The Fermi Plague - An editorial for 9/11/01

The editorial reproduced below originally appeared in Analog for October 1998. I quote it in its entirety here because it seems even more timely now than then.

And even scarier.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

THE FERMI PLAGUE

I think I know the answer. I hope I'm wrong, because what I'm suggesting is scary. But it's uncomfortably plausible. . . .

The question is the one commonly known as "the Fermi paradox" and summed up in three words: "Where are they?" Many lines of scientific research suggest that the evolution of life is a natural and common outgrowth of stellar and planetary evolution, and that interstellar communication and travel should be feasible (though not easy). Playing with reasonable guesses for the relevant numbers makes it seem highly likely that we should by now have had some contact with, or at least clear evidence of, at least one other technological civilization from somewhere other than Earth. There is no generally accepted evidence that we have. So where are they?

A great many explanations have been advanced for our lack of evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations. (A good survey of several of them can be found in two Analog articles by David Brin: "Xenology: The New Science of Asking 'Who's Out There?" [May 1983] and "Just How Dangerous Is the Galaxy?" [July 1985].) Maybe life, for some reason, is harder to originate than we think. Maybe species that could be spacefaring decide not to, for one reason or another. Or maybe interstellar empires avoid contact with us because they fear us or don't want to interfere with our development.

And so on.

The trouble with virtually all the proposed solutions, according to many people who've thought about the problem, is that, while each of them can explain why we haven't heard from some civilizations, it seems unlikely that any of them would apply to every place with the potential for producing a spacefaring civilization. Of course, it's not necessary to have a single, simple explanation for a "phenomenon" that may really be a whole group of phenomena that look similar at some level. It may be that we've seen no evidence of Civilization A for this reason, none of Civilization B for that reason, Civilization C for a third, and so on, with the net result that we haven't seen any. But some people think that if even one civilization became capable of spreading to the stars, it would fill the galaxy in an astronomically short time. So shouldn't we have seen or heard from somebody?

Is there some one thing that might be so likely to happen eventually to any technologically advanced civilization that it would account for "The Great Silence"?

I may have thought of one, after reading a series of articles back in February about an anthrax terrorism scare. Someone was alleged to be in possession of enough anthrax bacillus to wipe out the population of New York City, with the intention of doing just that, by spraying it in the subways. No, I'm not going to suggest that every civilization gets decimated by anthrax; and according to follow-up stories a few days after the initial announcement, the February threat turned out to be a false alarm. (The "weapons," we were told, were actually vaccine.) But it got me thinking. . . .

According to at least some microbiologists, the February bioterrorist threat could have been real. Anthrax is one of the deadliest and most easily used of all biological weapons. That's why the U.S. armed forces are being vaccinated against it en masse. It's fast-acting and almost always fatal. It's cheap and easy to make in large quantities. (Lawrence Korb, a national security expert at the Brookings Institution, called it "a poor man's nuclear weapon.") And it's easy to load into weapons (which may be as simple as insect sprayers or aerosol cans) to spread it in infectious form to everybody in a large region.

And it's only one thing with those properties. Other natural pathogens could be used similarly, if not quite as easily or effectively. Both the constant occurrence of natural mutations and the new capability of genetic engineering suggest that still others may be available in the future that have the same properties to an even greater degree.

In other words, for the first time in history, it's now relatively easy for a single individual to unleash a major epidemic. A small conspiracy, involving a mere handful of individuals, could unleash a really major epidemic.

In discussions of the Fermi paradox that I've seen, epidemics have not been considered likely causes of extinction of whole species, much less of all whole species. Natural plagues develop slowly enough, and usually locally enough, that some individuals will usually survive and develop resistance to them. A population may be decimated, but enough will remain to let it recover.

Unnatural plagues may be another matter entirely. A combination of technologies, including biological culturing, weapon-building, and rapid global transportation, can make it possible for a very few individuals (or even one) to do things that really could wipe out whole populations, possibly even on a planetwide scale.

It would not be a sane thing to do, of course, but that does not mean that nobody would ever do it. People commit suicide every day. Some of them are deeply disturbed individuals, more to be pitied than censured, who see suicide as the only way out of their personal problems, and regret the hurt they inflict on those they leave behind. Others go on rampages and gun down crowds of associates or strangers before themselves. If even one of them is a powerful nut who decides to take everybody else with him, and knows how, that's all it takes.

