Reset

WICO Secretary General Decatur made a rare announcement today that overshadowed all activities related to the imminent extinction threat. Essentially, he said that self-sustained impact projections used in the global strategy were too optimistic, and the alternative model presented by five scientists last week has been validated. The primary implication for the strategy is a faster ramp to a lower target for total consumption, with more aggressive waste cleanup and conversion to safely consumable forms. Adaptation approaches that occupied about a third of the strategy are not considered viable within the new time constraint.

Two major consequences struck me as I read details published afterward by WICO. One consequence is that the additional ecological impact of starting up more cleanup technology will more painfully reduce what individuals can consume. The second consequence is that tighter enforcement of personal behavior could cut off creativity that might be needed to detect and cope with a proliferation of unintended consequences. Creativity is of course the basis of Possibilities from Responsibilities, the movement that I am representing in my new job, and PFR’s future is now far more uncertain.

Maura decided to drop her request for transfer back to the Extinction Response Unit after learning that it will focus entirely on stopping self-sustained impacts immediately after it meets its strategy deployment obligations in two weeks. Samantha Lazlo agreed that she isn’t well suited, professionally or personally, for that or WICO’s education roll-out, and suggested that she interview instead for a position with the project Al might be joining. 

I was surprised that any technology and research unrelated to dealing with the extinction threat would be tolerated after Decatur’s announcement. Maura reassured me that WICO isn’t discouraging basic research or creative personal responses to the extinction threat; it’s just limiting the resources that can be consumed by them.

Reality Check

In my opinion, self-sustained impacts are the single greatest threat to the simulated world - and ours. I expect that emergency response to their presence would devote most new technology to trying to stop them, or at least slow them down. Ecosystems can be enlisted to help with that (one of the basic ideas behind the global strategy), and doing so includes helping them become healthy by reducing our impact on them. Pollution cleanup is one way of doing so, and it would almost certainly require a large technology component to deal with it in the limited time available.