Should We Fear a Pandemic That Wipes out Humanity?

Author A.G. Riddle recently joined Glenn to talk about his “Extinction Files” book series and the future of humanity. In “Pandemic” and “Genome,” Riddle explored the fear that a rapidly spreading disease will wipe out millions of people and change our world forever.

Here are some of the topics they covered:

  • Stephen Hawking’s warning that humanity may not survive on Earth
  • The continued evolution of humankind
  • What the “next great leap” for our species will look like
  • How robotics and artificial intelligence will change everything

What do you think? Tell us in the comment section below just how worried you are.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: So I did something after -- I was on holiday, and I downloaded a whole bunch of books. And one of them, I think was Pandemic. I think that's the first one that I read. And I've never done this. You know, at the end of the book, it says, hey, write to the author. Tell me what you think. So I did. And so I wrote, hey, just finished one of your books. And I really enjoyed it. And he wrote me back right away and said, hey, thanks so much. Would like to send you an autographed copy. And I'm like, oh, thanks. No recognition of who I was. I don't even know now if he really knows who I am.

But -- so I said, I'm already into the second book. And it's really great.

Well, probably much to his surprise, I've -- since that, I've read all of his books. Because he is looking at a problem that I am really interested in. And he has some -- kind of some facts that he builds his fiction and a lot of his -- I wouldn't classify it as sci-fi I guess in a way. He builds his fiction around some facts that I want to find out more about. So I want to introduce to you A.G. Riddle. He's the author of Pandemic. And also The Atlantis Gene. And I think the new one is called -- what is it, A.G.?

RIDDLE: It's Genome.

GLENN: Genome. No, no, no. Departure. I thought that was the new one.

RIDDLE: Well, Departure actually came out before Pandemic. So it's a standalone. But it may be the most recent book you've read.

GLENN: Okay. So, anyway, they're all great. They're all great. So let me -- first of all, thank you for coming on the program.

RIDDLE: Oh, of course.

GLENN: You really kind of look into a couple of things that interest me. You know, Stephen Hawking has said -- he just said it again this weekend that homo sapiens are going to be a thing of the past by 2050. And people freak out. And they think, oh, my gosh, we're going to be all wiped out. I don't think that's what he means. He means that homo sapiens as we know them, as we are now, are going to be so transformed, that you won't be able to recognize the current homo sapien next to the -- the new homo sapien of 2050. Does that make sense to you?

RIDDLE: It does. And I think he's right in that we're -- I believe we're in the midst of this radical transformation, that we're just now getting our heads around.

GLENN: So in your book, you talk about something called The Great Leap. And I was only familiar with the great leap forward of China, which was a nightmare. But you talk about the great leap. Can you describe that?

RIDDLE: Sure. One of the interests and one of the themes in my work is, you know, humanity's genetic history. So what we now believe is the current -- you know, that our rates of humans, the homo sapiens sapiens are about 200,000 years old. And so when we first evolved, we know that Neanderthals existed on earth for maybe two or 300,000 years before us. And there were these humans called Denisovans and homo floresiensis on the island of Java. So there were other human species. And so we coexisted with them for about roughly 150,000 years. And it was status quo.

You know, life went on, on earth, as it had for a very, very long time. And then something happened about 50,000 years ago. And we see it especially in Europe, this explosion of creativity.

We see these cave paintings, and sort of this advent of figurative art, and so making, you know, clay sculptures and these other things. And so we also see the advent of complex language. And so these are things that really had not existed on earth before.

I mean, there were species that were -- that homo erectus had made tools and other sort of breakthrough. You know, we had learned to control fire.

But we -- no human species had ever done anything on this level, cognitively. So we call -- a geneticist called this The Great Leap Forward. And so the only thing that we know for a fact is that after that, all the other human species went instinct.

And so this -- I think this coincides with the extinction of other archaic humans. So I think there -- you know, to me, it feels like we're in another great leap forward.

GLENN: Okay. Wait. Wait. Before we go to the other great leap forward, let me just ask one thing. Because in your books, you kind of -- and I don't know what's fact and what's fiction here.

