X-Events: Complexity Overload and the Collapse of Everything

276 Pages·2013·1.45 MB·English

by  John L. Casti

X-Events
The Collapse of Everything
John Casti
Dedication
To connoisseurs of the unknown unknowns
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Author’s Note
Preamble: Putting the “X” into X-Events
Part I: Why Normal Isn’t So “Normal” Anymore
Part II: Getting Down to Cases
X-Event 1: Digital Darkness: A Long-Term, Widespread Failure of the Internet
X-Event 2: When Do We Eat?: Breakdown of the Global Food-Supply System
X-Event 3: The Day the Electronics Died: A Continent-Wide Electromagnetic
Pulse Destroys All Electronics
X-Event 4: A New World Disorder: The Collapse of Globalization
X-Event 5: Death by Physics: Destruction of the Earth Through the Creation of
Exotic Particles
X-Event 6: Blown Away: Destabilization of the Nuclear Landscape
X-Event 7: Running on Empty: Drying Up of World Oil Supplies
X-Event 8: I’m Sick of It: A Global Pandemic
X-Event 9: Dark and Dry: Failure of the Electric Power Grid and Clean Water
Supply
X-Event 10: Technology Run Amok: Intelligent Robots Overthrow Humanity
X-Event 11: The Great Unwinding: Global Deflation and the Collapse of
World Financial Markets
Part III: X-Events Redux
Notes and References
Searchable Terms
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
AUTHOR’S NOTE
G to think it is yet one more
LANCING QUICKLY AT THE COVER OF THIS BOOK, IT WOULD BE EASY
tale of doom and gloom, an account of apocalypses waiting to jump out at
humanity and send our way of life tumbling back to a preindustrial level. But as
often turns out to be the case in life, first impressions can be deceiving, if not
just flat-out wrong, and this is not a volume aimed at scaring the bejesus out of
you. Quite the opposite, in fact. So if it’s not a vision of hellish things to come,
what, pray tell, is it?
The book you hold in your hands is a tale of possibilities, dramatic
possibilities that are rare, surprising, have potentially huge impact on human life,
and about which we cling to the illusion that they are not “made in my
backyard.” In the vernacular, these possibilities are generally lumped into the
catchall term “extreme events.” I like X-events better. This is a book about these
outlier events, those surprises that are complementary to everything that takes
place in what we will call the “normal” region. By way of contrast, the X-events
region is one that has been far less scientifically investigated, just because its
elements, ranging from asteroid impacts to financial market meltdowns to
nuclear attacks, are by their very nature rare and surprising. Science is mostly
about the study of repeatable phenomena; X-events fall outside that category,
which is a major reason why at present we have no decent theory for when, how,
and why they occur. If nothing else, this book is a call to arms for the
development of that theory, what we might label “a theory of surprise.” We
might compactly summarize the situation that the book’s primary goal is to
propose an answer to the question: How do we characterize risk in situations
where probability theory and statistics cannot be employed?
X-events of the human—rather than nature-caused—variety are the result of
too little understanding chasing too much complexity in our human systems. The
X-event, be it a political revolution, a crash of the Internet, or the collapse of a
civilization, is human nature’s way of reducing a complexity overload that has
become unsustainable. Each part of the book aims at shedding light on the
following questions:
Why do X-events occur?
Why are X-events happening more frequently nowadays than ever before?
What impact will a particular X-event have on our twenty-first-century
lifestyle?
How can we anticipate when the risk of an X-event taking place has risen to
a dangerous level?
When can we do something to prevent an impending X-event and when can
we only prepare to survive it?
The answer to each of these questions is in its own way tied up with the
exponentially increasing levels of complexity necessary to preserve the critical
infrastructures of modern life. That fact is the thread running through this book.
X-Events is a work of concepts and ideas. To make these pages as accessible
as possible to a nontechnical reader, I’ve used no formulas, charts, equations,
graphs, or jargon. (Well, one chart!) Fundamentally, the book is a collection of
linked stories that together make the case that complexity can—and will—kill if
we let it get out of control.
As is so often the case, hindsight is 20/20. And so it is with this book, too.
After completing the draft manuscript, it dawned on me that the book you hold is
actually the second volume of an emerging trilogy on human social events, their
causes, and their consequences. The first volume was my 2010 work Mood
Matters, which addressed the social psychology of groups and how that “social
mood” biases the sorts of collective events we can expect to see on all
timescales. X-Events focuses on the root cause of human-generated extreme
events, and the manner in which such events can change our way of life. The
third volume will outline how extreme events are as much an opportunity as a
problem, the “creative” half of economist Joseph Schumpeter’s famous notion of
“creative destruction.”
Readers who wish to send me their comments, ideas, and/or complaints, can
do so via the web address: [email protected].

