Mayor McCheese & Modern Medicine: the Good & Bad of High Energy Modernity (Episode 23 of Crazy Town)

As I took my first breath in this future neighborhood, the air had a fragrant quality that I didn’t recognize. I could hear a person shout something, maybe a block away. It’s much quieter than the world I left. There’s certainly a smell of home cooking in the air. And there’s a lot more plants of all sizes and description wherever I look. That’s it! The air carries a mixture of fruit scents.

The story takes place in a near-future version of western Canada and centers on a fictional town called River Meadows, which once served as an epicenter for the extraction and production of a fossil fuel-like substance called ghost ore. This ore is vastly more energy-dense than any previously known energy source, and its environmental impacts are equally unprecedented. When emitted into the environment, it unleashes disruptive temporal anomalies known as “decoherences,” which severely warp people’s perception of reality.

Think of science as a powerful tool, like maybe a power saw. It can really take things apart. But it’s not always the right tool. Maybe it seldom is, in fact. We also don’t want to put it in the hands of children, or use it without first thinking carefully about the consequences and if there might in fact be more productive paths.