As I cast around for topics this month, as is often the case, nothing jelled at first. Craig Wilson sent me a note from the AG about a talk he heard on global warming, including a bunch of weather links that were handed out there. I'm a weather nut, so with some research, I may have a column in a month or so. Thanks, Craig!
As I cycled through possible topics, I found myself repeatedly asking the question "What if?" None of the topics made the grade, but I started thinking in terms of "what if?" as a column topic itself, and decided to give it a go. This column will present a few hypothetical situations for your consideration. I'll offer some details to the extent I can about the situations, and leave you to speculate on what might happen. Many of these topics have been considered in literature - I'll include credit where I can.
The first situation: a cold fusion breakthrough is announced to an energy-hungry world, and this time, it's for real. In less than a year, energy becomes ridiculously cheap and abundant, and it turns out to be safe to generate. What will happen to human society when energy in any reasonable quantity becomes essentially free, worldwide? What will the economic effects be - what happens to the energy sector or the transportation sector? How will people get from place to place if energy is not an issue? If you want to add a twist to this thought experiment, let's say after four or five years of addiction to free energy, something threatens to take it away. Maybe it turns out not to be as safe to generate as we thought, or perhaps we make such hogs of ourselves that we seriously and undeniably upset the ecosystem. What happens to humanity when we have to tighten our belts again?
Here's one from fiction - Poul Anderson's book "Brain Wave," from the early 1950's. Imagine that the planet Earth has been coasting through some sort of field for millions of years that slows down our nervous systems. We've evolved to make the best of the situation, but suddenly, we break free of the field. The intelligence of everyone, and everything capable of thought, jumps dramatically. Almost all humans become geniuses. Those who were already of high intelligence far surpass mankind's greatest thinkers of the past. Many intelligent animal species reach old human norms and beyond. But human and animal emotions and instincts don't change. How would society change? How fast would it change? Where would we wind up?
I'll take another scenerio from science fiction, in this case, Alfred Bester's late 1950's book "The Stars My Destination." In the not-too-distant future, mankind taps into an unforseen ability - the ability to teleport, using only innate mental capabilities. Almost everyone can do it, but some can only jump a few miles, while the most capable can jump up to one thousand miles. You can teleport anything you can carry and you can travel in multiple jumps - teleporting is not especially taxing, either physically or mentally. How does society change? What problems might you expect to arise - there would many. What kind of life do you have if you can teleport the maximum distance - when you can be anywhere on Earth in just a few minutes? What if you can only teleport a few miles - to travel any significant distance requires many jumps? What if you are one of the unlucky ones who can't teleport at all?
Now, a final scenario that most scientists believe will eventually happen. The "Big One" occurs, not in California, but the Midwest. A magnitude 7 earthquake, easily credible in a region that experienced a quake approaching magnitude 9 in the early 1800s, occurs on the New Madrid fault, in the Missouri bootheel. The geology of the eastern United States allows the earthquake damage to propagate much farther than in most other earthquake-prone regions. Heavy damage occurs for great distances to the north and east of the epicenter, with much less effect to the south and west, although a band of severe damage does extend some distance to the NNW. Hundreds of towns in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio are destroyed or damaged. Both St. Louis and Memphis are 75% destroyed, with major damage also occurring in Evanston and Indianapolis, IN, Nashville, TN, Springfield, IL, and Cincinnati, OH. The quake exhibits noticable effects in places as far apart as Colorado, Texas, New York, Minnesota and Florida. (See quake.wr.usgs.gov/prepare/factsheets/NewMadrid/Charleston1895.gif for a sample of what a 6.8 New Madrid quake might do.) The death toll of the quake exceeds 250,000, with one million injured. Deaths and injuries would be much higher for a magnitude 8 or 9 quake. Major aftershocks occur for months, making rescue and recovery hazardous. What happens to America? What does the world do to help? An interesting looking book on the subject can be found at Amazon.com - William Atkinson's "The Next New Madrid Earthquake - A Survival Guide for the Midwest." Unfortunately, it isn't available in the Summit County library.
If you have any thoughts on these scenarios, or if you have some of your own, it's nice to share them. Perhaps you might consider submitting your ideas for a future Braegen column?
CATBAR - Brain Candy #73 - What if? / Brian Rock / Nov 14 2003