HumanRace, Inc.
Over the years, Nate Assada, IT Director for HumanRace, Inc, had built a computer system that was truly massive in size and scope. The system, which he called EarthHuman, was the heart and soul of the company. HumanRace depended totally on the survival of EarthHuman. If anything ever happened to it, HumanRace, Inc., would cease to exist.
That made Assada very nervous.
Assada was certainly doing everything in his power to keep HumanRace from suffering some disastrous collapse. However, he had no trouble thinking of nightmares in which his best efforts failed. He knew the system well enough to know a hundred ways in which it could face total destruction. He also knew that there were a hundred possibilities he had never thought of.
Over the last few years, HumanRace had undergone phenomenal growth, and EarthHuman had kept pace with that growth. As EarthHuman was put under heavier loads, the stress was making the whole system more unstable. There had been local crashes that brought down a few of the servers. However, with luck and care no catastrophe struck the whole system.
Yet, that could change in an instant.
Reminding himself of this, Assada’s renewed his vow, as he stepped forward to stand before the company’s Board of Directors, that he would win the fight he had assigned to himself today. He swore that he would not leave this meeting until he had gotten his proposal approved. In his pocket, he carried a resignation letter that he would throw down as his ultimate trump card if he did not get approval.
Ahead of him sat the nine Board members, arrayed like the justices in the Supreme Court on the other side of a long table. They sat, ready to hear his arguments and to pass judgment on his plan. They had been in meetings all day, talking with business development staff, human resources, accounting, and all of the other departments that made the company run. Assada hoped that they would call an end to the meetings for the day and start again the next day. However, the Board continued plowing through its agenda, and Assada was their next guest.
Assada smiled, formally, at the members of the Board. He ran through the status of ongoing projects which, he had to admit, were not going as well as expected. He offered some projections for the future, and what he would need in terms of staff to handle the workload. Then, he got to the part of the discussion where he was allowed to suggest new proposals.
Glancing one last time at his notes, Assada began. “However unlikely it may be, we have to accept the fact that EarthHuman might, some day, suffer a system-wide catastrophic failure. I am not talking about the type in which we simply reboot a few machines and go about our business. I am talking about a failure from which we cannot recover. I am talking about a situation where EarthHuman goes down for good and we cannot bring it back up.
“There are a lot of ways this could happen. Maybe a particularly malicious virus gets into the system. Maybe a disgruntled employee who is not entirely mentally stable decides that he wants to destroy the system - maybe to destroy HumanRace, Inc., itself. Maybe we have some sort of natural disaster — a fire, or flood, meteorite strike — that destroys the whole room and everything in it. I could go on, explaining the number of ways in which EarthHuman might be totally destroyed. For every possibility I mention, I suspect that there is at least one threat that I did not think of - and will not think of - until it is too late.”
Elizabeth Chance, sitting across from Assada on the far right of the table, rolled her eyes. “Have you been practicing that speech, Mr. Assada?” she asked. “You are laying it on pretty thick. Maybe you can just tell us what you want for your department.”
“Actually, everything I said is literally true,” Assada said. “I’m not saying that the system will crash tomorrow. Chances are good that it will not crash in our lifetime, or for generations to come. However, it might crash tonight or tomorrow. If it does, then HumanRace, Inc., will cease to exist. There is a chance, however small, that we will be closing the doors on HumanRace by this time tomorrow. All it will take is some catastrophe to bring down EarthHuman.
“As for what I want . . . I want HumanRace, Inc., to be able to survive something like that. I want the company to be able to go on. To do that, what we have to do is create a second system that duplicates enough of EarthHuman’s vital functions that the company can continue to operate, even if EarthHuman is sitting in a pile of sludge and ash.”
Chance just shook her head and sat back.
The CEO of the company, Katharyne D’Flower, sitting in the middle of the table, spoke into the momentary silence. “Did you come to warn us of this? Or, perhaps, you can suggest what we can do about it.”