T to thank the many
HE MOST SATISFYING PART ABOUT COMPLETING ANY BOOK IS THE OPPORTUNITY
people who helped in its creation. In this regard, I’m more blessed than most by
having had the benefit of many “beta” readers, who tirelessly and generously
gave their time to making this a better book than I had any right to expect. So
I’m happy to acknowledge their efforts in print and thank them publicly for their
generosity and good judgment. So in no particular order, kudos to Olav Ruud,
Brian Fath, Leena Ilmola, Jo-Ann Polise, Helmut Kroiss, Rex Cumming, Adam
Dixon, and Timo Hämäläinen for their thoughts, suggestions, and contributions
to one or more of the book’s chapters. A special tip of the hat to my most faithful
readers, Trudy Draper and Zac Bharucha, who read every line of every chapter
and did their absolute best to look after the reader’s interests. Whatever
incomprehensibilities remain in the text are there despite their best efforts to get
me to fix them. Finally, my “tough love” publisher, Peter Hubbard, senior editor
at William Morrow/HarperCollins, forced me to write and rewrite passage after
passage to get it right. Without his enthusiasm and continuing support, this book
would never have seen the light of day.
John Casti
Vienna, Austria
November 2011
PREAMBLE
P “X” X-E
UTTING THE INTO VENTS
THE COMPLEXITY TRAP
I 2010, A B B what is still the world’s
N EARLY MERICAN ARCHITECT RYAN ERG COMPLETED
largest house of cards. Using more than four thousand decks, he constructed a
towering replica of the Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel in China that stands over
ten feet high and is thirty feet wide. Viewing this amazing structure, I
immediately saw it as a kind of metaphor for the highly complex, interconnected
world we live in today. A mouse scurrying about in the room or a sneeze by a
visitor at the wrong moment, and the forty-four days Berg spent building his
house of cards could be blown away in a second. So, too, with the ultrafragile
infrastructures we depend on for everyday life.
The entire industrialized world relies on a continuing infusion of ever more
advanced technology. Moreover, the systems that underwrite our lifestyle are
completely intertwined: the Internet depends on the electrical power grid, which
in turn relies on energy supply from oil, coal, and nuclear fission, which likewise
rests on manufacturing technologies that themselves require electricity. And so it
goes, one system piled upon another piled upon yet another, everything
connected to everything else. Modern society is just like the cards in “Berg’s
casino,” where each new card sits atop those below it. Such a setup is an open
invitation to that mouse scurrying across the floor to nudge a low-level card and
send the entire structure tumbling down.
Of course, the fragility of the construction is what gives a house of cards its
cachet. This is great—for a parlor trick. But do we want to have our entire way
of life rest upon a house of cards? Imagine New York or Paris or Moscow
without electricity for an uncertain period of time. Or to take a longer-term view,
what if we have no new technology for a decade? What happens then to our
standard of living?
This is a great question. What does happen to our standard of living when
the seductive music of technology stops? Even more interesting, what could stop
the music? Like all fundamental questions, this one too has many surface
answers. But all these replies rest upon a more foundational reason for why and
how technology can stop. In these pages, I argue that the deep reason for how the
music stops is that it’s the game changer, the extreme event, that pulls the plug.