of the Alignment.

And McBryde knew it, too, for many years before he suddenly had a change of heart. It wasn't as if he suddenly turned against the Alignment when he learned their plans. It was a very specific situation that opened his eyes. Note that it wasn't even Francesca that changed McBryde's mind; it was long discussions with Simoes. Until he talked with Simoes and thought critically about the situation, he did not have a problem with the culling of Francesca. Simoes served as the voice from outside the echo chamber.

Similarly, if O'Hanrahan has a change of heart, it won't be because she learns the about the ultimate goal of the Alignment--she already knows it. A change of heart would only come because of some specific situation. I would say that almost anyone inside the Alignment (except perhaps those with the most invested in it) could have a change of heart if the right situation came along. O'Hanrahan is no different from any other Alignment insider in that respect, IMHO.