You -- you allude to the fact that those -- that, you know, the other species were kind of killed by us for competition of meat. And, you know, we had to go -- we needed 20 percent more calories for our brains. And, you know, they were bigger, stronger, but we were smarter. So we kind of wiped them out. So that true, or is that speculation?

RIDDLE: Well, it's still a matter of debate. What we do know for a fact is that when our species moved into an area, we see the archeological record of other species stopped. And so the big debate is, was that some sort of interbreeding with our species, or was it competition? You know, Neanderthals had existed in Europe for half a million years. They had seen a lot of climate change.

So a lot of anthropologists say, hey, look, you know, we think -- obviously the world was getting warmer at that point. And we think that created this ecological disaster that wiped out the Neanderthals.

But to me, that doesn't hold a lot of water. Because you got a species that's very long-lived. We show up on the scene. You know, the cognitive revolution happens at the same time, and these guys disappear.

GLENN: Okay. So the reason I bring this up, and it may be where you're going, take us to the next great leap.

RIDDLE: Well, I think, you know, we're -- to me, it's sort of a ripple on the horizon. And, you know, in the late '90s, people said, oh, the internet is going to transform everything. The retailers are going to go bust. And then it largely didn't materialize. Things went on the way they had for a long time. But now we're seeing this transformation of empty malls.

You walk into a restaurant, and now there's a touch screen to take your order, instead of a person. The people are still there. Assembly lines need less people.

So we're seeing, you know, this -- call it a technological revolution of robotics and artificial intelligence. You know, robotics are doing a lot of the manual labor that we've traditionally done for -- you know, since history began. And artificial intelligence threatens to frankly do a lot of our thinking for us.

So, you know, part of the thing that I explore in my books is, what becomes of the human race? What does the future look like?

That's something I worry about.

GLENN: Okay. So let me ask you this: As I have read yours, I'm also reading -- you know, I read a lot of Ray Kurzweil. And I'm reading Brett King. His book called Augmented, which is all about, you know, what do we need to teach our children? What is on the horizon? And what do we teach our children? And one of the things he talks about is that we have to be open-minded. We have to learn how to work with robotics and AI. And we have to really be open to accepting the changes that will be coming to even our own bodies and with nanotechnology, et cetera, et cetera. So as I'm putting these all together, and then I read your great leap, I think to myself, okay. So what I believe Stephen Hawking is talking about. And Ray Kurzweil, is the transhumanism. It's the singularity of bringing man and machine and making them one.

If you do this and you have quantum computing and AI, a -- an upgraded human is going to talk to a non-upgraded human. And it will be like talking to a dog. The information and the -- the modeling that the individual could do, who is upgraded, that would be completely lost on a non-upgraded homo sapien, puts us in a different category. And so that was my first thought, was, okay. This is going to put us in a different category. You're not going to be able to relate. And then I started thinking, well, we're already starting to talk about cars. Once automated cars are really everywhere, it's only a matter of time before we don't let humans drive anymore, because they're going to screw it all up. Well, if you have a non-upgraded human and everybody else is upgraded, I'm not going to let the human really touch anything because it's like have your dog drive a bus. You don't do that. You can't do it.

Then I read your book and I think of The Great Leap. Is it possible that we -- that the upgraded humans actually do wipe out the homo sapien because we're dangerous to them?

RIDDLE: Well, certainly.

I mean, I think the long arc of human history has been to a certain extent replacement and sort of one dominant species.

I mean, one of the thing that fascinates me is the fact that there are no Neanderthals, but there are plenty of chimps and gorillas and bonobos, and these are obviously, whether you believe in evolution or not, you have to agree genetically a chimpanzee is 99.8 percent the same genome as our species of human. And so it's like, why did they survive and Neanderthals didn't? And I think it's very clear that chimpanzees were not a competitor for food to us. And to some extent, they weren't a threat. And so the question for me becomes, all right. If we know the future is about a certain amount of merging human with technology. You look on the street today, and everyone walking around is staring at their cell phone. Half the people driving is staring at their cell phone. So whether it's been implanted or not, there is this sort of merging with technology that we know is somewhat inevitable. What does become the role for humans? And I do think there will be this -- probably a minority of people that say, you know, I like life the way it is. And I'm not -- I'm not going to join this sort of future that humanity at large has envisioned.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

RIDDLE: And I'd like to think that there will be coexistence and peace. But, you know, the long arc of history hasn't really borne that out. We may be entering this new era.

