Page 110 - An Evening with Maxwell's Daemons

Manna 2.0

“Small children fear being eaten,” said Perversity Tinderstack
matter-of-factly, “not long after they have effectively been eating
their mother. Yet the taboo on cannibalism is almost as strong as
that on incest. One can see from a purely sociobiological
perspective that it is better both to feed upon as well as to mate
with non-family members. Yes, it is a shocking topic; but too many
trend lines are dystopic to ignore what may cease being unthinkable.
I want to write a story about what happens when the food runs out,
to put it baldly. I know this can be done only by holding other
potentially disastrous outcomes somewhat at bay: global plague,
nuclear war, climate catastrophes affecting temperature, air
pollution, and water quality and quantity. What, I wonder, will
Homo sapiens, the most adaptable creature on the planet, do when
it is forced to make drastic dietary adjustments or die? Historically,
when the choice is starvation or cannibalism, anthropological
factors are invoked as predictors of behavior. In general the smaller,
more isolated and less interrelated the group, the more likely to
resort to anthropophagy. Yes, and so-called civilized people have
reverted and resorted to this practice under duress; I need refer only
to the Donner Party and the Raft of the Medusa as well-known
examples.”
“Thus my premise: too many mouths, not enough food. Crops
and domestic animals dying off faster than people, the countryside
no longer able to support the city. Sources of protein reduce to
insects—and other humans. Let us further suppose that most of the
human population is already dead of starvation when the story
begins. Roving bands of cannibals prey upon each other in what
once were thriving capitals of the world and small hamlets alike.
Grim: the skeletal finger of a dead planet beckons the survivors to
species extinction in their race to the bottom of the food chain. Yet
there is hope: somewhere in an isolated northern region a small
group of scientists is struggling to synthesize a rapidly-growing
hardy strain of bacteria able to withstand climate extremes and
109