“I want us to do something about it, Ms. D’Flower,” said Assada. “I want to set up a backup system. I am submitting a proposal for a project to develop what I call SpaceHuman. SpaceHuman will have enough functionality, once we get it done, that even if the worst should happen to EarthHuman, HumanRace, Inc., will still be in business.”
D’Flower cocked her head questioningly, prompting Assada to stop.
“I’m confused about something,” D’Flower said. “How will it help us to add a bunch more equipment to our system? If we do suffer a catastrophic failure, and it takes out EarthHuman, won’t it destroy SpaceHuman as well?”
“No,” said Assada quickly. “SpaceHuman will not be built here. It has to be built offsite. We build SpaceHuman far away from here so that whatever may destroy EarthHuman cannot touch the functionality that we have built into SpaceHuman.”
“Hold it,” grunted Oliver Mibari. He was the chief financial officer for HumanRace. Assada was not surprised that he would have objections. “How much is this going to cost us?”
Assada spent a moment to mentally rehearse the answer he had practiced. “Like with anything, the more you pay, the more you get. We cannot afford to replicate everything that makes up EarthHuman. Therefore, we are going to have to pick and choose. At minimum, we need a system that will allow HumanRace to continue operating even with the total destruction of EarthHuman. Anything less then that, there is no reason to bother. Anything more than that will cost extra.”
“Okay, I think we can all be honest with each other here,” Mibari said. Assada felt trouble ahead and fingered his letter of resignation while Mibari continued. “EarthHuman is not running as smoothly and efficiently as some of us would like. Assada, you have a good job so far, but EarthHuman still has problems. I hope we can all admit that. If this SpaceHuman project of yours is going to cost a lot of money — and you seem to think it will — I think we can better put that money to work solving the problems that still exist right here with EarthHuman.”
Assada answered quickly. “I have two things to say to that. The first is that EarthHuman will never run as well as we would like. There will always be things to fix. No matter how much money you give me to improve EarthHuman, I could spend it, and still come back for more.”
“So, are you saying that we should not make improvements?” asked Chance.
“Of course not,” answered Assada. “That’s my second point. Every day that we spend pursuing this unobtainable goal of making EarthHuman perfect and postponing SpaceHuman, we add to the possibility that a catastrophic failure of EarthHuman will spell the end of HumanRace, Inc. I am certain that everybody here has had the experience of working on a document, going through the pain of trying to make it perfect, tweaking this and adjust that, only to have your computer crash and lose everything you have done. You know the wisdom of hitting of taking some time off from your quest for perfection to hit the ’save’ button from time to time. Imagine a person who told you, ’My policy is that I will not take the time to save my work. That is a distraction from my effort to create a perfect document, and I don’t want any distractions.’ That person is being foolish. The smart thing to do is to take the time to make sure that if the worst happens, you at least have some pieces laying around that you can pick up and use to start over.”
Mibari took control of the conversation back from Chance. “Aren’t there things we can do with EarthHuman to keep it from crashing that would be a lot less expensive?”
Assada made a conscious effort to keep a growing sense of frustration from his voice. “Of course there are. We are doing them, and we will keep doing them. However, no matter how much I reduce the risk to EarthHuman, I cannot eliminate it. No matter how much you reduce the risk that your computer will crash and take your document with it, there is still the chance that the computer will crash. That is why you save. We pay for fire insurance. The money that we pay for fire insurance could go into making sure that we do not have a fire. However, we cannot eliminate the possibility of fire, we can only reduce it. To save us from the worst consequences of a fire that we failed to avoid, we buy insurance. SpaceHuman is insurance. SpaceHuman is what we need if we are going to make it possible for HumanRace to stay in business even if EarthHuman suffers a catastrophic failure.”
Taking a deep breath, Assada said, “I want to emphasize that point. In the unlikely event that EarthHuman suffers a catastrophic system failure, SpaceHuman is the only way to ensure that HumanRace stays in business.”
“You say SpaceHuman is our salvation,” said D’Flower.