GLENN: Yeah. A.G. Riddle, author of Genome. Also, that's a part of the Pandemic series, The Atlantis Plague, and Departure. You can start really anywhere and pick them up and enjoy them. Great storytelling. Really, really great storytelling. I really enjoyed it. A.G., I'd love to talk to you again sometime. Thank you so much for all of your hard work.

RIDDLE: Oh, thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.

GLENN: You bet.

Buh-bye. Name of the book, again, is genome. It's part of the Pandemic series. I started with Pandemic, then went to Genome. Just went to Departure, which was an earlier book, which I thought was really, really good. But doesn't have some of the kind of deeper stuff in it about The Great Leap. I mean, if you're -- if you're at all curious about what the future holds and where do we come from and what is -- what is -- what's the next turn? He gives you some food for thought. It's all sci-fi obviously. But it's quite good. A.G. Riddle is his name.

What do clay pots have to do with to preserving American history?

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Editor's note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Why should we preserve our nation’s history? If you listen to my radio program and podcast, or read my columns and books, you know I’ve dedicated a large part of my life and finances to sourcing and preserving priceless artifacts that tell America’s story. I’ve tried to make these artifacts as available as possible through the American Journey Experience Museum, just across from the studios where I do my daily radio broadcast. Thousands of you have come through the museum and have been able to see and experience these artifacts that are a part of your legacy as an American.

The destruction of American texts has already begun.

But why should people like you and me be concerned about preserving these things from our nation's history? Isn’t that what the “big guys” like the National Archives are for?

I first felt a prompting to preserve our nation's history back in 2008, and it all started with clay pots and the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 1946, a Bedouin shepherd in what is now the West Bank threw a rock into a cave nestled into the side of a cliff near the Dead Sea. Instead of hearing an echo, he heard the curious sound of a clay pot shattering. He discovered more than 15,000 Masoretic texts from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D.

These texts weren’t just a priceless historical discovery. They were virtually perfect copies of the same Jewish texts that continue to be translated today. Consider the significance of that discovery. Since the third century B.C. when these texts were first written, the Jewish people have endured a continued onslaught of diasporas, persecutions, pressures to conform to their occupying power, the destruction of their temple, and so much more. They had to fight for their identity as a people for centuries, and finally, a year after the end of the Holocaust and a year before the founding of the nation of Israel, these texts were discovered, confirming the preservation and endurance of their heritage since ancient times — all due to someone putting these clay pots in a desert cave more than 2,000 years ago.

I first felt a prompting to preserve our nation's history back in 2008, and it all started with clay pots and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

So, what do these clay pots have to do with the calling to preserve American history? I didn’t understand that prompting myself until the horrible thought dawned on me that the people we are fighting against may very well take our sacred American scriptures, our Declaration of Independence, and our Bill of Rights. What if they are successful, and 1,000 years from now, we have no texts preserved to confirm our national identity? What kind of new history would be written over the truth?

The destruction of American texts has already begun. The National Archives has labeled some of our critical documents, like our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, as “triggering” or “containing harmful language.” In a public statement, the National Archives said that the labels help prepare readers to view potentially distressing content:

The Catalog and web pages contain some content that may be harmful or difficult to view. NARA’s records span the history of the United States, and it is our charge to preserve and make available these historical records. As a result, some of the materials presented here may reflect outdated, biased, offensive, and possibly violent views and opinions. In addition, some of the materials may relate to violent or graphic events and are preserved for their historical significance.

According to this statement, our founding documents are either “outdated, biased, offensive,” “possibly violent,” or a combination of these scathing descriptions. I’m sorry, the Declaration of Independence is not “triggering.” Our Constitution is not “outdated and biased,” and our Bill of Rights certainly is not “offensive and possibly violent.” They are glorious documents. They should be celebrated, not qualified by such derogatory, absurd language. Shame on them.

These are only the beginning stages of rewriting our history. What if they start banning these “triggering” documents from public view because they might offend somebody? Haven’t we torn down “triggering” statues before? What if we are no longer able to see, read, and study the actual words of our nation's founding documents because they are “harmful” or “possibly violent”? A thousand years from now, will there be any remnant to piece together the true spirit behind the nation that our founders envisioned?

