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Comment by kregasaurusrex | Hacker News Reader

There could be anything underneath all the permafrost, including new biodiversity which we haven't catalogued yet. NPR ran a story[0] where Russian animals such as reindeer infected with Anthrax had thawed out, and caused outbreaks where people had to get preventative treatments against it. As a future threat model, what if there's new viruses or bacterium contained under previously frozen earth for which modern medicine isn't prepared for?

[0]https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/08/03/4884009...

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>There could be anything underneath all the permafrost, including new biodiversity which we haven't catalogued yet.

Hey, that was the plot of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness!

http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/mm.aspx

Spoilers:

"...But we were not on a station platform. We were on the track ahead as the nightmare plastic column of foetid black iridescence oozed tightly onward through its fifteen-foot sinus; gathering unholy speed and driving before it a spiral, re-thickening cloud of the pallid abyss-vapour. It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train—a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and unforming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter. Still came that eldritch, mocking cry—“Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” And at last we remembered that the daemoniac shoggoths—given life, thought, and plastic organ patterns solely by the Old Ones, and having no language save that which the dot-groups expressed—had likewise no voice save the imitated accents of their bygone masters."

> crushing the frantic penguins

There are no penguins in the Arctic (Antarctica only) so nothing to fear.

Oh, then we're probably safe - he was only worried about the Antarctic:

"I am forced into speech because men of science have refused to follow my advice without knowing why. It is altogether against my will that I tell my reasons for opposing this contemplated invasion of the antarctic — with its vast fossil-hunt and its wholesale boring and melting of the ancient ice-cap — and I am the more reluctant because my warning may be in vain. Doubt of the real facts, as I must reveal them, is inevitable; yet if I suppressed what will seem extravagant and incredible there would be nothing left."

Whatever, drill away!

This was always one of my favorite lines of Lovecraft. It's the sense of hopelessness that he manages to get into his writing that really sets the atmosphere more than just about any other writer I know of, other than perhaps Clive Barker.

Oh, the Arctic penguins were frozen under the ice too.

False, penguins now roam the Arctic as well after being introduced.

That's really not true.

Penguin is also an old name for an auk or puffin; it didn't become a name for what are now called penguins until after Europeans got down there to see them, and didn't become exclusively the name for them until quite recently. So no reason, really, not to be afraid. Lovecraft would have preferred it that way.

God that is hard to read. The guy might be thought a genius but I got absolutely nothing from that passage save the penguins.

Honestly, I think he's more seen as a pulp-y xenophobe than a genius. But could he write portentous purple prose, or what?

> xenophobe

More than the people of his time?

Yes extremely more. And I like his stories.

Someone born in 1890 like Lovecraft would have been educated in the early 1900s where it was all about the White Race superiority to all other ones (check school books of the time) on top of hundreds of years of such thinking, so my guess is that you'd find people thinking like Lovecraft pretty much everywhere in his time. And regarding antisemitism, it's not like Lovecraft was an exception, antisemitism was rampant in early 20th century. So while Lovecraft was vocal about it in his letters, I doubt his peers and folks of his time would have very, very different.

I make my argument from his work, not from history. And I am responding specifically to the word Xenophobe. I think Houellebecq's analysis[1] is correct - the force of his work derives from the very extreme nature of his Xenophobia, which is personal and psychological in nature rather than ideological. Certainly he garlanded it with all the ideological backup he could find, but I don't think that's where it came from.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20060507063256/http://blog.urban...

"Lovecraftian" is still used as a general term for an entire genre of fiction. He was a xenophobe, but that is not what he's best known for. Similarly, Aristotle was a misogynist, but it would not be accurate to say that Aristotle is best known as a navel-gazing misogynist.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. Lovecraft is fundamentally about confronting modernism and the inevitable decay of humanity in the faces of forces beyond our control. Central to that is the decay of the Anglo-Saxon genetic stock.

Xenophobic isn't quite the right word. Racist is closer, but even that misses the mark. Every story he writes is terrified of black voodoo savages, or toothless white hill people, or inbred decadent Boston brahmin families, or fishermen that are half-white-half-Chinese-half-fish.

