PeterWatts_Blindsight

Peter Watts 242 Blindsight
"There's a blind spot in the center of your visual field," Sarasti
pointed out. "You can't see it. You can't see the saccades in your
visual timestream. Just two of the tricks you know about. Many
others."
Cunningham was nodding. "That's my whole point. Rorschach
could be—"
"Not talking about case studies. Brains are survival engines, not
truth detectors. If self-deception promotes fitness, the brain lies.
Stops noticing— irrelevant things. Truth never matters. Only
fitness. By now you don't experience the world as it exists at all.
You experience a simulation built from assumptions. Shortcuts.
Lies. Whole species is agnosiac by default. Rorschach does
nothing to you that you don't already do to yourselves."
Nobody spoke. It was several silent seconds before I realized
what had happened.
Jukka Sarasti had just given us a pep talk.
He could have shut down Cunningham's tirade—could have
probably shut down a full-scale mutiny—by just sailing into our
midst and baring his teeth. By looking at us. But he wasn't trying
to frighten us into submission, we were already nervous enough.
And he wasn't trying to educate us either, fight fear with fact; the
more facts any sane person gathered about Rorschach, the more
fearful they'd become. Sarasti was only trying to keep us
functional, lost in space on the edge of our lives, facing down this
monstrous enigma that might destroy us at any instant for any
reason. Sarasti was trying to calm us down: good meat, nice meat.
He was trying to keep us from falling apart. There there.
Sarasti was practicing psychology.
I looked around the table. Bates and Cunningham and the Gang
sat still and bloodless.
Sarasti sucked at it.
"We have to get out of here," Cunningham said. "These things
are way beyond us."
"We've shown more aggression than they have," James said, but
there was no confidence in her voice.
"Rorschach plays those rocks like marbles. We're sitting in the
middle of a shooting gallery. Any time it feels like—"