{"id":4251,"date":"2012-11-04T19:37:56","date_gmt":"2012-11-04T08:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/?p=4251"},"modified":"2012-11-04T19:38:05","modified_gmt":"2012-11-04T08:38:05","slug":"the-scarlet-plague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/2012\/11\/the-scarlet-plague-4251.html","title":{"rendered":"The Scarlet Plague: Very Old 2012 Prediction"},"content":{"rendered":"

I found this via Dennis McClung’s blog<\/a>…<\/em><\/p>\n

The statistician and skeptic in me says that of all the books ever written about the future, some would have nominated 2012 and some would have got some things right. That isn’t especially meaningful, it’s the same as a million monkeys with typewriters.<\/p>\n

Even so, in this instance the author was popular, and science fiction was in its absolute infancy. It could be a genuine prophecy within a novel:<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

The Scarlet Plague<\/a> is a post-apocalyptic fiction novel written by Jack London and originally published in London Magazine in 1912.\u00a0The story takes place in 2073, sixty years after<\/em> an uncontrollable epidemic, the Red Death, has depopulated the planet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
You could also argue that he chose for the plague to begin in early 2013 because that was one hundred years into the future. But on the other hand Jack London predicted a global population of 8 billion. In 1912 there weren’t even 2 billion people worldwide, so that was a pretty good guess. And he said that New York has 17 million inhabitants. Well right now the NY metropolitan area has 18 million.<\/p>\n
“We talked through the air in those days, thousands and thousands of miles. And the word came of a strange disease that had broken out in New York. There were seventeen millions of people living then in that noblest city of America. Nobody thought anything about the news. It was only a small thing. There had been only a few deaths. It seemed, though, that they had died very quickly, and that one of the first signs of the disease was the turning red of the face and all the body. Within twenty-four hours came the report of the first case in Chicago. And on the same day, it was made public that London, the greatest city in the world, next to Chicago, had been secretly fighting the plague for two weeks and censoring the news despatches\u2014that is, not permitting the word to go forth to the rest of the world that London had the plague.<\/p>\n
…”New York City and Chicago were in chaos. And what happened with them was happening in all the large cities. A third of the New York police were dead. Their chief was also dead, likewise the mayor. All law and order had ceased. The bodies were lying in the streets un-buried. All railroads and vessels carrying food and such things into the great city had ceased runnings and mobs of the hungry poor were pillaging the stores and warehouses. Murder and robbery and drunkenness were everywhere. Already the people had fled from the city by millions\u2014at first the rich, in their private motor-cars and dirigibles, and then the great mass of the population, on foot, carrying the plague with them, themselves starving and pillaging the farmers and all the towns and villages on the way.<\/p>\n
…With the coming of the Scarlet Death the world fell apart, absolutely, irretrievably. Ten thousand years of culture and civilization passed in the twinkling of an eye, ‘lapsed like foam.’<\/p>\n
…”There was a grocery store\u2014a place where food was sold. The man to whom it belonged\u2014I knew him well\u2014a quiet, sober, but stupid and obstinate fellow, was defending it. The windows and doors had been broken in, but he, inside, hiding behind a counter, was discharging his pistol at a number of men on the sidewalk who were breaking in. In the entrance were several bodies\u2014of men, I decided, whom he had killed earlier in the day.<\/p>\n
Read the full story<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I found this via Dennis McClung’s blog…
\nThe statistician and skeptic in me says that of all the books ever written about the future, some would have nominated 2012 and some would have got some things right. That isn’t especially meaningful, it’s the same as a million monkeys with typewriters.
\nEven so, in this instance the author was popular, and science fiction was in its absolute infancy. It could be a genuine prophecy within a novel:<\/p>\n
The Scarlet Plague is a post-apocalyptic fiction novel written by Jack London and originally published in London Magazine in 1912.\u00a0The story takes place in 2073, sixty years after an uncontrollable epidemic, the Red Death, has depopulated the planet.
\nYou could also argue that he chose for the plague to begin in early 2013 because that was one hundred years into the future. But on the other hand Jack London predicted a global population of 8 billion. In 1912 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[310],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disease"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4251"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4293,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions\/4293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}