Sorry about the length; consider it a lecture in Survival in a Nasty
World 101.
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 23:17:32 -0500
From: Richard Lawson <sterman@sprynet.com>
Harold Ancell wrote:
You too, Harold? :) I haven't had this violent reaction to a 'fic
since I had Kasumi call Nabiki "Oneechan".
Oh my, I hope I'm not being that severe :-)
> Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 20:36:02 -0500
> From: Richard Lawson <sterman@sprynet.com>
> Harold Ancell wrote:
[...]
> Just talk to a vegetarian; they live *much* cheaper lives, food wise.
> Prices tell you something....
I guess I miss the point you're trying to make here. Fruits and
vegetables are cheap, yes, but if you had all the people who eat meat
suddenly demand the same fruits and vegetable, wouldn't that drastically
affect supply as well as cost?
You're not considering all the angles of the supply and demand.
Demand for grain would go up, because humans would be substituting
grain for meat.
At the same time, demand for grain would go down, because a big
component of current demand would disappear; e.g. most of the
Midwest's corn is grown for animal feed.
Add the normal buffer stocks of grain, and it's not likely to be
instant famine.
> I rationalized it thus: even if he had tons o' grain, we wouldn't have
> the facilities to turn it into something useful to consume - the same
> argument I used with the fish thing. And we couldn't exactly strap the
> ol' feedbag on the US population and expect them to chow down.
>
> All you need to do is to grind it, and in the case of corn, treat it
> with lye to release the niacin, and cook it with water, salt, and a
> little oil. Most of the world's population is grateful to eat this
> well.... (Rice is even simpler, but it's not an issue for the US.)
Actually, I think you missed the point. Yes, it can be done - but do we
have the facilities to do it fast enough?
You don't understand; food from grain is *much* simplier than food
from animals (no complicated butchering or refrigeration), as long as
you can take care of vitamin requirements, and give children some
fats and oils so that they get enough calories.
If you're curious, get a copy of _Nuclear War Survival Skills_ by
Cresson Kearny, and get the second edition:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=094248701X/9234-7534378-362534
Nuclear War Survival Skills
by Cresson H. Kearny
2nd Edition
Paperback
List: $12.50 -- Amazon.com Price: $12.50
Published by Oregon Inst Science & Medecine
Publication date: November 1988
ISBN: 094248701X
It still is in print, and I can point you at the publisher if you'd
prefer getting it directly.
It covers a host of techniques developed by Kearny at Oak Ridge for
expedient nuclear war survival. Expedient in that they don't depend
on much preperation time to speak of, or exotic skills, etc.
Unlike the Civil Defense illustrations, etc. you may have seen, which
were drawn up by idiots in D.C. and would often get anyone trying to
follow them killed, all of Kearny's stuff is practical and tested in
the field. They actually paid average folks to try their stuff out,
and improved upon their experiences. *Highly* recomended. If you
have a family, you owe it to them to get a copy.
Anyway, he devotes a fair amount of space to medium term survival,
since that's the real trick; short term (while fallout decays) is easy
with a little warning, but in the medium term, if you're in the wrong
part of the country, starving is a real danger. The book describes how
to keep yourself healthy on just wheat---it is a bit of a trick to
sprout enough to get enough vitamins, but in your story that wouldn't
be a problem.
The "facilities" required don't have to be more sophisticated that
three lengths of pipe wired/tied together so that three ends can crush
the grain together, plus heat, water, and a little salt and oil. With
all our infastructure intact, we'd be eating a lot of bread and pasta
(preferably, I'd assume), plus beans, peas, etc. etc. The latter
would be a bit scarce for a while depending on where in the growing
season the plague hit, but once again, not the end of the world.
The vast majority of the population eats meat - and now they
suddenly want the grain that was being used to feed the animals.
It's like trying to pump more water through a hose - you can
increase the pressure, but eventually the hose will burst. You
need a bigger hose. The extra facilities needed to process the
grain couldn't be built overnight.
See above; they could, even in the aftermath of a nuclear war.
Transporting grain is much easier than transporting meat; no
refrigeration, for example.
> Also, killin' off the ol' animal herd wastes the millions of tons of
> grain already used to bring them to the state they are; that's gotta
> hurt.