And if populations reach into the billions, the chance of one such individual sooner or later arising in any given civilization is disturbingly high. If that happens fast enough, the average life of a technological civilization may be too short for there to be much chance of two of them occurring close enough together in space and time to make contact. Each one may last only as long as it takes to produce one lunatic with too much power at his fingertips.

Any civilization that wants to avoid becoming one of the casualties will have to find an effective answer to the question: How do you prevent any individual from acquiring or abusing that much power? No question is more important; and, like most important questions, it's not an easy one. And it needs to be answered rather early in a species' technological career–say, at about the stage where our species is now.

Actually, of course, it's at least two questions. Preventing individuals from abusing great power once they have it is a different problem from making sure they never get it. It may already be too late for us to do the latter; and in any case, it's hard to keep genies in their bottles, and even harder to stuff them back in once they're out.

Controlling what people do with liberated genies is another thorny question. Most of us would like to be very careful how it's done even if we admit that it needs to be done. Individual freedom and opportunity are widely (and, I think, rightly) regarded as some of the most important genuine accomplishments of civilization. Even if we collectively decide that large amounts of both must be sacrificed to make sure that no kook wipes us all out, who's going to make sure the people or agency with the power to exert that control don't abuse it? It's a very old question; I believe the ancient Romans knew it as Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? ("Who will watch the watchmen?")

The only really long-term solution, it might seem, is one that many people would reject as an impossible dream. We need to become a world of people who all have the intelligence, mutual concern, restraint, and decency to live together without killing each other even if we have the means to do so. So I pose the challenge to everyone out there, and in particular all you writers who do those thought-experiments about possible futures that give Analog its name: How can we make that happen? If it is an impossible dream, what's the best we can do instead? How can we preserve for everyone as much freedom as possible to build a good life as he or she conceives it, without putting all of us at the mercy of any deranged or evil entity who gets too much power in his hands? If it's an almost possible dream, how can the many who can be trusted protect themselves from the very dangerous few who can't? Can we figure out a solution without the kick in the pants of a planetwide close call?

Not easy questions, any of them. But they're questions to which we need the best answers we can find.

And we need them now.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

This is not about anthrax, or even about biology–or any particular technology. It's about individuals or small groups having far too much power at their disposal.

We've just experienced a horrifying demonstration in principle of the danger I'm warning against. True, the World Trade Center was not the world; but it was quite enough to demonstrate just how much damage to lives and property a small band of nuts can do with even today's technology. I don't think I need to elaborate. And since change goes on, what we have seen, terrible as it is, is by no means the worst that can happen. If anyone ever thought that the speculation above was a mere academic exercise, it should now be abundantly clear that it is anything but. It is a clear and present danger, and quite possibly the most serious we have ever faced.

Psychologists tell us that religious fanatics and suicide bombers are not necessarily insane. This may be true, in a strictly clinical sense, and a useful thing to know in dealing with them. But whatever you may call it, the way their minds work is one that the rest of us cannot afford to tolerate. Even if they have legitimate grievances, mass murder of innocent strangers is a totally unacceptable way to handle them.

But how, exactly, will we refuse to tolerate it? One European leader said the situation calls for "very strong words." It does, but words are by no means a solution. We clearly do not have the option of waiting for the idyllic ideal I described earlier as our ultimate goal–though we should still strive for that in the long run. What we need now is a way to produce actual results–a way to exterminate the vermin or, more precisely and more important, to ensure by whatever means necessary that they or their ilk can no longer act. And we must achieve that without falling into the traps of indiscriminate slaughter or attributing guilt by ethnic association.

The nature of the problem is so novel that we can be sure that real solutions will be at least equally novel. We cannot expect to find them by continuing to apply old methods only more so. We need thinking that tries radically different approaches from any we have seen before, whether they involve technological inventions, social inventions, or some combination of both. The need is both urgent and long-term. If we fail to find such solutions, we–not just as a nation, but as a species–are in trouble so deep that the word "trouble" is totally inadequate.

But I wouldn't bring it up if I thought the situation was hopeless. The problem is enormous and difficult, but we have faced and solved enormous and difficult problems before. And this one, it would seem, lends itself especially well to the kind of "experiment" that's best done–at least initially–in the science-fictional "laboratory."

Writers: Get busy! This time we need your very best thinking, and we need it now. --Stanley Schmidt

New York, September 2001

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

A Message from the Editor	A "Web Special" editorial for 9/11/01