Outquisiting

[leahbobet]

Cory Doctorow and Alex Steffen coin The Outquisition, an alternate notion of the apocalypse:

I noticed that while there's a whole ton of stories -- and people who emulate them -- about heavily armed survivalists bravely holding off the twilight of civilization after the Big One, there are damned few stories about super-networked post-apocalyptic Peace Corps who respond to the Great Fall by figuring out how to put it all back together. I even came up with a name for it: the Outquisition; the opposite of the Inquisition -- missionaries who come to your town to remind you of how awesome it can all be, leave behind a bunch of rad, life-improving systems and tools, and generally get on with the business of being happy, well-fed and peaceful.

My first impression of this is that their catastrophic apocalypses clearly contain more power generation capacity and a stronger resource base than any of mine. Which is not to say people can't be nice at the apocalypse -- in fact, considering the nature of agriculture these days you'd sorta have to be nice, as you're not going to make it long-term in anything smaller than a small community -- but does this seem a bit pie-in-the-sky to anyone else?

Any ideas on making it practical?

Comments

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Very pie-in-the-sky. (I'll have blueberry with vanilla ice cream, thanks.) It's a lot harder to be nice and friendly and all that when you and those you love are under threat of starvation, death, etc. There's a reason it's CIVILization you know.

MKK

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

It is. I keep thinking, though, more practical -- you can get a lot more done in a community of Nice People watching each others' backs than you can as lone operators.

And I'm saving this thought for the Walking Across Canada After The Apocalypse book, I think. *tucks it away*

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

See David Brin's The Postman.

And you might want to read about the Europeanization of Europe, from the fall of Rome to -- well, it's still ongoing. It wasn't entirely a peaceful process of re-establishing civilization; but it wasn't entirely non-peaceful, either.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I keep thinking about reading that, and then I keep thinking about how I don't really like Brin all that much.

I should probably do it anyways.

[ringwoodcomics.livejournal.com]

Made me think, of all things, of the Templars in Deadlands: the Wasted West.

I'm honestly not sure what the point of an "outquisition" (ugh, ugly word) story would be. Where's the tension? Why invoke an apocalypse at all?

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

How so?

In fiction, I think it might not be very pointful -- although I think fiction's been done where postapocalyptic people discover said missionary types? My brain is telling me that Robert Charles Wilson's Julian: A Christmas Story is of that type?

In real life, putting that together could be more useful...

[willowfagan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that scenario does seem to be based on having a lot of power capacity and resources. Maybe they're assuming more technological advances which will help? I tend to be pretty skeptical of technological solutions to collapse-of-industrial-civilization scenarios. It does seem plausible to me that some communities might have it together enough to at least send useful information and models to other communities--but I think there's also a danger, especially if the people doing so really think of themselves as missionaries, of that being done with a narrow-minded, self-righteous attitude that their approach is better, when the "farm communities" might have more knowledge of the local ecology, geology, history, etc., as well as more experience in practical survival skills. What works best in one bioregion isn't necessarily a good strategy in a different one.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

*nodnod* I'm skeptical of technological fixes too. It's just a little too...sexy. And I deeply suspect that postapocalyptic survival is not in fact about the sexy.

when the "farm communities" might have more knowledge of the local ecology, geology, history, etc., as well as more experience in practical survival skills. What works best in one bioregion isn't necessarily a good strategy in a different one.

And THAT is an excellent point.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

Why am I not surprised?

Did I tell about the commercial I saw, for a guy with an iPhone who gets stung by a poisonous spider? He uses his handy-dandy iPhone to call up a friend, take a picture of the spider, send the picture to the friend, and then while driving to the hospital he looks up the death rate of sting victims. And lo, he arrives at the hospital, gets antivenin, and is saved.

I saw this commercial in a movie theatre and shouted out, "If you get stung by a spider, and you have an iPhone, you CALL 911 WITH IT!!"

I fear that Cory Doctorow & co. are the sort that would not call 911 in such a situation.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

...aheh.

Simple is often best.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but depending on the species of spider, the places one might encounter it might not be places that have 911.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

1. In the commercial, dude was sitting on a couch. Intrepid explorer of secret tropical river basins he was not.

2. I don't know nothing bout iPhones, but if you get cell reception at all, and you're in the US, the chances you're on the 911 system are pretty good. And if you're calling your friend from your couch in, say, Nepal? Then you've woken him up thanks to the time difference, and are still no closer to real medical attention.

[katallen.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if they mean networked = computer -- if not I've read a whole bunch of stories where there are missionaries of hope and outposts of civilisation bootstapping civilisation... I seem to remember a couple by Andre Norton, even.

A surviving network of computers operational over hundreds of miles or across continents would be a bit daft. And technology likewise often requires a deal of co-operative production -- way more than a hand-to-mouth society can rustle up. But then I think it was 'Threads' -- post-nuclear attack drama -- that showed people fighting over a plastic wrapped loaf of bread some months after the 'end' o.o

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

And technology likewise often requires a deal of co-operative production -- way more than a hand-to-mouth society can rustle up.

Yeah, that's the thing. You have to have excess labour in order to support a tech sector. And when the world ends, I dunno how much excess labour and food for them you have...

[delta-november.livejournal.com]

I would look to the areas of the world that are suffering from their own apocalypses right now. In recent memory we have the Chinese earthquake, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, the Zimbabwe economic collapse and the destruction in Afganistan. Where is the Outquisition? Is it doing its work and we just don't know about it? Is the idea actually flawed and unworkable? Is Asia too long a commute from San Francisco, and they're waiting for a more local apocalypse?

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Ouch. I was thinking "touche", and then I thought about it more, and y'know? Yeah. You're right.

Apparently only one's own local apocalypse is sexy?

[kafkonia.livejournal.com]

But... but... he came up with a name for it!

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

Doctorow already touched on this idea a bit in Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. The society there is *very* pie in the sky, deliberately so - it's sort of a "what motivates us after everything goes right?" scenario (answer - respect and popularity). It's mentioned by the narrator that some of them used to go out as missionaries to remote, Luddite areas and tempt them with technology, but that after a century or so, there's no one much left to convert.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Oh, right. I'd forgotten that bit...

[ospreys-view.livejournal.com]

Actually, some friends and I were sitting around eating dinner and discussing just this scenario. Between us, we figured we had enough skills to set up a commune that would provide a pretty decent life.

As for power generation, it wouldn't need to be on such a vast scale as what we have now. A few wind turbines in the backyard and some batteries would be enough for most of the basic needs (ie refrigeration and preservation of food.) In fact, where I live now, that's just what people did in the thirties and forties before electrification. Every house had at least one wind turbine to power a well pump.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Hee. We've done that. Except it meant I decided I didn't have the skills necessary, and went out looking to get them.

That is awesome about the wind turbines -- how far back do those date?

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

As a sort of pie-in-the-sky person, I think the idea's an intriguing one. However, I'm also very hard to please, so it would have to be well done. It's certainly a challenge.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I am just iffy about the missionary aspect. Stories about people promoting the thing one thinks is neat often devolve into "I, the author, think this is neat and you should too".

[ginny-t.livejournal.com]

Oh yuck! Anything that devolves into telling readers what the author thinks is shiny and why they should agree is shudder-worthy.

Now, something that shows what and why (well of course) can be something else entirely.