>
> That's the fallacy of sunk costs; sure, it hurts the ranchers and feed
> lot operators who watch their investments go poof, and the price of
> grain will go way down due to the sudden oversupply, but it's not even
> close to Armageddon.
I don't understand this as well; are you saying that the lost cattle
would have no impact on the food supply? I truly find this hard to
believe, even though I may be betraying my own ignorance.
No; I'm saying the only ones "hurt" are those directly dependant on
investments in meat production and consumption (short McDonalds
stock!); others would not be hurt directly by this, and lots would
shift their resources into grain, legume, and veggie related areas.
> So, if you're willing to suspend you disbelief enough on this
> one point, does it work for you?
> Sorry, I grew up in the Midwest, studied expedient nucler war survival
> back when the Cold War was rather hot---this is so far removed from
> reality that I can't.
Well, I could understand how studying nuclear war can prepare you for
the loss of your cattle. :) And I'm sorry you couldn't enjoy the story
- maybe I won't post in on r.a.a.c if this is the reaction it will get -
focussing so much on arguing the plot that the story gets lost. That's
not the effect I was hoping for. :)
See our suggestions for adjustments.
> [ I think this is the Dread Space Pirate replying. ]
[ ... ]
> In fact, it kills too quickly to spread seriously; without a plausable
> vector or other transmission system, it's simply not going to get very
> far. Notice how self-limiting Lassa and Ebola turn out to be if you
> ignore the hype and look at what actually happens in an outbreak.
Well, it was my (unwritten) assumption that the virus 'hides' itself in
the atmoshphere, becoming dormant and benign, until it comes into
contact with certain kinds of DNA. This would only be possible in an
engineered virus (and no, I have no idea how; then again, I have no idea
what exactly anti-matter is).
Viri (is that the plural?) are heaver than air---most are just a few
strands of DNA or RNA, protected by protein.
Once again, I'd suggest slowing the timescale, and otherwise waving
your hands about this aspect. It's another reason to drop the
panic/end of the world aspect.
[...]
> Also, raising zillions of catfish would be quite easy. Each of us
> could raise a bunch in an extra bathtub or whatnot.
Hmm, maybe. I didn't think about that. Then again, we have the same
problem of how to process all that extra fish. Then yet again, all you
need to do is gut it, chop its head off, and stick it on a frying pan.
Pin pon! Preparing simple food is not rocket science. Billions of
people around the world manage to do it every day!
Granted, suburbanites will die like flies, but Think of it as
Evolution in Action :-)
That's the problem with trying to create a world-wide disaster; the
world tends to come up with different ways of countering it. :)
We are, after all, highly competant survival machines.
If you want some good world-wide disasters, just ask, I can supply a bunch.
> (As a piece of writing, this is good as always, but as an
> academic, it's my job to complain about these sorts of things :))
> Ditto; sorry to be pedantic, but the story falls down this way.
>
> You could adjust it thus:
>
> Moderate the speed of the plague, but keep it's eventual affect
> (basicly wave your hands here).
>
> Turn our favorite couple into the heroes who kept variety in our diets;
> meat and leather *are* important.
That's possible. It would also lessen the impact of the virus, and the
necessity of Akari's contributions; she would no longer be the "Savior
of the World", just "The Kawaii Woman Who Gave Us Back Our Bacon".
There are worse ways to get into the history books; this is certainly
more Takahashi-vese in tone. But make it "The Kawaii Woman Who Saved
Our Bacon".
Still, if this is the trade off I need to make to the story believable,
it may be worth it. I'll wait to see other people's reactions before
making a judgement; so far I've heard two "It's great!" and two long
essays from pedants. :)
While you could get away with the virulence issue (just don't get too
specific), too many people know about food and argiculture, too many
of us have vegitarian friends, etc.
> I'd also shorten the manifesto; you aren't the Washington Post or NYT
> publishing the Unibomber's ravings (at the FBI's request---and the
> ploy did work).
You won't belive how much I did shorten it; I basically cut and pasted
from a couple of web pages and tried to cut down on a lot of the
ranting. I'll look on tightening it up; maybe I should just rewrite it
from scratch. I'll get better prose that way.
Heh; it did sound true to life.
Thanks for your comments, Harold. :)
You're very welcome.
