If you haven’t seen the latest Netflix sensation, “Leave the World Behind,” it’s worth a watch. Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke portray a husband and wife who ride out the early stages of a nation-wide cyberattack in a luxurious rental house with their two kids. When the owners of the house show up to take shelter from the chaos unfolding in the city, things get tense.
Overall, I found “Leave the World Behind” to play out as more of a drama than a true disaster movie. It’s not all that surprising given that the movie is an adaptation of a novel by a writer whose focus tends to be more on the literary fiction side of the house. The film is full of suspenseful disaster hooks – a nation-wide cyber attack, grid-down scenario, impending foreign invasion – but ultimately many of these setups are left hanging while the movie focuses on character dynamics between the renters and owners of the luxury house. The saving grace here is a killer performance by Mahershala Ali as the homeowner.
While much of the disaster setup is never explained or fully explored, there is an insidious thesis working in the backdrop of the movie: what if America’s enemies could strike a devastating blow without ever firing a shot?
By shutting off the power grid with a cyberattack, a foreign adversary could theoretically plunge the country into darkness – with no food, clean water, supply chains, or emergency services. How would Americans respond? According to the film, the country would tear itself apart from within.
In 1906, journalist Alfred Henry Lewis posited that, “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.” His position was that there is a thin veneer of polite society that is only possible when we have access to basic necessities such as food and water. Take those essentials away, as in the case of a massive cyberattack, and it’s only a matter of time before desperate people will be willing to do things they never would have dreamed of.
At the end of the movie, we briefly see that only a few days following the cyberattack, New York City has devolved into total anarchy. It’s implied that the rest of the country is experiencing much of the same.
It’s a dark, unpleasant thought, but it’s also a warning. As responsible citizens, what can we do about it?
At the individual level, we can’t improve the cybersecurity posture of the country. However, there is a lot we can do to make sure that our own households, and even our communities, are ready for a future crisis.
The good news is that the actions you take to be ready for an unlikely disaster, such as the cyberattack portrayed in “Leave the World Behind”, are the same steps you can take to be ready for a more likely disaster in your area, such as a severe storm that takes down the power grid. By covering the bigger threats, you’re also taking care of smaller threats.
Making sure that you have enough food, water, and basic supplies to shelter in place for two weeks is an excellent starting point. Knowing how to secure your home is a great next step.
Be An Asset, Not a Liability
There’s a line that stuck with me for weeks after I watched “Leave the World Behind.” In a tense standoff near the end of the movie, Ethan Hawke’s hopeless and defeated character admits that without 21st century technology, he is a “useless man.” This might be the most powerful wake-up call of the entire film.
In the West, we have all grown accustomed to the luxuries, conveniences, and technologies of modern life. We rarely, if ever, have to question whether we will have power, food, clean drinking water, emergency medical services, and law enforcement available at any given moment. It’s easy to become overly reliant on these systems when there is little incentive to do otherwise. As a result, most of us living in urban and suburban areas lack the skills that our recent ancestors used to survive on a daily basis.
Like you, I hope and pray for the best possible future for my family and my community. However, as responsible citizens, we should also do everything in our power to ensure that if and when a crisis comes to our doorsteps, we are anything but useless.
