Page 20 - An Evening with Maxwell's Daemons

Shangri-la South

“At first,” replied Kornfleck slowly, “I divided disasters into two
categories, internal disintegration and external disruption. In the
first bunch we have all the interpersonal conflicts historically taking
down intentional communities: struggles over leadership, gender
roles and work responsibility—remember, this place has to be self-
sufficient: either the wealthy adopt a kind of communism or they
foolishly attempt to maintain a servile workforce from the lower
orders. But that starts to look like a novel, not a short story, and I’m
not sure I want to write it in the third person.”
“Second, I can foresee trouble from the outside. Of course, the
usual scene of angry villagers with pitchforks storming Baron
Frankenstein’s castle comes up immediately. Or some paranoid
foreign military mistaking it for a terrorist base and sending in a
barrage of missiles. How could this gilded colony hope to keep its
existence secret forever? The weakest link will break, be it human,
mechanical or electronic, and unwanted attention will arrive
destructively. But their attempts at predicting the parameters of
impending ecospasm are equally naïve: climate change is as chaotic
as it is forecastable. Precipitation and temperature could careen
beyond their calculated range of tolerance in a big hurry, making
their little slice of heaven a hellhole—if you’ll pardon the mixed
metaphors. Volcanic and seismic activity—often the final
judgement of the gods or nature in cataclysmic potboilers—can be
invoked, a là Pompeii.”
He paused and took a sip of water. “As I said, I can set up this
little toy and start it gyrating, but I’d like some suggestions about
how and when it is going to run out of steam or crash and burn.”
Leith Mauker interrupted a couple of the others with a loud
voice. “I reject your presumption of failure! It’s too pessimistic, the
way you have set it up. It’s an either-or proposition: impossible
utopia for a few or certain dystopia for the rest of humanity. If they
are the great repository of science and culture—an ark, as you say—
why not have two or three of them rebel, gather up their data cards,
and leave the place ahead of its collapse? Then you could have your
cake and eat it—or your readers could, anyway: a fresh start in an
imperfect world for the bearers of wisdom, etcetera.”

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