Peak Sabotage

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 83 DAYS

Mark Linster was one of nearly ten million people residing in what WICO identifies as Region 35, part of the urban corridor from Washington, D.C. to New York City. By day he worked as an information technology engineer for one of the nation’s ten largest defense companies, helping to maintain security for its world-wide computer network. At night he pursued his interest in future technologies, especially the further development of artificial intelligence.

In July of last year, Linster learned that the most advanced AI, Sanda, was near the end of its test phase, and was about to be used to analyze several years of data collected by WICO about the world’s ecosystems and physical processes. One goal of the analysis had already leaked to the press: performing a detailed threat assessment of ecosystem degradation and climate destabilization as a follow-up to the global scientific community’s warnings of growing extinction rates that could soon extend to humanity. This prompted Linster and a group of former coworkers and classmates to begin a discussion of its potential impacts on their professional and personal lives.

Six of the twenty-two group members were in biotechnology, and saw their industry as the savior of the species. Another ten had aerospace background that they felt was the key to the future through exploration and colonization of other planets. The remaining six, Linster among them, were putting their hopes in the development of virtual reality that could enable human consciousness to be embedded in machines and potentially live forever. None of the options they considered was viable without technological development; so, when they considered possible worst-case scenarios, the back-to-nature approaches promoted by many environmentalists were easily among them.

The Global Emergency declaration confirmed their greatest fears. To Linster and the others it was an abomination that one of the world’s most sophisticated technologies was being used to sell the idea of scaling down civilization’s ecological footprint to fight the threat of imminent global extinction. They viewed the preferred strategy as a betrayal of a future where people could reach their full potential as masters of their lives and potentially the Universe. In a choice between life and death, WICO was advocating that humanity become more vulnerable, not less, to forces it had spent tens of thousands of years gaining dominance over.

Linster watched in horror as political leaders signed onto WICO’s approach and developed national strategies that mirrored its guiding principle. In an unfortunately recorded conference call with everyone in the group on January 16, he advocated activating a plan he had been secretly enabling since August. They agreed, and six days later he and fourteen hackers used Sanda’s first connection to the global data network to test infiltration and espionage software that would ultimately be used to take down the information infrastructure supporting WICO’s strategy development.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Linster said during his testimony yesterday, “working to take down one of the greatest creations in order to save future ones. But it was the right thing to do.” He pointed his finger at the panel of six judges sitting above the witness chair in the well of the Tribunal Chamber. “YOU are the criminals here! We weren’t trying to kill everyone. We were savinga future worth having!”

Today Linster and the original group, the hackers, and their financial backers were all convicted of attempted omnicide and sentenced to ten years of pollution cleanup.

The summary above is in the public record. For my part, I gave brief testimony on Saturday, which involved verifying what I’ve reported in public, and then spent most of the weekend observing the trial and talking with various people about what happened. There was something about the motivation that didn’t seem complete, so I asked Maura if I could take some time to investigate. 

“What did Sally say about the location clue?” she asked when I suggested it might have something to do with where he lived, given what Sally sent me right before the servers crashed.

“She told me that people just passing the life expectancy peak would be aware of the risks of conditions getting worse, but be hopeful that they could find another path to improvement since they hadn’t yet seen a precipitous drop in happiness or life expectancy. The range of wealth in that region with the projections she had available at the time indicated that there was still access to the necessary capabilities. Then she admitted something rather remarkable. She said that it was her best guess.”

“Really,” Maura said after a pause that revealed her surprise.

“That makes it worth checking out by itself. Don’t you think?” I waited, and then added, “There’s also this: one of the investigators testified that included in the offsite cached data was a list of regions with their population to nature ratios. That narrowed the search considerably.”

“What about the others that were close?” she said.

“Exactly. I’d say there’s at least a security reason for looking at those too.” 

Reality Check

Sally’s “guess” is my guess. The projected number of people within half a percent of a 53% normalized population to nature ratio is about 100 million. I don't know how many of them are in the DC - NYC corridor.