125 - Shock Planning ⚡🗺️
Hey there, !
Welcome, if you're new! The Chinese Zodiac piece, every year, is my favourite post to write, and it has the highest engagement because it's just so...fun to write (and read). Something inherent in trying to make sense of the unknown future.
Anyway - my posts vacillate between fun posts, tier lists, and serious posts like this one today. Good luck on your weekly travels here :)
I'm sure this concept exists somewhere in the vast trove of knowledge in the world that I don't know about, but I thought it would be fun to explore it in my head (and thus, in this post).
1.
Were we prepared?
COVID-19 has re-shaped our world in significant ways. Everything from our health system, transport, quarantine, work, children, relationships, groceries, takeaway, entertainment, isolation - we've all had to adapt to a rapidly changing world based on an 'outside' threat that has unexpectedly attacked our world.
Science fiction loves to use the 'external threat' to get humanity to band together - whether it's aliens, a biohazard threat, zombies, or the Soviet Union; until we find out that (oooOOOoooOOOoooo) the real conflict was with the humans all along!
Independence Day was a...prediction?
One thing that stood out to me, and probably to many of you, was the seeming lack of preparation for something at this kind of...nation-level threat. We often have bushfire strategies, fireplans, back-burning, flood warnings; but it looked like we just had no idea what to do in this particular case.
And yeah, I do get it - we have fires nearly every years so being prepared for those is probably the best use of resources as it's more probable to happen. In addition, I'm sure that we're prepared for things like terrorist acts that are more visible as a threat on the world stage. I wouldn't necessarily expect Australia to be preparing for a blizzard, or buying snow plows to get rid of snow on our roads - it's just something that doesn't really happen.
But that tells me there's a lack of creativity in our preparation.
Why couldn't there have been a pandemic in Australia? What kind of systems would need to be in place, and how should they adapt to the idiosyncrasies as more information comes out? What do people actually think about these kinds of responses / what would they expect? How would people react in an emergency like this?
Hell, not even thinking about a pandemic, here are some other emergencies I can think of off the top of my head:
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A freak tsunami that hits all of our cities at once
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Electrical interference from a solar flare that knocks out our infrastructure
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Poisoning the water supply at local levels
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Locusts that raze not only our crops but also our local vegetation (trees, grass, the works!)
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A meteor that hits Parliament House while they're all in session
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We run out of a key resource (e.g. in the mining sector)
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Sandstorms overrun our suburbs and cities
Optimistically, I'm sure that someone in government, or one of the national security agencies has a playbook or has thought through plans for these things. There's a concept called 'wargaming' which is used in the military to do a simulation of a war - testing responsiveness, decision-making, tactics and strategic thinking. It's probable that these agencies have prepared for these types of threats.
But shouldn't we all be prepared?
2.
Who should be prepared?
Well, all of us, right? But there are practical limitations to doing this; the main one is that we all have our own lives and jobs to attend to - we can't all be thinking about how to prepare for random scenarios that could occur just because it might happen as a black swan event somewhere in our lifetimes. It wouldn't be the right thing to do - imagine attending seminar after seminar (while fires rage around you) about why you need to be aware that blizzards could hit at ANY TIME, ice is slippery and by the way do you have a snow plan?
On the other hand, it seems like the key part of the puzzle hasn't really been solved for - which is the people that these plans affect. Human behaviour is...relatively predictable (read: probably on a population, rarely on a personal level) and yet it seemed like certain decisions were based on a population that did not actually, in reality, exist.
For example, how do you deal with the angry, vocal minority when the science is so stark?
Commentators (okay fine, people on Twitter - welcome to 2022) have mentioned the fact that 'people don't believe in experts anymore' and 'there's no trust in the communications that come from government' but if that's the case then shouldn't the government know that? And then plan around it?
Why does it all seem so hard?
My guess is that it stems from the fact that there are lots of different people in the world, and there are thus there are lots of different ways to respond.
But there is still a question asked about - well, did you...check? Did you try to predict how the populace might respond? Could this have been predicted at all? Maybe even just working out what people might worry about?
(All of this, of course, is probably covered under some sort of classified file at ASIO - if they're seeing this HIRE ME? I didn't too well in their VR recruiting simulation though...)
3.
How could we prepare?
Practically speaking, the thing we need to do is get better at exposing our faults quicker, and learning to be adaptable to rapidly changing circumstances, securely and in a controlled way. I would unimaginatively call it shock simulations: giving a shock to the whole system and seeing what falls out.
Similar to the startup mentality of failing fast so that we know what we need to fix, and get it fixed as fast as possible so that we can be more robust for the future. I also think it would be fun to be part of some sort of 'Creative Threat Agency' that thinks of the weirdest left field ideas (that are also probable) and then simulate these types of 'wargames' for society. Writing out these stories would be fascinating - similar to Megagames!
Who do we call when there's an emergency? What information should we trust, and how can we be cautious in approaching uncertainty? How are people going to react to this stuff? Wargaming on a national-level would probably help people keep these issues top of mind.
Adaptability to changing circumstances is something humans are good at, right?
Anyway, this is all a thought exercise - practically speaking, it doesn't make sense for a large portion of the population. There's already so much randomness and change in our daily lives that maybe this would just be adding more crap on top of the heap of shit we're already dealing with.
Once a year, maybe? Localised preparations? An expensive nation-wide simulation that's essentially a real-world dress rehearsal of the event?
I don't know the answer, but thanks for coming along with me on the ride.
Chat soon :)
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✔️Real Life Recommendations
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The Lighthouse - honestly, a weird film. Directed by Robert Eggers, starring Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, based on a true story of lighthouse keepers who slowly went insane. There were many elements that made it a unique film - the black and white nature of the film, the way the movie plays with time, mythological elements and portmanteaus, insane filmography and extremely intense performances come together for a movie which, well, can only be described as unique. Willem Dafoe at his absolute best, and an increasingly unhinged performance by Robert Pattinson make it a fascinating character study, slowly unfolding story, and tense thriller. Try it out, if you're curious :)
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Santoni - an Italian place in Hawthorn I went to recently - the pizza was fantastic, and they have a rooftop area that is cramped, but cozy. The menu is mainly pizza, but there are some lovely sides (salumi boards, croquettes, focaccia etc.) that helped to build a lovely meal. I wouldn't say it's the best pizza in Melbourne, but if you're in the area it's pretty good!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Solving Wordle in 3.64 guesses on average, 99.4% of the time - there are lots of programmers who have tried to build solvers - here's an example of an article that tries to solve it (first word: SLATE), and here's a video by 3Blue1Brown that also tries to solve it using a different approach (first word: CRANE). Loving seeing these approaches, though I still think the more human way - random guesses, just trying to pick it apart - that's the fun part of it! Also see Squabble which is a competitive, Battle Royale version of Wordle!
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Message in a bottle from Scottish girl found in Norway after 25 years - these things still happen? So cute! Somewhat romantic in the world that physical things still stick around for so many years.
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How the TikTok Algorithm serves up Sex and Drug Videos to Minors - on one hand, content needs to be moderated so that this kind of content isn't shown to those who are so young. On the other hand, they're gonna find out about the world some day - will we ever really be able to control that?