Parag Khanna has an all you can eat buffet of ideas he calls climate anarchy. Some combination of extreme weather, food crisis, and poor sperm quality is going to lead us to a sort of Walking Dead without the zombies scenario involving prepping and RV parks. This seems like one plausible future to me, let’s hope not the one that comes to pass.
Today was a pretty tranquil scene in Philadelphia. Although parts of the city resembled a sort of soft military occupation – police, uniformed soldiers (who were polite and helpful), TSA and border patrol (who weren’t), it was actually quiet in the absence of traffic and with a lot of people staying home from work. In the morning, people seemed to confine themselves to sidewalks out of habit, then gradually during the day, they fanned out into the streets.
Contrast this with what is expected tomorrow…
Okay, so that’s the Philadelphia scene from World War Z… which was actually filmed in Scotland with some Philadelphia landmarks photo-shopped in.
AMC is producing a (predictably pro-weapon) prequel show called Fear the Walking Dead. An excerpt is provided by Fresh Air:
KIM DICKENS: (As Madison) So why the knife? Hey – I could expel you just for crossing the threshold with that thing.
LINCOLN A. CASTELLANOS: (As Tobias) No. Please. We’re safer in numbers.
DICKENS: (As Madison) Safer from what? Tobias, please, don’t screw yourself like this. You’ve been working your ass off. You’re on track to go to college.
CASTELLANOS: (As Tobias) Yeah. No one’s going to college. No one’s doing anything they think they are.
DICKENS: (As Madison) What? What are you talking about?
CASTELLANOS: (As Tobias) Can I get my knife back, please?
DICKENS: (As Madison) No, you can’t get your knife back.
CASTELLANOS: (As Tobias) They say it’s not connected. They say that, but I don’t believe them. It is – from reports in five states. They don’t know if it’s a virus or a microbe. They don’t know, but it’s spreading.
Ah, fun stuff.
If there’s one thing I don’t put a whole lot of stock in, it’s scientific and medical information provided by random websites. Like this one, Corante, which claims that toxoplasma, a virus that incubates in cats, affects rats’ brains so that they are less afraid of cats. Then it goes on to suggest that half of all people are infected with this virus, and that it has unknown, subtle but possibly harmful effects on people. It just makes me think about how little we really know about most of the vast community of microorganisms inhabiting our bodies. The scariest thing would be something that is harmful, but has a long incubation period so it can infect a large fraction of the population before we are even aware of it.