If We Can't Come Together on COVID, These Disasters Are Next
The new Netflix film Don’t Look Up is a star-studded allegory about climate change. The world faces a clear and imminent threat, and the question the movie poses is: Will we be able to overcome the narrow self-interests of politicians, the business community, and individual nations to defeat the threat we collectively face? Will too many people around the world be too gullible and passive to demand the right actions from their leaders?
In the case of the film, it does not give away too much to suggest that doing the right thing is a challenge. The film is not just a parable about our inertia when it comes to the ever worsening, nearly irreversible climate crisis—it is a reminder that the idea that the planet will effectively unite in the interest of self-preservation is itself a romantic myth.
And the coronavirus pandemic has shown bona fide global cooperation is more fanciful and out of reach than ever.
It was a very different sort of Hollywood product, President Ronald Reagan, who—with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev—helped promote this fantasy of an enlightened global community. During a 1985 summit in Geneva, their conversation took an odd turn. As reported by Gorbachev himself, “President Reagan suddenly said to me, ‘What would you do if the United States were suddenly attacked by someone from outer space? Would you help us?” Gorbachev responded, “No doubt about it.” Reagan replied, “We too.”
Our modern experience with shared existential threats tells another story.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/if-we-cant-come-together-on-covid-these-disasters-are-next/ar-AASkjCH
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... if we are attacked by forces from outer space now, there would be no point in getting or receiving help from each other. The technology to get here and attack is so superior to our own, we should consider an immediate surrender.
