What I’m worried about
Maybe it’s dawning awareness spurred by being a new parent, maybe it’s the type of content I’m consuming nowadays, but I feel a sort of overwhelming concern about the state of the world and the lives of its denizens–much more so than I did when I was younger.
- Global warming: On social media, you often see videos of climate protestors being attacked by random passersby for blocking roads or fouling old paintings. And the most common comment I see is–good. We are currently on a steady path toward societal destruction, something scientists have been warning about for decades, DECADES, and these fucking chumps have the gall to laugh at protestors getting signs ripped out of their hands and blame them for being arrested by police. In twenty years, some of those who laughed will be chastened–others will no doubt blame protestors for polarizing the issue of climate change while somehow avoiding laying any blame on themselves or the wealthy corporations and citizens who have led us inexorably off the precipice while ruling out any time of concerted action. I can’t wait until we’re all breathing sulfur that’s been pumped into the air to keep us at 2 degrees C.
- The refugee crisis: This has been on my mind for years, and the recent sinking of the Adriana off the coast of Greece has forcibly created more mental space for this topic. The refugee crisis, among others, puts the lie to the idea that we are all one human family. We–meaning the relatively well-to-do of Earth–have been presented with an ongoing human tragedy that reveals itself every day across the globe, that of economic displacement and subjugation which results in the immiseration of hundreds of millions, many of whom try to make it to our lands so that they can build a living off of the most miserable wage labor, the scraps of our society. They and their families are preyed upon, and they suffer injury, illness, infection, miscarriage, and death in pursuit of any kind of economic sustenance. And we ignore it. Because… well, because we can. Because nothing forces us to deal with these people in a fair, humane way. Because there are those of us for whom some kind of support would cost barely anything, and there are those of us who would have to do with much less if we pursued some kind of humane policy, and the latter use their greater means to influence the former.
- Every death a tragedy: I just read about the death of Kevin Mitnick in the NYT. After living a life filled with escapades and adventure (even allowing for the boredom that spending time in prison must have been), this larger-than-life figure dies of pancreatic cancer at 59. Mitnick’s wife is pregnant with their first kid. I won’t pretend that Mitnick was a hero of mine or anything; I knew who he was and once I saw Hackers: Takedown which according to Hacker News is laden with falsehoods, and that’s the extent of my participation in his fandom. But man, as I get older it just affects me more and more, how anyone can be struck down by what are ultimately quotidian fates. How does a guy like Kevin Mitnick get cancer? How does a guy like Kevin Mitnick become another 59-year-old? Same way as everybody else, I guess.
So that’s two “fixable” problems, and one that currently is not. I think global warming and refugees are part of why I’m aiming to become a nurse. Being a health professional seems like a more helpful type of labor to pursue than plugging away at computers or arguing with lawyers about things. Other possible careers: refugee rescue boat crew member, or less remuneratively, “guy who glues himself to things to protest CO2.”