Aristotle, by contrast, isn't that concerned with gender. He is happy to treat it as a topic, but he has nowhere near the same level of preoccupation.

Ur-tribalist, perhaps.

Wow, I just learned that I despise the prefix "ur-" far more than is reasonable.

Seriously though, why not call it "tribalist"?

Not ultra- enough, in Lovecraft's case.

Lovecraft would've added at least three more adjectives.

The story in question, At the Mountains of Madness, isn't about any of those things. It's about an Antarctic expedition that finds the ruins of an ancient civilization, which they gradually realize wasn't built by humans.

I do think you're right that Lovecraft's ability to write effective horror was largely because he himself was fascinated with terror at the world. But I don't think his weird xenophobia is what he ended up actually communicating to most readers or what he's famous for. He's more known for misshapen tentacle monsters and cosmic-scale horror. For example, Lauren Beukes' novel Broken Monsters is often considered Lovecraftian horror, and it has fairly modern sensibilities.

He had an imaginative genius and a capability to create worlds but he was a bad writer plain and simple. He writes poorly but he has massive emotional and psychological force.

After reading Thomas Ligotti it's much harder for me to appreciate Lovecraft.

I think part of it is that this comes near the end of the book and a lot of it is referring to stuff that had previously been established, and part of it is that the style of writing that was en vogue a century ago is kind of hard to read today. I mean, here's a bit from the beginning of the contemporary classic Ulysses:

> Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.

It's pretty writing, but it is also pretty hard to read if you're used to the way people write nowadays.

Ulysses was never really considered “easy reading”, though ;)

It's no more difficult than Tolkien. Prose from that era was practically poetry.

Of course, I grew up reading a lot of books and short stories from that era, so maybe it's easier for my old brain, like riding a bicycle.

Like reading a bicycle.

That's what I should have responded when my fifth grade teacher always wrote "NEW SENTENCE!" in the margin, if you stacked that many sentence commas.

I should have said "it's practically poetry" :)

Basically everything they teach you in school is ignored by successful authors at times, but you've got to know the rules before you can know when to break them.

I think this particular quote is _considerably_ more over-the-top than Tolkien, certainly.

Though I do like "crushing the frantic penguins".

I'm sure you, the guy who writes snarky tweets and codes web forms, have a lot more going for you in the annals of history than an internationally recognized titan of literature.

Lovecraft is sort of the B movies of literature: Fun as hell, inventive, wild, unexpected, crazy at times. But, not great literature.

Exactly, that's why Houellebecq was inspired to write a biography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft%3A_Against_the...

Maybe not, but it was inspiring; people like Guillermo del Toro wouldn't have had their style or whatnot if it wasn't for Lovecraft. (speaking of, he still wants to do a Mountains of Madness movie)

I’m not th OP, but, still, doesn’t change the fact that his stuff is hard for me to digest.

I don’t care how many stars a chef has. If his food is hard for me to swallow, well, I don’t like his cooking. And that’s okay. I don’t have to eat his food. And I don’t have to read Lovecraft’s works. And I don’t have to be a Nobel Laureate to have an opinion. And you don’t have to listen to my opinion.

Then you understood it perfectly. Froth, penguins. The rest was poetic repetition.

Downvoted by those who must have fantasized that I abhor poetic repetition and therefore don't like Lovecraft's writing. I adore poetry, and only the most admirable poetry can leverage and benefit from repetition. It's a terrific passage. However, perhaps it's understandable that Lovecraft fans would reflexively indulge in a fantasy about what I wrote and why, however...

He was very er, gratuitous with his adjectives. Like. Blasphemous, amorphous adjectives that should not be spoken aloud.

If you would like a modern take on Lovecrafts ideas (with a whole bunch of IT geekery) try Charles Stross' Laundry Files

I think people back then spent more time over their reading. Nowadays we expect easily digestible text we can speed through or skim. When reading something like that it pays to slam on the brakes and take some time over it.