The Declaration of Independence is not “triggering.”

That is why in 2008, I was prompted to preserve what I could. Now, the American Journey Experience Museum includes more than 160,000 artifacts, from founding-era documents to the original Roe v. Wade court papers. We need to preserve the totality of our nation’s heritage, the good, the bad, and the ugly. We need to preserve our history in our own clay pots.

I ask you to join with me on this mission. Start buying books that are important to preserve. Buy some acid-free paper and start printing some of the founding documents, the reports that go against the mainstream narrative, the studies that prove what is true as we are continually being fed lies. Start preserving our daily history as well as our history because it is being rewritten and digitized.

Somebody must have a copy of what is happening now and what has happened in the past. I hope things don’t get really bad. But if they do, we need to preserve our heritage. Perhaps, someone 1,000 years from now will discover our clay pots and, Lord willing, be able to have a glimpse of America as it truly was.

Top 10 WORST items in the new $1.2 TRILLION spending bill

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Biden just signed the newest spending bill into law, and Glenn is furious.

Under Speaker Johnson's leadership, the whopping $1.2 TRILLION package will use your taxpayer dollars to fund the government through September. Of course, the bill is loaded with earmarks and pork that diverts money to fund all sorts of absurd side projects.

Here is the list of the ten WORST uses of taxpayer money in the recently passed spending bill:

Funding venues to host drag shows, including ones that target children

David McNew / Contributor | Getty Images

Money for transgender underwear for kids

Funding for proms for 12 to 18 year old kids

Bethany Clarke / Stringer | Getty Images

Border security funding... for Jordan and Egypt

Another $300 million for Ukraine

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

$3.5 million for Detroit's annual Thanksgiving Day parade

Icon Sportswire / Contributor | Getty Images

$2.5 million for a new kayaking facility in Franklin, New Hampshire

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$2.7 million for a bike park in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, a town with a population of less than 2,300 people

$5 million for a new trail at Coastal Carolina University

$4 million the "Alaska King Crab Enhancement Project" (whatever that means)

FRED TANNEAU / Stringer | Getty Images

There is no doubt about it—we are entering dark times.

The November presidential election is only a few months away, and following the chaos of the 2020 election, the American people are bracing for what is likely to be another tumultuous election year. The left's anti-Trump rhetoric is reaching an all-time high with the most recent "Bloodbath" debacle proving how far the media will go to smear the former president. That's not to mention the Democrats' nearly four-year-long authoritarian attempt to jail President Trump or stop his re-election by any means necessary, even if it flies in the face of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, Biden is doing worse than ever. He reportedly threw a tantrum recently after being informed that his polls have reached an all-time low. After Special Counsel Robert Hur's report expressed concerns over Biden's obviously failing mental agility, it's getting harder for the Democrats to defend him. Yet he is still the Democratic nominee for November, promising another 4 years of catastrophic policies, from the border to heavy-handed taxation, should he be reelected.

The rest of the world isn't doing much better. The war in Ukraine has no clear end in sight, drawing NATO and Russia closer and closer to conflict. The war in Gaza is showing no sign of slowing down, and as Glenn revealed recently, its continuation may be a sign that the end times are near.

One thing is clear: we are living in uncertain times. If you and your family haven't prepared for the worst, now is the time. You can start by downloading "Glenn's Ultimate Guide to Getting Prepared." Be sure to print off a copy or two. If the recent cell outage proved anything, it's that technology is unreliable in survival situations. You can check your list of supplies against our "Ultimate Prepper Checklist for Beginners," which you can find below:

Food

  • Canned food/non-perishable foods
  • Food preparation tools
  • Go to the next level: garden/livestock/food production

Water

  • Non-perishable water store
  • Water purification
  • Independent water source

Shelter

  • Fireplace with a wood supply
  • Tent
  • Generator with fuel supply
  • Go to the next level: fallout shelter

Money

  • Emergency cash savings
  • Precious metals

Medicine

  • Extra blankets
  • Basic first aid
  • Extra prescriptions
  • Extra glasses
  • Toiletries store
  • Trauma kit
  • Antibiotics
  • Basic surgery supplies
  • Potassium Iodate tablets

