Here is some lovely concept art by Giacomo Costa of grey goo overrunning a city, along with a nice little blurb from io9 explaining the possible situation that could have caused it.
In case you're not familiar, "grey goo" is the common name for a scenario where self-replicating nanotech (which looks like a pool of grey goo) runs amok and turns everything on earth into more grey goo. Grey goo isn't a good PA scenario since it tends to end with everything, and I mean everything, dead. Even so, a more selective nanomachine - maybe one that eats plastics or metal - might make for a more interesting scenario. More on that some other time...
Grey Goo Artwork via io9
Showing posts with label apocalypse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apocalypse. Show all posts
Friday, May 15, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Book: Bugs in the Arroyo
Reader (and friend) Abra pointed out this excerpt from "Bugs in the Arroyo" by Steven Gould. The story has a very interesting form of apocalypse: metal eating bugs. I get the impression they might be some kind of self-replicating machine gone wild. It reminds me of Ray Bradbury's short story "A Piece of Wood," where a man discovers a compound that quickly turns metal into rust.
A metal-free future would be a particularly difficult one. Certain things like saws would be difficult, if not impossible to make. Plows and axes are possible with other materials, but inferior. There would be no guns or bullets, or even nails. Harnessing electricity would be basically impossible. On the other hand, glass has a very sharp edge even if it doesn't hold very long, and some types of wood are as strong as some metals. I suspect that a culture prepared for an event like that might be able to develop some strong plastics (or as mentioned in the story, fiberglass) to replace certain metal items, but they'd still be locked into a permanent metal-free existence.
I'm sure these aren't the only two examples of metal-free futures, or ones where certain resources are "off-limits." If you can think of more, let me know in the comments.
A metal-free future would be a particularly difficult one. Certain things like saws would be difficult, if not impossible to make. Plows and axes are possible with other materials, but inferior. There would be no guns or bullets, or even nails. Harnessing electricity would be basically impossible. On the other hand, glass has a very sharp edge even if it doesn't hold very long, and some types of wood are as strong as some metals. I suspect that a culture prepared for an event like that might be able to develop some strong plastics (or as mentioned in the story, fiberglass) to replace certain metal items, but they'd still be locked into a permanent metal-free existence.
I'm sure these aren't the only two examples of metal-free futures, or ones where certain resources are "off-limits." If you can think of more, let me know in the comments.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Swine Flu
Swine Flu has been all over the news the last couple of days. Lots of people are using the word pandemic. Is this the big one? Personally, I doubt it. Governments got very scared about SARS and Bird Flu in the last few years, so I think the appropriate agencies are relatively well prepared for this.
Just a word of advice - when it comes to science and medicine, don't listen to your friends. They don't know anything (unless they're, you know, doctors and scientists in appropriate fields). Find authoritative sources. The Center for Disease Control, scientific websites like New Scientist and Nature and professional health-focused sites like WebMD are a better source of information than that guy you talk to on the bus. Even the usually terrible local evening news is slightly better. Misinformation is very dangerous during an emergency.
So, after all that let's get all worked up. This is all hypothetical. What would an apocalyptic swine flu pandemic look like?
If we look at a real pandemic like the 1918 Spanish flu, which killed about 100 million people, it's easy to see that a disease on that scale isn't really apocalyptic in nature. The Spanish flu killed between 2.5-5% of the human population. To be apocalyptic it would have to go way beyond that and kill maybe 25% or more, like the Black Death did in 14th century Europe.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that it has high lethality, is resistant to treatment, spreads easily and ultimately kills about 25% of the population, spread around evenly. Since it was caught after quite a few deaths in Mexico, and there are known cases in the US, it's a safe bet it has spread to other locations via major travel hubs and large cities - LA, NYC, London, Paris, Hong Kong, Beijing, etc... If things go well any infected people will be quickly identified and isolated and the spread of the disease halted in that area. If they don't go well once these major travel hubs are thoroughly infected they will be next to impossible to lock down. The disease will spread out to smaller cities and towns as panicked people head away from the bigger cities.