If you really truly got absolutely nothing from that, I suggest you perhaps read it again, more slowly, and try to evoke your mind's eye. Maybe try reading one of his books; it's difficult to get into the right mindset from just an excerpt like that.

I read a lot of H.P. Lovecraft some 25 years ago, and I still have vivid imagined visual memories of the “unspeakable ancient horrors” described. Given this background, I find it strange that someone would get, or see, “absolutely nothing”.

I'd say H.P. Lovecraft is the literary equivalent of H.R. Giger. Different sub-genre of fiction, of course, but they've both contributed a similarly unique genre-defining take on things.

Guy was thoroughly anti-linux- i got that at least.

Good catch! I hadn't read this myself but some college friends and I ran a Call of Cthulu campaign inspired by his works.

> what if there's new viruses or bacterium contained under previously frozen earth for which modern medicine isn't prepared for?

A group at Harvard found that the traits that now enable enterococcal survival and transmission in hospitals were an advantage in the Paleozoic [0] and suggest that the multidrug resistant (i.e., untreatable) strains seen in hospitals were trained to be that way millions of years ago. There was also a split between commensal/friendly and unfriendly enterococci around the time of urbanization. So it's certainly possible that we'd encounter something we don't have an answer for. It has already been seen, in a way.

[0] http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(17)30478-6

Or, what if every of those bacteries whose evolution stopped thousands of years ago are simply completely inapt to compete with the ones we've got today, because those had much more time to evolve ?

That’s not how evolution works. That’s like saying that a dog could easily kill a velociraptor because dogs are 65 million years “more evolved”.

I would bet on a medium-sized to big, healthy dog against a velociraptor. Raptors were around the size of a turkey. Might not be an easy fight, though.

Velociraptors have two rows of teeth in addition to a 2.5" retractable middle claw theorized to be used for slashing or stabbing attacks. Many dogs would have a size advantage, but all would have fewer teeth and generally soft padded paws with no serious claws. Even with the smaller size, the Velociraptors seemingly have the advantage. The "Fighting Dinosaurs" fossils give some credence to the claw being used to pierce the neck of a prey animal: https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/fighting-dinos/the-fighting...

Something like maybe a Rodesian Ridgeback (lion hunting dogs) might stand a good chance however.

Do wild turkeys have spurs like fighting cocks, and how do they fare against dogs, i would wonder.

We have wild turkeys near us. My chocolate lab went a couple rounds with a mother turkey this spring. First couple of encounters went to the mama turkey as she was defending her babies and my dog was just terrified of her. She would spread her wings (6-8 feet wide or so?) and then hover above him. He would freak out and back away, terrified. Eventually the dog got brave, chased her off and ate a couple of turkey babies. But based on that interaction, I definitely would NOT bet on a lab taking down a velociraptor. The raptor would have gone for the kill when the dog was still scared..

Yes, turkeys (wild or domestic) have spurs. Typically an inch or so in length, up to a bit more than two inches for the biggest, oldest birds. They also have interesting beards, which can be 10 inches long!

They'll bluster and charge to defend young against a curious city dog, but will flee up to roost if challenged by a pack of hunting dogs. If you find a cornered turkey, don't try to catch it or let your dog attack: you'll probably win from sheer mass and from having predatory weapons, but you will be badly bloodied.

what about titanoboa vs modern tiger ?

Met my first Rodesian Ridgeback (god that's such a dragon name) about a year ago. He was youngish but still ~3 ft at the shoulder, tall enough that he had to lower his head to sniff my crotch (and I'm 6' tall), which he was very interested in (I'm male). Owner didn't discipline or train him at all. I think he was just supposed to guard the horses, and fuck anyone else who wandered onto the property. Pretty friendly right up until he decided he didn't like me any more.

First time I've been scared of a dog since I was three. When a pit gets mad at you, you can kind of convince yourself you can keep it down by kicking and pushing it. Your neck is out of its immediate range unless you fall down. The Rodey was big and heavy enough that I would have had basically zero time to react if he jumped up. Humans are just so squishy. If you can throw a good punch, you can knock out 99% of people with one good hit to the chin. A strong hit to the liver will incapacitate anyone and kill them without treatment. Unlucky hits to the face can kill people as well.

