Geeks Shall Inherit The Earth

You know, it’s not supposed to be the geek that shall inherit the earth.


Something I think about often, and worry about a little, too, is that our entire functioning world hinges on those things that can be plugged in to a power source. As tech toys flood world markets at an alarming rate, we as humans, and supposedly sentient beings, are actually losing our humanity at the same speed. We are but a collection of numbers and symbols in a database somewhere and, therefore, living and existing at the pleasure of people who know how to manipulate those numbers and symbols.

I think, though, I want to take this discussion in a slightly different direction. Let me set a hypothetical scenario for you. Let’s say it’s the year 2012 and Osama bin Laden’s replacement is much savvier about technology than his predecessor—not how to use it, but what ceases to happen without it. Politicians and power moguls can argue all they like that we have too many redundancies in our grid system to worry much about terrorism on electricity production. I’ll only buy into that premise to a point. For the most part, I choose to believe that such talk is self-serving to maintain central control even as many different companies distribute power. The reason is simple, distributors distribute, they don’t produce.

How many remember the northeastern power outage of 1965; how about the one in 2003? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_2003 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_1965

It’s not worth boring you with technical jargon or excuses for the outages. I’m not intelligent enough for that anyhow. But, what is fascinating to note, is how little it took to take down a huge chunk of the northeastern United States in an instant. And both times it stayed down for a frighteningly long period. Now, multiply that by two or three other central power producing locations.

I think you know where I’m going with this; the U-S, with the possible exception of the military, would be blind, deaf and dumb. How long do you think it would take for panic and mayhem to set in, sides chosen and warring tribes to emerge battling over scraps of food?

I challenge each one reading this to look around and count the number of young people you personally know that have no clue how a loaf of bread is made or what from, where ham comes from or how to make it, how to make cheese or butter, have never gathered eggs from a coop, have no idea how to spin yarn, sew, weave, build a chair from tree branches, or even something as simple as walking into an open pasture and knowing what is edible and what is poison. This list could go on and on. Unfortunately, these are the people that now rule the world and are currently breeding offspring that think their futures hinge on new products from Apple and Microsoft or how well the stock of one investment company does versus another, or what political party will best serve them.

I think I’ll get to work writing a novel of catastrophe and call it, “The Geek That Inherited The Earth” or maybe, “The United States Unplugged”. Of course neither have much hope of a happy ending if I insist on too many truisms. I would have to go whole hog and create a fantasy world because, really, who’d believe society could collapse just because someone pulled the power plug. Absurd. Right?

Daniel (Danny) Lance Wright
Author of
"Paradise Flawed"/Dream Books LLC/2009
"Six Years' Worth"/Father's Press/2007
"The Last Radiant Heart"/Virtual Tales/August 2010
"Where Are You, Anne Bonny?"/Rogue Phoenix Press 2010/ ebook available
“Trouble”, short story/CrossTIME Science Fiction Anthology, Vol. IX
“Dancing Away”/short story/Untreed Reads
COMING IN 2012
“Defining Family”
“Annie’s World: Jake’s Legacy”