Once the disease really starts to infect large numbers of people and the authorities try to restrict travel we can expect to see problems with resources. I think this is especially true of places like the US and Europe, where there are not necessarily a lot of local resources of particular types because it's cheaper to centralize and ship long distances. For example, car manufacturers might have a hard time getting steel because their trains are restricted or there are too many sick engineers. Certain goods will become very hard to find, for instance tropical fruits in the upper midwest US. Obviously the authorities will try to keep medicine and necessities in good supply, and if nothing else happens to make it worse, the effects of the pandemic will probably end somewhere around there. Lots of people dead, but little else truly impacted. Critical infrastructure and government will likely remain in place and functional.
As long as the percentage of deaths doesn't go too high, there will be a shifting in people's focus. People involved with luxury items and non-essentials will shift to fill the gaps in more essential services. We might see a drop in dog groomers, florists and baristi and an increase in local farming and manufacturing jobs. Some other interesting fallout would be a wide-scale housing market upset, as so many vacant homes come on the market. You won't be able to sell your house because it's so easy to get a cheap vacant one. People who are renting currently will be able to cheaply move into their own houses and the rental market will be in big trouble.
For a few years after the pandemic I expect there will be a kind of resistance to large social gatherings, or even the use of public transportation. The car market may boom despite recent environmental concerns as people shy away from the close quarters of the bus and train. Telecommuting will become huge, first because it will let people work while ill without any risk to coworkers, and second because it will be necessary to recruit people from farther away if there are shortages in skilled workers locally.
The developing world is going to be hit much, much harder than the US and Europe. Medical supplies are already limited, and areas that are already experiencing war, famine or the AIDS epidemic may be all but wiped out. Places that loose too much of their population will see their basic infrastructure collapse, and the rest of the world will be ill-equiped to assist.
All in all, it would be a pretty scary and nasty event, but compared to the other big potential apocalypses (nuclear war, environmental collapse and zombies) this one is pretty mild. The human race will certainly survive and the world won't be a wretched hellscape for generations. There may even be some upshots. After facing a brush with apocalypse, people might start to think in longer terms than they did before and plan more effectively for this kind of thing. A drastic reduction in population will also cause a drastic (temporary) reduction in environmental impact which could slow the approach of some of the environmental dangers looming on the horizon.
All this is just my opinion, obviously. What do you think could happen during or after an apocalyptic plague? Let me know in the comments.
Just a word of advice - when it comes to science and medicine, don't listen to your friends. They don't know anything (unless they're, you know, doctors and scientists in appropriate fields). Find authoritative sources. The Center for Disease Control, scientific websites like New Scientist and Nature and professional health-focused sites like WebMD are a better source of information than that guy you talk to on the bus. Even the usually terrible local evening news is slightly better. Misinformation is very dangerous during an emergency.
So, after all that let's get all worked up. This is all hypothetical. What would an apocalyptic swine flu pandemic look like?
If we look at a real pandemic like the 1918 Spanish flu, which killed about 100 million people, it's easy to see that a disease on that scale isn't really apocalyptic in nature. The Spanish flu killed between 2.5-5% of the human population. To be apocalyptic it would have to go way beyond that and kill maybe 25% or more, like the Black Death did in 14th century Europe.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that it has high lethality, is resistant to treatment, spreads easily and ultimately kills about 25% of the population, spread around evenly. Since it was caught after quite a few deaths in Mexico, and there are known cases in the US, it's a safe bet it has spread to other locations via major travel hubs and large cities - LA, NYC, London, Paris, Hong Kong, Beijing, etc... If things go well any infected people will be quickly identified and isolated and the spread of the disease halted in that area. If they don't go well once these major travel hubs are thoroughly infected they will be next to impossible to lock down. The disease will spread out to smaller cities and towns as panicked people head away from the bigger cities.
Once the disease really starts to infect large numbers of people and the authorities try to restrict travel we can expect to see problems with resources. I think this is especially true of places like the US and Europe, where there are not necessarily a lot of local resources of particular types because it's cheaper to centralize and ship long distances. For example, car manufacturers might have a hard time getting steel because their trains are restricted or there are too many sick engineers. Certain goods will become very hard to find, for instance tropical fruits in the upper midwest US. Obviously the authorities will try to keep medicine and necessities in good supply, and if nothing else happens to make it worse, the effects of the pandemic will probably end somewhere around there. Lots of people dead, but little else truly impacted. Critical infrastructure and government will likely remain in place and functional.