Transportation

  • Bicycle
  • Car
  • Extra fuel

Information

  • Birth certificates
  • Insurance cards
  • Marriage license
  • Immunization records
  • Mortgage paperwork
  • Car title and registration
  • House keys, car keys
  • Passports
  • Family emergency plan
  • Prepping/survival/repair manuals
  • Go to the next level: copy of the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and other important books/sources

Skills

  • Cooking
  • Gardening
  • Sewing
  • First Aid
  • Basic maintenance skills
  • Go to the next level: farming/ranching
  • Self-defense training

Communication

  • Family contact information and addresses
  • HAM radio

Miscellaneous

  • Flashlights and batteries
  • Lamps and fuel
  • Hardware (tools, nails, lumber, etc)
  • Extra clothes
  • Extreme weather clothes and gear
  • Gas masks and filters
  • Spare parts for any machinery/equipment

Is Trump's prosecution NORMAL?  This COMPLETE list of ALL Western leaders who served jail time proves otherwise.

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Mainstream media is on a crusade to normalize Donald Trump's indictments as if it's on par with the electoral course. Glenn asked his team to research every instance of a Western leader who was jailed during their political career over the past 200 years—except extreme political turmoil like the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars, Irish Revolution, etc.—and what we discovered was quite the opposite.

Imprisoning a leader or major political opponent is not normal, neither in the U.S. nor in the Western world. Within the last 200 years, there are only a handful of examples of leaders in the West serving jail time, and these men were not imprisoned under normal conditions. All of these men were jailed under extreme circumstances during times of great peril such as the Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War.

What does this mean for America? Are Trump's indictments evidence that we are re-entering times of great peril? Below is a list of Western leaders who were imprisoned within the last 200 years. Take a look and decide for yourself:

Late 1800s

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Jefferson Davis: The nearest occurrence to a U.S. President to serve jail time was in the case of Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America. Jefferson was captured in Georgia by Northern Soldiers in 1865 and locked up in Fort Monroe, Virginia for two years. He was offered a presidential pardon but refused out of his loyalty to the confederacy.

Early 1900s

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Eugene V. Debs: Debbs, a Midwestern socialist leader, became the first person to run for president in prison. He was locked up at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta having been convicted under the federal Sedition Act for giving an antiwar speech a few months before Armistice Day, the end of World War I. Many of his supporters believed his imprisonment to be unjust. Debs received 897,704 votes and was a distant third-part candidate behind Warren G. Harding, the Republican winner, and James M. Cox, the second-place Democrat. Harding ordered Debs’s release from prison toward the end of 1921.

Nazi sympathizers and collaborators: After the end of World War II in 1945, several European leaders who had "led" their countries during the Nazi occupation faced trial and imprisonment for treason. This list included Chief of the French State Philippe Pétain, French Prime Minister Pierre Laval, and Minister-President of Norway Vidkun Quisling. The latter two were also executed after their imprisonment. President of Finland Risto Ryti and Prime Minister of Finland Johan Wilhelm Rangell were also tried and jailed for collaborating with the Nazis against the Allied Powers.

Late 1900s

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The end of the Cold War: The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was one of the pivotal moments that brought the Cold War to a close and marked the end of Communist East Germany. With the fall of the wall and the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the former leaders were brought to trial to answer for the crimes committed by the GDR. General Secretary Erich Honecker and General Secretary Egon Krenz were both put on trial for abuse of power and the deaths of those who were shot trying to flee into West Germany. Honecker was charged with jail time but was released from custody due to severe illness and lived out the rest of his life as an exile in Chile. Krenz served 4 years in jail before his release in 2001. He is one of the last surviving leaders of the Eastern Bloc.

Lyndon LaRouche: Larouche was a Trotsky evangelist, public antisemite, and founder of a nationwide Marxist political movement, became the second person in U.S. history to run for President in a prison cell. Granted, he ran in every election from 1976 to 2004 as a long-shot third-party candidate. When he tried to gain the Democratic presidential nomination, he received 5 percent of the total nationwide vote. Even though in 2000 he received enough primary votes to qualify for delegates in a few states, the Democratic National Committee refused to seat his delegates and barred LaRouche from attending the Democratic National Convention.