A sad admission of mine looking back is that I wasn't much of reader growing up. I was adequately skilled, but seldom found it enjoyable. Mathematics was my first love, and prose could not compete with the sheer purity and precision, that blissful order that I craved so much in my early days. It was only after I had enlisted in the Navy, and found myself in need of frequent worlds to escape into, that I became a true lover of the written word. (Note: This was not due to any particular fault of the Navy as an organization. I simply came to realize over time that we were ill-suited for each other.)
While I was not the reader some of my friends were, did go through spurts of various authors. I was quite fond of Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, and Dean Koontz, to name a few. My friend's taste were quite different. Whereas I enjoyed modern fantasy and horror, they preferred a more classic touch.
Burroughs was a particular favorite, and while I was not much for older writing styles, I decided to give him a try. My test novel was "The Land That Time Forgot," the story of a submarine the finds prehistoric creatures in an isolated crater in Antarctica. I was always fascinated by dinosaurs growing up, so I thought it had the best chance of any of his works of capturing my interest.
Sadly, Mr. Burroughs and I parted company after the novel. I can't really say what it was about the style that I found unappealing, this being close to forty years ago now, but for the amount of reading I did there were authors I much preferred. There was a concept that he used in that novel, however, that I found quite clever. The basics of the scene remain with me to this day.
At one point in the story, some of the men from the submarine are menaced by a dinosaur. I don't recall which variety, though Tyrannosaurs are always a favorite in those situations. The crew is armed with rifles and begins firing, but the dinosaur keeps coming. Terrified, the men retreat. The dinosaur is gaining on them rapidly, and about to overtake them, when it suddenly falls down, dead. The rationale employed by the author for the sudden failure of the predator is that the huge reptile was known to only have a brain the size of a walnut. Given the size of the body, the number of systems being controlled, etc., some functions and responses are substantially slower than in modern animals. In this case, one of the men had shot the dinosaur in the heart, but it had already decided to take off running after them, and it took a while for the beast to realize it was dead.
There are certain parallels in modern times we are more familiar with. One of the most common is stepping on a dead bee. A child will learn quickly that the insect doesn't have to be alive to sting you. Potentially more damaging would be the rider whose horse is shot, but then falls on top of him as they go down.Not exactly the same as running out of gas on the freeway.
And now, as a nation, we face a similar problem. For that matter, so does the bulk of Western civilization. Only instead of fleeing monsters such as T-Rex and Allosaurus, the behemoths following us go by names like "Social Security" and "Medicare." There are other, smaller beasts running with the pack, various pensions and assorted benefits. And there's the new kid on the block: Obamacare. It's starting out pretty large on it's own, but it has the potential to be huge beyond all imagining.
And they all have joined together, forming the great herd called "Social Safety Net." It's an irony of the darkest order. There is neither safety, nor a net, not one of any substance. As with many parts of the programs themselves, most of their features are illusory, bits of smoke propped up by public money and self-serving politicians. All of the programs are dead, as dead as the dinosaurs. They just don't know it. For, if we couldn't afford the benefit programs that we had, if the spending levels were already unsustainable, how could we ever believe that we could manage the system as it increases, government pushing to provide ever more services on a constantly shrinking supply of productive individuals?
The answer is, of course, it cannot. The beasts will fall, and not only in the Americas. Europe has been growing its own phantom herd even longer, and with a far greater percentage of public funds until recently. While some of the politicians have been making brave noises about reform, none have showed the combined dedication and resilience to get anything lasting accomplished. Barring something truly astounding, the systems will crash, and only God in heaven knows the extent of the destruction.
It would be the ultimate irony, one worthy of note assuming it is remembered afterward. Twenty-first century man, at the height of his intellectual and technical prowess, killed while fleeing a dead dinosaur.
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