You have to love the headline on that Times spree-killer story: “They threaten, seethe and unhinge, then kill in quantity.” Normally that’s the language used by companies that sell disinfectants and pesticides. Maybe the piece will win a Pulitzer next year in the category of Investigative Obviousness–you know, the one where you win the prize if you point out that tornadoes wipe out a lot of mobile homes. (Dying Can Be Fatal, Study Finds.)
I liked the original Fail Safe and found it terrifying, especially the end, with the countdown to detonation, the final scenes of Manhattan. The president sends his wife to New York and then blows the place up–no Clinton jokes, please. I have a vivid image of some pigeons in a park, scattering in those final moments. When I was in elementary school, I think it was third grade–circa 1968–a teacher told our class that experts (unnamed, faraway people with big brains) had predicted that the planet wouldn’t even be here in five years. Apparently, the bombs were going to obliterate everything. Or maybe pollution would do it, or overpopulation, or some other out-of-control system or side effect of modern technology. The good news, for a kid, was that five years was a long way off. So we hit the playground and didn’t worry about it.
Our doomsday fears are a bit subtler now. We don’t get bombed to death; we just get enslaved. Did you read that Bill Joy piece in Wired about how machines may take over someday? It seemed to be mashing the panic button a little hard, but it’s definitely something to ponder, whether we really understand the kind of world we’re creating. I wonder if the anti-World Bank, anti-globalization folks draw energy from doomsday scenarios, like in the movie The Matrix, which I saw this weekend on HBO (I’m the last to see anything). You probably know that in The Matrix the machines run the world and keep humans in vats, using them like batteries. The “real world” that we perceive is just a software program; life is a dream. The bad guys are sentient programs that are designed to resemble middle-aged white businessmen with receding hairlines. They look like people who you can imagine working for the International Monetary Fund. I loved how the movie exploits the paranoia that everyone feels in an increasingly technological and bewildering world. Feel like something’s amiss? Don’t feel like the world quite makes sense? Maybe that’s because you’re actually floating in a vat and machines rule the world! (Or maybe you just need a vacation.)
Thanks for your lovely image of the lights hitting the ceiling in the bedroom as a car outside climbs the hill. I’m in your camp. I think in life we spend a lot of time trying to recapture, or re-create, the subtle joys and assurances of childhood. Maybe when Elián grows up he’ll constantly search for a march, rally, or protest to join. I just filed my column and, as warned, wrote about Elián, though the deadline pace of these online columns is so furious that I barely remember what I said. I think I said I was in favor of parenthood. I took a stand!
The Pulitzers will be announced soon–tensions are high. I think we’re going to have a great day here.
Cheers,
Joel
