by Peter Watts
And finally, the most disturbing real-world echo of this imaginary hellhole comes from the Village Voice[38], reporting on ongoing research towards an “anti-remorse pill”—a drug developed to cure post-traumatic stress syndrome, which would soothe the torturer as well as the tortured. Such neurochemical tweaks would work by short-circuiting guilt itself, making it that much easier to get a good night’s sleep after mowing down crowds of unruly civilians protesting unpopular government policies. Yes, I called my version Absolution—but people, it was supposed to be ironic...
Here, the Maelstrom just moved outside...
Some background ambience from the world above the waterline:
The developing world has no shortage of reasons to be pissed at the other two. By mid-century, I’m postulating a sort of Africa-wide schadenfreude in response to the collapse of N’Am’s societal infrastructure. The icing on that bitter cake is the further prediction that the majority of the African population will consist of women; I base this on the fact that in Ethiopia at least, malnourished women are more likely to give birth to daughters than sons[39] (presumably for the same energetics-related reasons this happens in other species). I’m basically suggesting that generations of disease, starvation, and exploitation/indifference will result in one righteously-pissed, gender-skewed hotbed of discontent in which the myth of a victimized woman’s apocalyptic vendetta would catch on real fast. Think of Liberation Theology, that violent incarnation of Catholicism that arose from the political turnoil of Latin America in the last century; now move it to Africa, and emphasise the warrior Madonna at its heart.
The various bits of weaponry portrayed in this novel—from Miri’s arsenal to Desjardins’ booby-traps to South Africa’s ICBMs— are taken from a variety of sources including the USAF[40]; The Economist[41]; Cornell University Peace Studies Program[42]; and even the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts[43]. Evidently weapons-grade infrasound isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. (On the other hand, it seems surprisingly simple to generate your own electromagnetic pulse[44]).
Electronic Wildlife & Digital Evolution
Maelstrom hung on the premise that the same Darwinian processes that shape life in this world are equally applicable to the digital realm—that self-replicating software will be literally alive when the conditions of natural selection are met. That position has gained recent ground; terms like “digital organism” crop up in the most respectable scientific journals[45],[46],[47], and you can now download freeware apps that let you experiment with digital evolution on your own desktop[48]. E-life is proceeding on track; maybe the Maelstrom Ecosystems won’t be far behind.
Maelstrom extended the conceit of Internet-as-Ecosystem to a “consensus superorganism” that exploited the myth of the Meltdown Madonna as a reproductive strategy. Five years further down the timeline, parts of that superorganism have transmuted—with a little help from their friends—into the “Shredders” and “Lenies” of ßehemoth. Ecologically, we’ve moved from a climax ecosystem to a weedy and impoverished landscape of virtual rats, gulls, and kudzu—and in keeping with that spirit, the virtual-ecology aspects of this novel echo the pest-species dynamics common in real-world ecosystems.
A common response to outbreaks of unwanted insect species is to haul out the pesticides. The pest’s usual response is to a) develop resistance, and b) crank up its reproductive rate to offset the increased mortality. Once this happens, human “managers” don’t dare stop spraying, because the pest has been pushed into a state of chronic outbreak; its increased reproductive rate will result in a catastrophic population explosion the moment spraying sends. This is essentially what happened during the spruce budworm infestations of the North American Maritimes back in the seventies and eighties[49]; I rather suspect we may in for a replay with the current bark-beetle invasion.
You don’t need a Ph.D. to see the parallels between this and the exorcist/shredder dynamic at play in N’AmNet. Lenie Clarke never took Ecology 101; she made her moves for her own twisted and unrelated reasons. Ironically, though, it may have been the right course of action from a purely ecological standpoint. Pest species tend to peak and crash cyclically if you just leave them alone; once you’ve cranked them into outbreak mode, perhaps the only way to restore any kind of natural balance is to just take your foot off the brake, grit your teeth, and take your lumps until the system stabilizes.
Assuming it does.
Predicting the Past:
Smart gels. Head cheeses. Those neuron puddings that the corpses used to jam the rifters in the first half of this book, and which played a much more central role in the previous ones. They exist now, in real life. Neurons cultured from rat brains, now operating remote-controlled robots at a lab near you[50].
Piss me right off. I thought I had years before this stuff caught up with me.
Notes
1
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2
Rona, P.A. 2003. Resources of the sea floor. Science 299: 673-674.
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3
British Broadcasting Corporation. 2001. The blue planet: a natural history of the ocean, Part 3: The Deep.
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4
Peterson, B.J., et al. 2002. Increasing river discharge to the Arctic Ocean. Science 298: 2171-2173.
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5
Weaver, A.J., and C. Hillaire-Marcel. 2004. Global warming and the next ice age. Science 304: 400-402.
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6
Bildstein, T. 2002. Global warming is good (if you like calamari). Australasian Science, August 2002.
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7
Cowen, J.P, et al. 2003. Fluids from Aging Ocean Crust That Support Microbial Life. Science 299: 120-123.
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8
Kasting, J.F., and J.L. Siefert. 2002. Life and the evolution of Earth’s atmosphere. Science 296: 1066-1068.
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9
Waters, E., et al. 2003. The genome of Nanoarchaeum equitans: Insights into early archaeal evolution and derived parasitism. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 100: 12984-12988;
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10
Palumbi, S.R., and R.R. Warner. 2003. Why Gobies are like Hobbits. Science 2003 January 3; 299: 51-52.
