Movement

 

All nations today officially signed the Open Borders and Mutual Assistance Treaty (OBMAT), developed and negotiated since Blue Planet Day as part of the Threat of Imminent Extinction Global Strategy. As WICO Secretary General Decatur said in a joint statement with the signatories, “This critical step in the strategy’s deployment ensures that people and material can freely move wherever is needed in order to maximize the chances of the most people surviving for as long as possible… People experiencing problems implementing the strategy and dealing with unexpected events are guaranteed help by anyone who can provide it, regardless of affiliation or identity. We are one world now, where boundaries to our joint survival are not our own.” 

Pushback from religious and cultural purity groups was swift and clear. “This is the new world order we always feared,” the Commanding Triumvirate of the International Alliance of Descendants announced at a rally in London. “Intermixing of the clean with the unclean is now assured, sacrificing the lives of the chosen so that a mongrel breed can take its place. We must follow the rules, but we will resist wherever possible.” A similar message was broadcast by the Clan of Light over all social media platforms, including a promising to “take celibacy to a whole new level so we can live and die with dignity.”

 Leadership of Possibilities from Responsibilities worried that groups like the Descendants and the Clan would attempt to coopt and corrupt its creative message in an effort to subvert WICO’s coordination mandate, which some had accused them of secretly wanting. As one of the organization’s spokespeople, I can honestly that I have seen no evidence of such intent within PFR, and don’t believe the concern is warranted. Our values are clearly consistent with the global strategy, and any other group likewise making their values clear would stand out as obviously different.

Reality Check

I expect a treaty like OBMAT to be necessary under highly variable environmental conditions like those expected for self-sustained impacts and interactive failures of ecosystems made vulnerable due to the mechanics and magnitude of species die-offs. Just as members of other species must move to survive, so will members of ours.

Agreements

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 101 DAYS

We had an unexpected visit from Ambassador Lazlo at our facility today. She was first briefed by Riddick and Tosner, and then to my surprise I was “invited” to meet with all three before she addressed everyone else.

“We all appreciate your help,” Lazlo began when I was seated in the main conference room. She was speaking, but I heard Sanda. “I remain skeptical that, as Caleb just joked, you found that the bugs are really features. Sanda was given very specific instructions about how to generate international, intra-national, and business agreements, and it very clearly didn’t follow them.”

“What would you like to know?” I asked, sure that she had read all of my writing about the subject and had much more information than I did.

“Sanda was a computer; a tool, not a person. If a tool doesn’t do what someone tells it to, then it is malfunctioning. If this very important tool malfunctioned, then we must assume its work product has errors. That is a fatally unacceptable result for everyone. Can you convince me otherwise?”

There it was, the ultimate and most obvious test. But… “That’s the wrong test.”

Lazlo’s eyes widened. “Not to me and most of the world.” 

Riddick was smiling behind her, which I took as encouragement to make what the point that mattered most to me. “Sanda’s primary purpose, as I understand it, was to help create a strategy with the highest chance of avoiding imminent extinction. I think it did exactly what it was told, even if the results didn’t entirely meet expectations.”

Lazlo countered, “Those expectations are a big part of success. We live in the world we have, not the one we want, and this world functions with certain kinds of agreements that drive action. No agreements, no action, and the strategy won’t be implemented. That’s failure by any definition.”

I understood what she meant. The Global Emergency declaration was itself the result of a formal agreement, a treaty, without which the entire effort might not have been launched. It was rational enough to be an article of faith that similar agreements were necessary to take the next steps. I recalled the text of the declaration in the context of what I’d learned since then, and suspected Sanda’s influence in avoiding official failure as the result of future discoveries.

“There wasn’t any requirement explicitly in the declaration that involved follow-up treaties or other agreements,” I stated, hoping I was remembering it right. “Later, WICO said that treaty negotiations would likely begin right after strategy integration, and signed by the first of April. But that was all aspirational, as I and others read it, while the only remaining hard target was strategy execution at the beginning of July. It doesn’t look good, but no one’s failed yet.”

“Technically, yes,” Lazlo said, visibly flustered, “but this is a major deviation from established protocol…”

Riddick interrupted, “I’d say what we’re trying to do is a major deviation, wouldn’t you, Samantha?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Besides, I never expected you to defend the status quo when the evidence was against it.”

There was a long silence. Tosner broke it, his voice quaking with nervousness. “As I see it, there’s a disagreement about what will work and what won’t. That’s my area of expertise. Ambassador, why don’t you let us test whether this new approach is viable? With Sanda down, we’re all winging it anyway.”

Lazlo turned to him. “I can give you until Sanda is repaired, and then I want all of your attention on full spectrum reliability tests of the AI components and behavior, followed by regression testing to identify any ways it could have failed before. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and find only a few things to fix instead of having to create something new.”

“Do you want me to continue using the current strategy as the baseline?” Riddick asked with a mix of hope and more humility than she probably felt.

There was ice in the reply, which I knew was intended for both of us. “Use your best judgment. I expect you’ll learn something of value, however this turns out.”

Reality Check

The scene rings true with my experience and knowledge of how expectation can conflict with reality.

Isolation

TIME TO STRATEGY DEADLINE: 14 DAYS

“Not-so-fun fact,” Samantha Lazlo says as we sit in her London office, “if your country, the great U.S.A., was totally isolated from the rest of the world, then the average citizen would be living like the average world citizen in 2023, four years after the population maxes out if we all continue business-as-usual.” She stifles a laugh as my jaw drops. “That’s the price of isolation.”

I have been chosen by the international press pool to report on the activities of STRIDE’s Strategy Integration group from the inside as its members tie together inputs from each national strategy development group. Lazlo leads its Overview team, which is tasked with summarizing the overall strategy so it can be voted on by political leadership upon completion.

“Interaction is key to success,” Lazlo explains. “That will be embodied in a treaty derived from the strategy so it has the weight of law in case there are any disputes during execution, as there clearly will be.” She started the discussion of isolation when we got the news that a faction of Congress was arguing that the country should take the resulting strategy as a suggestion only. “The world can’t afford to have any rogue states picking and choosing what they want without agreement with all the rest who will be affected by it. We’ve identified a majority of scenarios where that would lead to something like what we have now, which is unacceptable.”

“What can you do about it?” I ask, and realize immediately what a stupid question it is. “Of course,” I recover, “the enforcement provisions of the declaration as an overarching treaty must handle that.”

Lazlo’s expression is unreadable. “They should, but any nation strong enough and determined enough can theoretically get out of it. That would result in isolation, which is a problem if it wanted that all along. Which is why everyone needs to be convinced of the ‘why’ and not just the ‘what’ of our response to the extinction threat, so they believe what’s likely to happen to them even if they’re successful.”

“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”

She smiles as if I’ve discovered a hidden gift. “Yes. For the next three days you can follow me around and I’ll show you those answers. If you’re convinced afterward, then you’ll have a good chance of convincing others. Call it a little extra insurance.”

Reality Check

I am not a journalist, but I play one on a blog. After a three-day break, I will report on what I “saw” while shadowing Lazlo.