As long as the percentage of deaths doesn't go too high, there will be a shifting in people's focus. People involved with luxury items and non-essentials will shift to fill the gaps in more essential services. We might see a drop in dog groomers, florists and baristi and an increase in local farming and manufacturing jobs. Some other interesting fallout would be a wide-scale housing market upset, as so many vacant homes come on the market. You won't be able to sell your house because it's so easy to get a cheap vacant one. People who are renting currently will be able to cheaply move into their own houses and the rental market will be in big trouble.
For a few years after the pandemic I expect there will be a kind of resistance to large social gatherings, or even the use of public transportation. The car market may boom despite recent environmental concerns as people shy away from the close quarters of the bus and train. Telecommuting will become huge, first because it will let people work while ill without any risk to coworkers, and second because it will be necessary to recruit people from farther away if there are shortages in skilled workers locally.
The developing world is going to be hit much, much harder than the US and Europe. Medical supplies are already limited, and areas that are already experiencing war, famine or the AIDS epidemic may be all but wiped out. Places that loose too much of their population will see their basic infrastructure collapse, and the rest of the world will be ill-equiped to assist.
All in all, it would be a pretty scary and nasty event, but compared to the other big potential apocalypses (nuclear war, environmental collapse and zombies) this one is pretty mild. The human race will certainly survive and the world won't be a wretched hellscape for generations. There may even be some upshots. After facing a brush with apocalypse, people might start to think in longer terms than they did before and plan more effectively for this kind of thing. A drastic reduction in population will also cause a drastic (temporary) reduction in environmental impact which could slow the approach of some of the environmental dangers looming on the horizon.
All this is just my opinion, obviously. What do you think could happen during or after an apocalyptic plague? Let me know in the comments.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Garage Biology and Comets
New Scientist has two articles today concerning what I see as potential causes for TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It).
Rise of the garage genome hackers is about people making new biological organisms in their garages. I think it's fairly obvious how that could go wrong, even if it is unlikely.
Comet smashes triggered ancient famine tells us about a series of comets that hit the earth in 536 AD and triggered 18 months of darkness that caused world wide famine. Even in 536 AD, when we weren't so detached from our environment and dependent on technology for continued survival, that must have been very much like the end of the world.
Rise of the garage genome hackers is about people making new biological organisms in their garages. I think it's fairly obvious how that could go wrong, even if it is unlikely.
Comet smashes triggered ancient famine tells us about a series of comets that hit the earth in 536 AD and triggered 18 months of darkness that caused world wide famine. Even in 536 AD, when we weren't so detached from our environment and dependent on technology for continued survival, that must have been very much like the end of the world.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
How will the world end? Nuke 'em 'till they glow.
Nuclear war is probably the cause of most "traditional" P-A worlds. Nuclear bombs are among the most powerful weapons we have, and fallout from radiation can keep doing damage even after the bomb itself is long gone. Typically, an escalation in hostilities results in two major countries (the US and usually Russia or China) lobbing bombs. The rest of the world joins in, and pretty soon most major cities have been blown up and the surrounding areas irradiated. Radioactive fallout blows across wide swaths of land, killing and mutating as it goes. Sometimes there is a nuclear winter, where dust in the atmosphere cools the planet and causes an extended winter. Survivors of the initial war take refuge in bomb shelters and bunkers, sometimes for generations. Remnants of technology are here and there, but between the destruction and the passage of time, examples of advanced technology are few and far between. There are usually some fanciful mutant humans and animals too, caused by exposure to radiation.
One of the things I like about the nuclear P-A world is the fight against the environment, which seems to be more important than in some other types of P-A worlds. Radiation in high enough doses kills pretty much everything, and finding uncontaminated food and water is a major task. Large irradiated areas prevent movement across country. Radiation is also somewhat mysterious, an invisible foe and difficult to deal with. There is also a popular tradition of radiation causing viable mutations which makes for some interesting obstacles in the new world.
