THE COUNTERFEIT ARK

One of the tools of Catastrophic Thinking is to provide adequate escape routes so everyone knows where and how to go about saving themselves. One of the defining differences between a disaster and a catastrophe is that, in a catastrophe, no one will be coming to save you. CAVEAT in policy formation requires an escape route for everyone. It is criminal policy-making to design a ship with lifeboats for roughly one third of the people. Like the Titanic. At the very least, British and American policy-makers should have been sent to prison.

The featured book illustrated in this blog reveals how scandalous America’s preparations for nuclear war were in the 1960’s. I think nuclear war qualified as a catastrophe back then and still does. Of course, nowadays, we don’t even try. Our national policy could be summarized, as (1) put on your best clothes, (2) grab a bottle of liquor, (3) go outside and watch the sunset, and (4) put your head between your legs, and kiss your beloved body good-bye.

Seriously, we don’t even adequately prepare for foreseeable disasters, like a hurricane. Have you noticed the traffic jams which occur the day before a hurricane strikes? Opening all four lanes of the interstates leading away from the coastline would cut in half those traffic jams but in most jurisdictions that basic common-sense measure almost never seems to be adopted.