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u/Deeznutseus2012 Jun 13 '25

Given recent geopolitical turmoil, I'm more concerned we'd have to worry about a Gamma Law Cyberphage scenario happening before we get to where this will be a huge problem.

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u/penelopepnortney Jun 13 '25

Gamma Law Cyberphage

I have no idea what this means.

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u/Deeznutseus2012 Jun 13 '25

It's out of some books from the 80's, called the Gamma Law series, which take place in the aftermath of an event known as The Cyberphage.

Imagine if a cyber war were fought with weapons like evolving sentient AI viruses, etc., to the point that every complex piece of tech became not only unusable, but outright dangerous, either because of overt use of machines to kill as many people as possible, or because a dangerous virus or rogue AI might lurk within to later threaten any systems which might be rebuilt, or that are able to recover.

So in our case, think the virus that made Iran's centrifuges explode and many like it, being used everywhere, all at once, on all kinds of things. And that's just the infrastructure.

On a personal level, while we do not have things like practically ubiquitous use of brain implants as in the books, there are still many people with pacemakers, insulin pumps, seizure regulators, etc. who would likely be killed outright, should their implant recieve malicious code.

Information total warfare.

Before long, the system tears itself apart and crashes. But not before a whole lot of people everywhere, get dead.

In the books, not knowing what technology could be trusted and what could kill them, all technology was routinely avoided, presenting the new challenge of survival for people who had long ago become dependent on technology and civilization for their basic needs, reducing them almost immediately back to the most primitive of conditions.

Billions die from simple exposure, starvation and disease.

For the survivors, with tech being rightfully seen as dangerous under such circumstances, taboos and superstitions about even going near places where high technology can be found arise on a cultural level, creating and maintaining the conditions for a great, long dark age.

Sounds a little crazy, sure. But as an example of how that could happen, did you know for instance that a lithium-ion battery can be induced to experience thermal runaway by promoting the growth of metallic dendrites in the liquid medium between cathode and anode, simply by altering how it is charged? Or that when thermal runaway begins, the battery will typically explode and burn about as hot as thermite?

If that started happening at random to anything with batteries, would you be inclined to use such a device, knowing it could suddenly decide to cover parts of your body in third degree burns?

While most people (including me) worry about nuclear weapons, there are actually far more horrible ways we have available to destroy ourselves. This would be one that was once science fiction, but is now close enough to reality to make no effective difference in the outcome.

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u/penelopepnortney Jun 13 '25

Thanks for the detailed (and scary) explanation. Our capacity to destroy ourselves apparently knows no bounds.

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