The classic computer RPG Fallout and its successors take place in a nuclear P-A world inhabited mostly by human survivors, but also by mutant humans called ghouls and super-mutants. High technology is usually military in nature, and the pre-apocalypse technology level included energy weapons, power armor, robots and fusion powered cars, to name a few examples. The games don't focus much on survival but more on combat and interaction with the small towns and villages trying to deal with the bad elements of the world, mostly roaming gangs and mutant menaces. Fallout 3 is in the works, and will have more survival elements, like radiated water. You'll need to drink water occasionally, but most of the water you find will be slightly irradiated, so you'll have to balance the two factors. You can find more about the Fallout series at the fan site No Mutants Allowed.
The book A Canticle for Leibowitz is a more serious fictional look at dealing with the recovery of civilization after a major nuclear war. After the war, the survivors rebel against technology and science and send the world into a new dark age. An order of monks hides and preserves books for future generations so that they can recover the science and technology of the old world. The idea of the monks preserving valuable books is one of the things that inspired me to start the Post-Apocalyptic Survival Bookshelf. Canticle deals with a lot of interesting issues, like faith, knowledge and power, but only the first third of the book really deals with the kind of post-apocalyptic world I'm interested in. During the other two thirds civilization has recovered to the point that they are no longer fighting against the environment, but merely other civilized humans.
What are your favorite nuclear themed P-A worlds?
One of the things I like about the nuclear P-A world is the fight against the environment, which seems to be more important than in some other types of P-A worlds. Radiation in high enough doses kills pretty much everything, and finding uncontaminated food and water is a major task. Large irradiated areas prevent movement across country. Radiation is also somewhat mysterious, an invisible foe and difficult to deal with. There is also a popular tradition of radiation causing viable mutations which makes for some interesting obstacles in the new world.
The classic computer RPG Fallout and its successors take place in a nuclear P-A world inhabited mostly by human survivors, but also by mutant humans called ghouls and super-mutants. High technology is usually military in nature, and the pre-apocalypse technology level included energy weapons, power armor, robots and fusion powered cars, to name a few examples. The games don't focus much on survival but more on combat and interaction with the small towns and villages trying to deal with the bad elements of the world, mostly roaming gangs and mutant menaces. Fallout 3 is in the works, and will have more survival elements, like radiated water. You'll need to drink water occasionally, but most of the water you find will be slightly irradiated, so you'll have to balance the two factors. You can find more about the Fallout series at the fan site No Mutants Allowed.
The book A Canticle for Leibowitz is a more serious fictional look at dealing with the recovery of civilization after a major nuclear war. After the war, the survivors rebel against technology and science and send the world into a new dark age. An order of monks hides and preserves books for future generations so that they can recover the science and technology of the old world. The idea of the monks preserving valuable books is one of the things that inspired me to start the Post-Apocalyptic Survival Bookshelf. Canticle deals with a lot of interesting issues, like faith, knowledge and power, but only the first third of the book really deals with the kind of post-apocalyptic world I'm interested in. During the other two thirds civilization has recovered to the point that they are no longer fighting against the environment, but merely other civilized humans.
What are your favorite nuclear themed P-A worlds?
Monday, July 16, 2007
How will the world end?
Probably the most important thing to discuss when it comes to a Post-Apocalyptic (P-A) world is what form the apocalypse took. Science fiction (and fantasy) have presented us with many possibilities, including war, plague, asteroid/impact, ecological collapse, alien invasion and supernatural upheaval.
Most of these have really similar elements.
In future posts, I'll try to focus on some of these different kinds of apocalypses and try to bring out some of the differences.
Most of these have really similar elements.
- A whole lot of people die, rapture or get kidnapped by aliens. In any case, they're gone.
- Loss of people results in loss of government, or at least a vastly weakened government. Survivors are suddenly on their own. This can be anywhere from one lone person who mysteriously survives a plague, to entire cities building walls to keep out the crazies in the wastelands.
- Frequently, though not always, the environment becomes hostile. This might due to radiation, flooding, ash clouds blotting out the sun, or zombies all over the place.
In future posts, I'll try to focus on some of these different kinds of apocalypses and try to bring out some of the differences.
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