“Yes, as long as we meet our minimum standards. SpaceHuman has to be at least large enough to perform all essential business functions even if EarthHuman no longer exists.”
Chance quickly interjected. “Mr. Assada, have you considered the possibility that building SpaceHuman itself could cause the destruction of EarthHuman? You have admitted that we depend on EarthHuman for our very survival. If we have a backup, if we build this SpaceHuman project of yours, then I worry that we are going to be less diligent at protecting EarthHuman. We might relax our guard, let something slip, and bring about the destruction of EarthHuman in ways that could have been prevented, if we had only remained diligent.”
The objection caught Assada entirely off guard. He had practiced and rehearsed his answers to every question he could think of. He never imagined that somebody would suggest not backing up a primary system, because doing so would make it more likely that the system would crash.
He wanted to grab Chance by the collar and shake her, shouting, “Are you insane?”
However, he needed her vote if he was going to see any money for the project. He needed to fight back a growing urge to mock her for her insane suggestion. Assada had never been very good at office politics.
“Ms. Chance, no matter what we do, the vast majority of HumanRace, Inc., will continue to depend on EarthHuman. We will never be able to move or copy everything that EarthHuman has over to SpaceHuman. I am sure that those who depend on EarthHuman are not going to allow us to sit on our butts all day and let EarthHuman deteriorate, simply because SpaceHuman exists.”
As he spoke, Assada felt himself mentally cringe. He simply had never had the talent for keeping his actual opinions out of his speech. “Ms. Chance, I know of a thousand companies that backup their primary systems. In fact, EarthHuman is perhaps the only important system on the planet that is not being backed up. Nowhere, that I am aware of, has any of those other IT directors had to worry about the question, ’Will creating a backup of our key systems mean that you are no longer going to care what happens to our primary system?’ It’s not going to happen.”
“I think it might,” Chance said.
“In fact,” said Assada, “SpaceHuman can be used to keep EarthHuman from crashing. Mibari said that we should be honest. Honestly, there are a lot of components on EarthHuman that are working near capacity. SpaceHuman does not have to sit idle waiting for EarthHuman to crash. We can transfer some of the load from EarthHuman to SpaceHuman and use its capability to help EarthHuman run better. At least, we will be using SpaceHuman to solve some of the problems Mr. Mibari wants us to solve. As a bonus, we can stay in business if EarthHuman crashes.”
Chance scowled, folded her arms, and sat back in her chair.
Harold Fuller started gesturing toward Assada while he made motions as if he wanted to speak. Then he turned suddenly toward Mibari. “You know, this SpaceHuman project might actually pay for itself. It does not have to sit idle. We could use it. If we use it, then it will be like anything else that makes money for the company. If we can make money off of this, then there is no reason why we shouldn’t do it.”
Assada raised his hand to hold back Fuller’s enthusiasm. “I have two things to say to that. I would love to be able to come here and say that SpaceHuman will turn a profit. Some that I have discussed this with say that it can be tremendously profitable. I’m not so sure. More importantly, we can’t have the decision of whether or not to build SpaceHuman depend on whether we can make a profit with it. We can’t base our decisions on what we are going to build depend on what will make us money. Our choices have to be governed by what we need to keep HumanRace operating if EarthHuman should crash. Sure, we will try to make money from this if we can, and make as much as we can. These simply have to be secondary concerns.
“This brings me to the second point. We cannot tie EarthHuman and SpaceHuman together in any way where either of them depends on the other. If we do that, we increase our vulnerability, rather than decrease it. If they are linked in that way then, if one system goes, they both go down. We don’t want that. We want two systems where each of them could, if necessary, survive without the other, in the same way that New York and Washington, DC are tied together. Each uses the other to improve the lives of its citizens, but either could survive alone if it had to.”