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11
Taylor, M.S., and M.E. Hellberg. 2003. Genetic Evidence for Local Retention of Pelagic Larvae in a Caribbean Reef Fish. Science 2003 January 3; 299: 107-109.
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12
Vrijenhoek, R.C. 1997. Gene flow and genetic diversity in naturally fragmented metapopulations of deep-sea hydrothermal vent animals. J. Heredity. 88: 285-293.
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13
Somero, G.N. 1992. Biochemical ecology of deep-sea animals. Experientia 48, 537-543.
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14
Møller, P.R., et al. 2003. Fish migration: Patagonian toothfish found off Greenland. Nature 421, 599.
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15
Zimmer, C. 2003. Tinker, tailor: can Venter stitch together a genome from scratch? Science 299: 1006-1007.
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16
Mehl, R.A., et al. 2003. Generation of a Bacterium with a 21 Amino Acid Genetic Code. J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 125:935-939.
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17
Ferber, D. 2004. Microbes made to order. Science 303: 158-161.
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18
Orgel, L. 2000. A simpler nucleic acid. Science 290: 1306.
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19
Gabaldón, T., and M.A. Huynen. 2003. Reconstruction of the proto-mitochondrial metabolism. Science 301: 609.
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20
Raymond, J., et al. 2002. Whole-genome analysis of photosynthetic prokaryotes. Science 298: 1616-1620.
&nbs
p; (<< back)
21
Funes, S., et al. 2002. A green algal apicoplast ancestor. Science 298: 2155.
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22
Movassaghi, M., and E.N. Jacobsen. 2002. The simplest “Enzyme”. Science 298: 1904-1905.
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23
Caspi, A., et al. 2002. Role of genotype in the cycle of violence of maltreated children. Science 297: 851-854.
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24
Beckman, M. 2003. False memories, true pain. Science 299: 1306.
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25
Offer, D., et al. 2000. Altering of Reported Experiences. J. Amer. Academy Child and Adolescent Psych. 39(6): 735-742.
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26
Hare, R.D. 1999. Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us. Guilford Press, 236pp.
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27
Goldberg, C. 2003. Data accumulating on psychopaths. The Toronto Star, July 20, reprinted from the Boston Globe.
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28
Hare, R.D. 1999. Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us. Guilford Press, 236pp.
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29
MacMillan, J., and L.K. Kofoed. 1984. Sociobiology and antisocial behavior. J. Mental and Nervous Diseases 172, 701-06.
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30
Harpending, H.C., and J. Sobus. 1987. Sociopathy as an adaptation. Ethology and Sociobiology 8, 63S-72S.
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31
Helluy, S., and Thomas, F. 2003. Effects of Microphallus papillorobustus (Platyhelminthes, trematoda) on serotonergic immunoreactivity and neuronal architecture in the brain of Gammarus insensibilis (Crustacea, Amphipoda). Proceeding of the Royal Society of London (B.) 270: 563-568.
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32
Greene, J.D., et al. 2001. An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science 293: 2105-2108
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33
Helmuth, L. 2001. Moral Reasoning Relies on Emotion. Science 293: 1971-1972.
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34
Macmillan, M. 2000. An Odd Kind of Fame: Stories of Phineas Gage. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 576pp.
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35
Anderson, S.W. et al. 1999. .Impairment of social and moral behavior related to early damage in human prefrontal cortex. Nature Neuroscience 2: 1032-1037.
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36
Moll, J., et al. 2002. The Neural Correlates of Moral Sensitivity: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of Basic and Moral Emotions. J. Neurosci., 22(7):2730-2736
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37
Sanfrey, A.G., et al. 2003. The Neural Basis of Economic Decision-Making in the Ultimatum Game. Science 300: 1755-1758.
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38
Baard, E. 2003. The Guilt-Free Soldier: New Science Raises the Specter of a World Without Regret. The Village Voice, January 22 - 28. (Also http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0304/baard.php)
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39
Gibson, M.A. and R. Mace. 2003. Strong mothers bear more sons in rural Ethiopia. Biology Letters (Proceedings of the Royal Society Suppl. Online) 20 May.
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40
“When Killing Just Won’t Do”—Excerpt from Nonlethal weapons: terms and references by the United Stats Air Force Institute for National Security Studies, quoted in Harper’s 306 (1833): 17-19.
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41
Anonymous. 2003. Come fry with me. The Economist 366(8309): 68-69.
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42
Altmann, J. 1999. Acoustic weapons—a prospective assessment: sources, propagation, and effects of strong sound. Occasional Paper #22, 87pp.
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43
Beljaars, A. 1992. The parameterization of the planetary boundary layer. Available at http://www.ecmwf.int/
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44
http://www.spacecatlighting.com/marxgenerator01.htm
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45
Lenski, R.E., et al. 1999. Genome complexity, robustness, and genetic interactions in digital organisms. Nature 400: 661–664.
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46
Wilke, C.O., and C. Adami. 2002. The biology of digital organisms. Trends Ecol Evol 17: 528–532.
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47
O’Neill, B. 2003. Digital evolution. Public Library of Science Biology 1: 11-14, or http://www.plosbiology.org/plosonline/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0000018
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48
http://dllab.caltech.edu/avida/
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49
If you’re looking for primary sources on this, though, you’re SOL. I’m just regurgitating memories of a grad course I took in theoretical ecology back at the University of Guelph.
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50
Eisenberg, A. 2003. Wired to the Brain of a Rat, a Robot Takes On the World. The New York Times, May 15, 2003.
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