Engineering and AMC's The Walking Dead

Sunday is the best night for television watching.  From PBS's Downton Abbey (the 99% learning to love the 1%), to AMC's Mad Men (alcohol and creativity - - correlation or cause and effect?), The Killing (OMG, just tell us who killed Rosie), and Breaking Bad (the profitability of basic chemistry).

The best of the best and the most relevant to engineering in my opinion is AMC's The Walking Dead.  A post-apocalyptic world filled with zombies and basic survival.  The story of the world in ruin (or at least the south near Atlanta) caused by apparently nothing engineers did or failed to do.  No global warming, no nuclear meltdown, no leaking landfill, no incorrect environmental impact statement - - just your basic "bug-in-the-laboratory-gets-out-and-turns-people-into-zombies" story line (unlike Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which seems to have the potential for engineering mischief).

Sunday night marks the season finale, and I put together a list of thoughts regarding engineering and how it interfaces with the show:

• System design is important; but just as important is system recovery.  System recovery is critical in a complex, high-risk, and uncertain world - - especially one with zombies.
• Every human interaction, even the most unremarkable, is an economic exchange - - each side wants something.  This is just as true (or more so) in a world in ruin.
• The ability to adapt to new circumstances and incremental thinking goes a long way in a zombie-filled world. 
• The challenges of education, especially educating engineers, is not to prepare a person for success, but to prepare him or her for failure.  Nothing says failure more than being eaten by zombies.
• It takes a network to defeat a network - - even when the other network is slow and stupid.  Only the connected will survive (think LinkedIn for the zombie filled world).
• Once the worst has happened, what else do you have to fear?  A lot, as it turns out.
• Our culture is very person-centered.  We like herds, especially when the world is coming to an end.
• The future is assumed to be essentially like the present.  Maybe - - we live in a world of Black Swan events that can turn you into a dead duck very quickly.  The main lesson is that just because something is too terrible to contemplate doesn't mean it's not going to happen. 
• Decentralized, flexible, and mobile organization structures and decision making are critical to a zombie-filled world.  The goal should be to stay connected, responsive, and informed in zombie land.  A post-zombie world requires systems designed to bend the rules in the direction of increased flexibility.  A world of zombies is basically the "Era of Adapting Quickly."
• Strategies will always emerge for coping in a zombie dominated world - - the search and filter functions are critical.
• Chance is only the measure of our ignorance.  Be careful where you go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.  Miscalculations and mischance are the handmaidens of someone eating you in the dark.
• Complex systems always fail in complex ways.  Remember the world is full of nonlinearities - - and nothing is more nonlinear than garage DIY microbiology labs and a world full of zombies.
• Engineering and life evolves toward increasing specialization.  This is very bad in a human constrained world.  Multidisciplinary outreach is critical to survival.
• I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked at in the right way, did not become more complicated.
• Any system can be buffered, constrained, triggered, or driven by outside forces - - and the outside forces can be the un-dead.
• Guns don't kill zombies, bullets do.  So do axes and arrows - - and nothing's more impressive than a disproportionate reaction.
• Content and information are important for our civilization.  Googlization and Application drive our modern global economy.  In a world of zombies - - not so much.
• Disaster and ruin need improvisational zeal - - but also responsibility, honor, and noble actions.
• The future depends on what you do in the present.  Regardless of who is attempting to eat you.
• Complexity need not breed mystery and not all ambiguities are created equal - - and I cannot wait for the new season.