One evening the famed constructor Trurl, silent and preoccupied, dropped in on his good friend Klapaucius. Klapaucius sought to divert him with a few of the latest cybernetic jokes, but Trurl shook his head and said:

‘Please, frivolity cannot dispel my melancholy, for the thought that has taken root in my soul is, alas, as undeniable as it is lamentable. Namely, I have reached the conclusion that in all our long and illustrious career we have accomplished nothing of real value!’

And he cast a look of censure and disdain upon the impressive collection of medals, trophies and honorary degrees in gold frames that graced the walls of Klapaucius's study.

‘A serious charge’, observed Klapaucius. ‘On what grounds do you make it?’

‘Hear me out, I shall explain. We have made peace between warring kingdoms, instructed monarchs in the proper use of power, fashioned machines to tell stories and machines to serve as quarry, we have defeated evil tyrants as well as galactic bandits that lay in ambush for us, yet in all this we served only ourselves, adding to our own glory—achieving next to nothing for the Common Good! Our efforts to perfect the lives of those poor innocents we encountered in our travels from planet to planet never once produced a state of Absolute Happiness. The solutions we offered them were makeshift, stopgap, jury-rigged—so if we have earned any title, it is surely Charlatans of Ontology, Subtle Sophists of Creation, and not Abolishers of Evil!’

‘Whenever I hear anyone speak of programming Happiness, I am filled with foreboding’, said Klapaucius. ‘Come to your senses, Trurl! Don't you know such noble enterprises invariably end in tragedy and despair? Can you have so soon forgotten the pitiful fate of Bonhomius the hermetic hermit, who attempted to make the entire macrocosm happy with the aid of a drug called Altruizine? To be sure, one may in some measure alleviate the cares of life, see that justice is done, rekindle dying suns, pour oil on the troubled gears of social mechanisms— but in no way, by no machinery known create happiness! We can only nurture the hope of it in our hearts, pursue its bright, inspiring image in our minds on a quiet evening such as this … A man of wisdom must content himself with that, my friend!’