I was very acutely aware that no matter how hard I hit that dog, I wouldn't be able to knock it out and my only option was basically to let it chew on me while I tried to hurt it as much as possible. Just keep punching anything that looks soft until it decided I wasn't worth biting, and do my best to keep it away from my neck and nuts.

Punching a large dog wouldn't do much of anything to it, as you allude to. The largest muscle in your body is in your legs, your quadriceps in specific. A Tae Kwon Do (my primary martial art) front snap kick or Muay Thai style semi-circle round kick to the face or ribs (as they leap) could incapacitate them. If you are able to hit them before they have ahold of you, that initial crushing blow might prevent them from wrecking you. That said, I'd NEVER want to try even after 8+ years of martial arts. Much like a knife fight, the standard isn't whether you got stabbed or not, but if you lived. It would be rough regardless!

Those are huge dogs and aren't afraid to scrap. I'd still happily take on one of them for my life given the choice vs a velociraptor :)

Dinosaurs are now birds? Do Velociraptors climb trees?

You got it backwards, birds are now dinosaurs. The world just got that much cooler. If you're not convinced, look through YouTube for videos of my favorite dinosaur, the raven.

Care to elucidate on the choice of ravens? I would go with cassowaries and emus as examples of "oh yeah they totally are dinosaurs"...

Mainly just that ravens are awesome, and velociraptors are awesome, so Q.E.D. Not really a scientific argument.

I do wonder how many Cretaceous critters were intelligent to the degree of ravens or dogs or primates, if any. We know they weren't as good at terraforming as we are, or there'd be some evidence in the strata. But the Cretaceous was longer than the current period, so I wouldn't be shocked if something we could call intelligent evolved.

Hah, poor dumb kid. Velociraptors evolved into birds, birds are safe from grounded velociraptors... Read gp again, see it fits? Heard of Socrates?

I don't know about velociraptors, but there probably is a Creodont species that was pushed to extinction by ancestors of dogs. I mean it is believed that Creodonts disappeared due to the concurrence of the Carnivora order.

The idea that more recent species are "more evolved" than ancient ones is not completely absurd.

To be pedantic dogs are pretty selectively bred by humans. Raptor vs Wolf might be more apt

Bacteria are pretty selectively bred by humans too :P

i think that would be like saying a stray dog would be better at surviving in today's world than a stray velociraptor.

Someone has revived 45myo yeasts: https://www.wired.com/2009/07/ff-primordial-yeast/

Mutation takes place very quickly once the revived microorganism makes contact with the outside world. I would think the outcome is highly unpredictable.

That's not really how it works. You could equally argue that those ancient bacteria have attack methods that our modern bacteria has forgotten about, making them even more dangerous

Actually, scientific research points in opposite direction. Modern bacteria are better adapted than old bacteria.

Anthrax is a bad example here. Sure, some frozen reindeer had anthrax... but so does the soil in most of the world.

Such bacteria will probably be susceptible to penicillin.

There was a recent Icelandic (I think) TV show with a premise along these lines

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortitude_(TV_series)

Filmed in Iceland, set in Norway. Slow paced but quite excellent.

(S2 was not as good as S1, however)

Also an X-Files episode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_Falls_(The_X-Files)

How effective were the preventative measures on that?

Do we have a cure / vaccine?

> There could be anything underneath all the permafrost, including new biodiversity which we haven't catalogued yet.

This is stupid. A medical waste dump from "decades" ago leads to issues..... How do we jump to this science fiction and quotes below from NPR of unbelievable????

"Officials don't know exactly how the outbreak started, but the current hypothesis is almost unbelievable: A heat wave has thawed the frozen soil there and with it, a reindeer carcass infected with anthrax decades ago."

Waste dumps from the past cause issues in the future.. How on earth is this unbelievable? How is it even related to global warming? They dug a hole when it was cold, it got warmer in summer one year and defrosted?

It also only killed one person. And we were prepared for it. This makes for a crappy SciFi novel by any standards.

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