D’Flower again spoke up. “Mr. Assada, you are asking us to take a gamble. Building SpaceHuman will cost us a lot of money, for something we will hopefully never use. We could take a risk, not backup EarthHuman, and hope we do not have a failure. It seems to me that the chance of EarthHuman suffering the kind of destruction you are talking about is pretty low. It seems hardly high enough to justify this type of expense.”
Assada shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ms. D’Flower, but I think there is a moral dimension to this that goes beyond gambling corporate assets for a larger bottom line. We are talking about the survival of our company. On that issue, you have a duty to your stockholders and to your customers to build SpaceHuman.”
With an amused smile, D’Flower said, “Go on.”
“If I may be so blunt, you are not the owners of HumanRace, Inc.,” Assada said. As he spoke, he looked at each of the directors in turn. “You are the caretakers for this company. You are the guardians. The stockholders are the actual owners. You have a duty to them.”
“A duty?” asked D’Flower.
“A duty,” Assada repeated. “You are taking other peoples’ lives in your hands, and you are saying that you are willing to gamble everything away. They will lose everything if HumanRace should go under. Don’t get me wrong. Even if we had SpaceHuman up and running, the catastrophic failure of EarthHuman would still be truly catastrophic. However, we are talking about ’catastrophic’ versus ’the end of everything.’ We are talking about picking up what few pieces we have left and rebuilding and having nothing left to pick up. Without SpaceHuman, we will have no option but to lock the doors on HumanRace, Inc., and on every hope and dream of everybody who owns a stock in this company. If somebody trusts you with absolutely everything they have, you have an obligation to leave them with something, however little, under the worst of circumstances, even if it is just the dream that HumanRace has not come to an untimely end.”
“How poetic,” Chance scorned. “Your job requirement, Mr. Assada, is to keep EarthHuman up and running, not abandoning it for some offsite backup system. You should not be looking at what we can do if the system fails. The EarthHuman system must not fail, Mr. Assada. Failure is not an option.”
“Pardon me, Ms. Chance, but failure is in fact a possibility. Given enough time, failure is almost a certainty,” Assada answered without flinching. “Remember Neanderthal? It was one of competitors a while back. It had the European market cornered. However, it did not survive. What happened to them can happen to us.”
“Make sure it does not happen, Mr. Assada.”
“I can not do that,” Assada answered, enunciating each word. “I do not know how many different ways I can say this. I can reduce the odds, but I can never reduce it to zero. When I say that SpaceHuman is the only way to ensure that HumanRace continues, I am not being metaphorical. This is the literal truth. You don’t have to like it. However, you do have to believe it.”
While pausing to catch his breath, Assada glanced at the members of the board.
“Are you done?” Mibari asked.
Assada shrugged, “I guess so.”
“We will consider your proposal,” said D’Flower. With that, Assada was dismissed.
************
Discussion Points
The human race is at the mercy of an impersonal universe that does not care whether we as a species lives or dies. Somewhere out in the Oort cloud there is probably a hunk of ice with Earth squarely in its crosshairs. I have no idea when it will get here. We may have millions of years left before it hits. It may already be too late. We may read about the discovery of such a object before the year is out.
Every day we wait, we increase our chance of extinction.
If it does not come from a space rock, it may come from some event here on Earth, in the form of some natural disaster drastically shifting the global climate, or some disaster of our own making. Global climate change might end up being worse than we currently imagine. Earth could end up like Venus, unable to support life. It’s not likely, but we can’t rule out the possibility either.
Perhaps, somewhere, some fanatic is working on a virus to end all human life on Earth. He might be thinking that God will save his chosen people, or that he is doing the Earth a favor by ridding it of its infestation of humans.
There are lots of ways to bring about the end of the human race on Earth, and only one way for the human race to continue if that should happen. We need a backup system in space capable of surviving if Earth should suffer some catastrophe.
If we do not do this, then the human race will become nothing more than a collection of interesting ruins and relics for some extra-terrestrial civilization to study as they pass through. Personally, I would prefer it if the human race became the species traveling among the stars doing the studying, then the race whose ruins and relics are being studied by others.