The First Days of the Permanent Floating Riot Club
August 10, 2011
It’s been an… interesting few days, especially since I live in Woolwich and work in Clapham Junction. I left work late on Monday, so it must all have been kicking off a hundred yards away as I bleared homewards through the nice new station entrance. I didn’t notice a thing. So much for my observational skills. I didn’t find out anything was wrong until I eventually got home and hit up the internet to find out why Woolwich Arsenal station was closed.
Blimey.
From the SF nut PoV it’s been fascinating to watch this – riots purely for the purpose of looting, co-ordinated by social networking. Larry Niven wrote a short story called The Last Days of the Permanent Floating Riot Club in the 70s, set in a world with teleporters on every street corner, where the news of any sufficiently large disturbance would bring “flash crowds” teleporting in. Which reminds me of what we’re seeing in London and other UK cities; the technology is different but the effect is very similar. We’re seeing the dark side of flash mobs. Are flash riots going to become the next big thing?
