The Scarlet Plague! What Did Jack London Writing in 1912 Get Right About 2012? How Fragile Is Civilization? How difficult Is It To Rebuild? How Thin is the Line Between Nature Winning & Losing?

The Best Paragraph I've Read:“The gunpowder will come. Nothing can stop it—the same old story over and over. Man will increase, and men will fight. The gunpowder will enable men to kill millions of men, and in this way only, by fire and blood, will a new civilization, in some remote day, be evolved. And of what profit will it be? Just as the old civilization passed, so will the new. It may take fifty thousand years to build, but it will pass. All things pass. Only remain cosmic force and matter, ever in flux, ever acting and reacting and realizing the eternal types—the priest, the soldier, and the king. Out of the mouths of babes comes the wisdom of all the ages. Some will fight, some will rule, some will pray; and all the rest will toil and suffer sore while on their bleeding carcasses is reared again, and yet again, without end, the amazing beauty and surpassing wonder of the civilized state. It were just as well that I destroyed those cave-stored books—whether they remain or perish, all their old truths will be discovered, their old lies lived and handed down."The paragraph comes from the short story: The Scarlet Plague. The author is Jack London who wrote the story in 1912. You can read the entire story here. Zac & Don discuss the story which was written in 1912 about a plague that hits in 2012. They discuss which predictions about the future Jack London got right. They also discuss their biggest takeaways from the story - Civilization is fragile & Nature will take everything back.