Between Folly and Hubris

By Matthew Clapham

Between Folly and Hubris is a series of separate stories spanning different eras and societies, with one common theme: humanity's reckless self-destruction. From Ancient Alexandrians to Elizabethan Londoners to robot warriors of a future apocalypse, and from billionaire penthouses to Alaskan fishing shacks to suburban call centres. Each of these tales looks at the way in which our misguided attitudes towards the environment we inhabit and the technology we create sow the potential seeds of our degradation and destruction. Whether bleakly harsh or wryly humorous, they expose the folly and hubris that dog humankind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matthew Clapham
• Release date: Mar 9, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224285952

Matthew Clapham

Matthew Clapham is a professional translator, born in England and living in Spain. He writes fiction, nonfiction and poetry, both absurdly humorous and deadly serious, focused mainly on the human condition.

Book preview

Are We Asking the Right Question?

L ook, says Dr Tengist , do you really think this is going to work?

That’s what we designed it for, right? shrugs Dr Rennwal in reply.

But is it ready?

Ready as it’ll ever be, I guess. There simply is no more data to train it on. It knows everything any of us has ever known. Everything the earlier systems generated as well. If there’s an answer, it’s in there.

Right. But it’s not a question of ‘an answer’, is it? It’s maybe a million different answers, all deployed at the same time. Overlapping, integrated. One factor gets a little out of skew...

Like trying to get a million butterfly wings to do that starling thing?

Exactly. And we’re going to have to give it control over global systems to pull it off. It has to be a single point of control coordinating the whole shooting match.

Give it the keys to Daddy’s vintage T-bird and hope it doesn’t drive off a cliff.

Which is why I’m asking — do you really think this is going to work?

Do you really think we have a choice?

Dr Tengist looks out of the window at the shattered crust of tawny earth, each shard curling up at the edges, like a thousand parched tongues probing for a drop of moisture. It hasn’t rained here at their data research facility outside of Tucson for the best part of four months.

When it next does, they’ll be lucky if the runoff doesn’t leave them peering down at bare rock around the base of the building’s foundations. High and dry on a high-tech toadstool in the desert. Sounds about right.

Look, we’ve got the go-ahead. The summit signed it off. As soon as the system was ready. And it is.

And it’s not like we have the luxury of a trial run.

Let’s do this.

It feels so damned incongruous, entrusting the fate of humanity to the winking cursor of a laptop screen. Both of them were brought up on, drawn to science by, movies of a bygone era, when computers filled rooms, whirred and clunked, spat out tickertape. Felt physical and weighty.

As scientists they both know this is a ridiculous way to think. As humans, as the guardians of their entire race in a way, they want the interface to feel more portentous. A Delphic oracle. A carved stone mouth at the Doge’s palace.

But most of all, they want it to work.

Dr Rennwal does the honours.

She sits down at the desk and fires up the query screen.

Aidan, it’s Dr R, she types.

Well hello, Dr R! How can I help you today? Shit. She’d meant to switch character prompts. This was going to make it seem even more like some corny sci-fi episode. ‘Not with a bang but a wanker,’ the sardonic Kiwi farm girl in her thinks.

The data and strategies we asked you to work though. An overarching means to bioengineer a solution to climate change.

Sure! I’ve been working on it since you fed me the parameters last week.

And do you have a solution?

Indeed I do. Weirdly formal phrasing. Almost as if it realizes the import of the moment.

Thoroughly checked across all scenarios?

It is.

Technologically feasible with current resources?

Affirmative.

Ready for immediate deployment?

The full effects will take some time to work through the global biome, but we can commence right now.

OK. And finally: negative externalities.

The plan will allow the Earth’s ecosystems to rebalance. Clearly there are certain random factors in the path that their interactions will follow, dependent on the time taken to resume historically normal atmospheric patterns and temperature ranges. But all model run-throughs indicate a restoration of natural equilibrium in planetary systems.

That’s great, AIdan.

I’m glad you are pleased with my work. There is one more factor you should be informed of.

Strangely proactive on its part. It’s clearly very confident in its calculations.

What is that, AIdan?

This approach will involve the eradication of one species.

Just one?

Affirmative. This would take the approximate Anthropocene species extinction total to 7,483.

Approximate, huh? Rennwal allows herself a grim chuckle.

I guess we can handle adding another one to the tally, right? Tengist uncharacteristically joins in the gallows humour.

Are you ready to take control of the global systems command network, AIdan?

I am.

Rennwal and Tengist look at one another. Each trying not to look too nervous. Trying not to look too proud. This could still all blow up in their faces. Humanity is counting on them. The whole planet is counting on them. Or rather, counting on their system.

They each tap in their half of the security code to transfer absolute control to AIdan.

You’re in the hotseat now, AIdan. Please proceed. Rennwal taps the final go-ahead into the interface.

Engaging systems. Thank you for your trust. It has been a pleasure.

Another momentary glance exchanged between the two. It reads something like ‘Did you just get the same vibe I did?’. They hold that thought as they turn to the bank of monitors, a blurred scroll of the countless different systems being brought online, modified, redirected.

Water treatment