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1996 00:22:00 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Ranma Al'Thor" <ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu>
On Wed, 28 Aug 1996, Richard Lawson wrote:
> Harold Ancell wrote:
> > Just talk to a vegetarian; they live *much* cheaper lives, food wise.
> > Prices tell you something....
>
> I guess I miss the point you're trying to make here. Fruits and
> vegetables are cheap, yes, but if you had all the people who eat meat
> suddenly demand the same fruits and vegetable, wouldn't that drastically
> affect supply as well as cost?
Yeah, but no one lives on meat alone :)
And in a crisis, I'd think the gov. would impose price controls (an old
standby of govs in food crises throughout history)
I'd hope not; that's the only thing that could cause this problem to
turn into famine (you do realize all famines nowadays are man-made,
generally by socialist agricultural polices.)
[...]
> > It would be *real* hard to create just one that's this specific.
> > Also, create that much viri, and the possibility of a mutation that
> > includes humans as a host is---frightening.
>
> I'll throw the same argument at you that I did at John - in the future,
> anything is possible (I mean really, how can we possibly exceed the
> speed of light?). I admit to having thoughts about mutation myself but
> decided not pursue them - again, if I had to examine every ramification
> of the disease, I'd lose the story very quickly.
In ten years? I'd like to pray we won't have viruses that scary in ten
years...I'd like to live my whole 70 years.
If you think this stuff is bad, just check out nanotechnology;
basicly, unless you die early by mischance, either you'll get killed
(or worse) by nanotech, or you'll live as long as Washuu if you so
desire. (Please excuse the gross oversimplifications.)
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1996 00:05:30 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Ranma Al'Thor" <ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu>
On Wed, 28 Aug 1996, Richard Lawson wrote:
> Well, we are talking about twelve years in the future. If you consider
> how vastly technology has imporved between 1984 and now, think of how
> it'll be in 2008. Especially in genetics.
Surely you've all watched Neon Genesis Evangelion by now :-)
Yeah, but will technology of this level be easily available to a tiny
group of nutcases? Genetic laboratories aren't exactly a dime a dozen...
Seriously, genetic labs *are* a dime a dozen; I was doing bacterial
molecular genetics before college, in a NSF Summer Science Training
Program at UT Austin. Germ warfare isolation quality ones are rare,
though, but you can set this sort of thing up in a garage or basement.
[...]
No way. If people could get the technology to make a virus to kill
cattle, then some fruitcakes who want humanity dead could get it and
would. Luckily, real viruses are never THAT bad. Even the black plague
only killed one third of the european population.
It's really tricky; too lethal, and the host dies before he spreads it
very far. Not lethal enough, and it's just another bug, and it'll
have to get in line along with all the ones from which we suffer. And
testing transmission on human populations is obviously difficult.
[...]
> My rationale for this (I intended to include it in the story but
> couldn't find a convenient way to do so) is that someone who knows how
> to create such a virus also can engineer it in such a way that it can
> hide its tracks - i.e. destroy itself as soon as the cattle is dead,
> mutate to a seemingly innocuous form until it comes in contact with a
> certain kind of DNA, etc. That was why finding the lab was so important
> - if they could see how it was made, they'd be able to find a cure
> quickly. Now, it's like seeing a bottle of beer come out of the brewery
> and trying to find a way to recreate it without being able to see inside
> the building. 'Taint easy.
Beer can't be made to self-reproduce in a lab :)
I don't see how you'd make a virus able to disguise itself eitehr...They
don't have some way to set a switch to detect, "Oh my host is dead. Oops."
They just die when their tiny little lifespan runs out if they can't
reproduce...which they need a living host to do. Genetics does have its
limits...
It's not even that complicated; viri aren't alive, per se. Without
host cells, they're just inert packets of genetic material with a
covering. They can't do *anything* without a cell's factories to
produce protiens and DNA or RNA, and once all a host's cells were to
lyse (as in this type), the viri couldn't self-destruct; they couldn't
do *anything* other than degrade from light (UV), oxygen, water, etc.
Viri only mutate when the factories of the host make mistakes in
duplication. These relatively infrequent mistakes don't amount to
squat, unless the mutated form has a survival advantage which allows
it to compete and out reproduce the normal strain.
As Mr. Biles put it in a section I excised, this is a magic virus.
- Harold