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\F1\CSTANFORD ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LABORATORY
\CDEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
\CSTANFORD UNIVERSITY
\CSTANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305


\F0							June 21, 1974



Mr. James J. Kilpatrick
White Walnut Hill
Woodville, Virginia 22749


Dear Mr. Kilpatrick:

\J	We met at Professor Juilland's house when you lectured
at Stanford, but unless you have a better memory than I have,
you won't remember me.  This letter concerns your column of
May 25 (Palo Alto Times) in which you favorably review a
book prophesying doom.  I was somewhat surprised at this,
because I had imagined that such gloomy views were mainly
connected with liberal ideology.

 	Until I read the book, I can't answer its arguments
fully, but I would like to advance some arguments against the
idea that the complexity of our industrial civilization makes
it susceptible to the pyramiding of accidental disasters.
I would hope to relieve your worry somewhat, and I would be
curious to know whether it does, because I am writing a book
on what should be invented and would like to know more about
how intelligent, non-technical minds respond to the arguments.
I should remark that ideology drives people to write these
gloomy books, and scientists who are complacent about these
matters are not impelled to write.

	Our civilization is less susceptible to any kind of
disaster than any previous one for several reasons:

	1. \F2The fraction of the population whose labor is
essential for the survival of the population keeps declining.\F0
The labor that was formally done by the wagon driver is now
divided between the truck driver and the men who build trucks
and roads.  However, the latter men can leave their jobs for
extensive periods without immediate effects on survival.  A
large fraction of youth which formerly worked to maintain
society on a day-to-day basis are in college where they
constitute an emergency labor reserve.

	2. \F2Working hours have been reduced to the point where
they can be doubled in an emergency.\F0

	3. \F2There is great redundancy in the transportation
system\F0.  Chicago could be evacuated in less than a day
in its inhabitants' cars and in three days by operating the
nation's commercial airliners around the clock.

	4. \F2Our habitual consumption of food, electricity,
and fuel is so high that it can be cut in half for extensive
periods with only inconvenience\F0.

	5. \F2Unless disaster hits the whole country simultaneously,
telephone repairmen, electric system repair crews, firemen, and
police can be rushed into a disaster area on short notice\F0.
This is commonly done in case of floods and earthquakes.

	6. \F2The communication system - telephone, radio, TV,
and newspapers can quickly inform people abouπ what has to be
done.\F0  The telephone system doesn't even depend on the electric
company for emergency power.

	7. \F2The American people trust their elected leaders
well enough to accept direction in emergencies\F0.  People
have always behaved well in localized disasters.

	8. \F2The Office of Emergency Preparedness is a national
disaster handling organization\F0.  It suffers from lack of
practice since disasters have been getting smaller and more
readily handled locally.

	As to the postulated Chicago disaster, one can say the
following:

	1. The 1965 electrical failure knocked out power for
hours not weeks.  The casualties were trivial, and the system
has been improved so that it isn't likely to recur.

	2. 20% of Chicago's electricity is nuclear, and nuclear
plants require refueling only every two years.  20% will keep up
essential services.

	3. Individual power lines go down all the time without
disaster to the system.

	4. Chicago is not so dependent on rail transportation
that a rail strike would produce transportation jams that would
strangle the city.  At least rail strikes have never produced
such effects in the past even in New York.  The number of highway lanes into
Chicago per unit population has steadily increased.  Moreover,
more than half the working population of Chicago could be
furloughed from their jobs in emergency without loss of essential
services.

	5. American rats are few and healthy, and bubonic plague
is a bacterial disease that responds to penicillin.

	I hope you will think about it and reassure your readers
if you find that you conscientiously can.  While people don't
panic from individual doomsaying articles, such articles do contribute
to the atmosphere that nourishes paranoid politics.\.




							Sincerely yours,
				

							John McCarthy
							Professor of Computer Science