Page 107 - An Evening with Maxwell's Daemons

Sunscreen

interventions you yourself mentioned, Rutger? Five, and the final
link in this chain of desperation: what if the thing doesn’t work? Or,
even worse, somehow ceases responding to our commands and
blocks too much sunlight for too long, sending the planet into
excessive cooling?”
“For myself, I’d like to read about the human element.”
Perversity Tinderstack chimed in. “This story has no choice but to
become an account of the exploits of the gods—that is, the elite of
our half-developed technocracy. Political leaders will have to hand a
lot of sovereignty to these suddenly exalted people. So, the crux
should be right at the beginning, and leave the reader to presume
the hardware and software will behave as advertised. Therefore, a
summit of charismatic leaders of the great powers, people who
would otherwise never cooperate owing to national ideology and
self-interest. Unity imposed by a common enemy: but will it be
recognized in time? I think most people understand what has to be
overcome: greed and distrust. Greed could be the easiest, if all the
facts are out in the open: everyone will suffer economically if the
excess wealth of nations and individuals is not surrendered to the
cause. The basics of survival are at stake—air, water, food, health—
and the rich will need to understand that they have the same needs
and cannot buy their way out. So maybe the hero would be an
economist. Distrust is tougher to eliminate, although social science
has provided means of doing it—group activities, role-playing, team
spirit—the effective psychosocial techniques are well-known by
now. In this case, the earth’s champion would be a balding, tweedy
guy with a pipe, showing the way to get the ball rolling.”
Brad Razeberry disagreed.
“I don’t know if a political thriller works as a science-fiction
short story. Here we have a maximum risk-benefit scenario, and it
requires that cost be damned. The whole planet, as it were, is
holding its breath as a last-ditch Hail Mary pass is thrown. Zoom in
to one man or a small team somewhere who suddenly have to make
it work or else. Each part of this apparatus may be relative small
and standardized, and fail-safe redundancy and back-up systems all
in place, but something has to go wrong or there’s no drama. I’d say

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