Wishful thinking in 2025 America
Wishing bad things away doesn't usually work. And yet it's enjoying a kind of heyday in America at this moment. And it's seductive. But it's a tide we must learn to swim against... day after day.
At the close of the recent podcast The Bird-Flu Tipping Point from Hanna Rosin and Radio Atlantic, Greg Herbrucks, CEO of the largest egg producer in Michigan, is asked to comment on RFK Jr.’s suggestion that the best approach to bird flu may be to simply let the disease run its course through flocks without any human intervention because, in our HHS Secretary’s fanciful imagination doing so could possibly allow nature to reveal which birds possess natural immunity to the virus.
Mr. Herbruck’s response to this spitballing worthy of a Freshman all-nighter:
“Letting an outbreak run through the flock in an uncontrolled manner is not a practical or humane solution and would lead to needless suffering while increasing risk of A.I. (meaning: Avian Influenza) spreading to other species and animals and ultimately putting humans at greater risk.”
I had to jump off my stationery bike to skip back a few seconds to be sure I’d heard one detail correctly.
“… increasing the risk of A.I….”
That Bird Flu and Artificial Intelligence should share the same pair of initials feels like one of those rare instances when the universe coughs up a bit of poetry to help us direct our humanoid attention with its eye for symmetry and ear for repetition just a bit more closely.
It’s interesting, though. No? To recognize that both A.I.’s (a new paradigm for computing and a new virus in birds) share at least one trait that really freaks us out.
Each carries a high likelihood of delivering a circuitous and unpredictable path forward both in terms of precisely how they will evolve and function one, two or more years down the road. Even more alarming is the degree to which we can hardly fathom all the ways in which a future A.I. could completely disrupt life as we know it on the planet.
It’s never ideal or easy or comfortable when an expert tells us that the future is unpredictable. We prefer certainty. And in many ways this fact of our nature lies at the root of most of the skepticism and hostility with which public health guidelines were met during the Covid_19 Pandemic.
Science is messy. It has to be. It’s experimental. It relies on trial and error. As a result the path to every transformative scientific breakthrough in human history has been littered with more error than answers. Every failure brings science closer to a solution. So it should not have surprised any of us to hear CDC officials change their tune from time to time. We had never seen this virus before. We didn’t yet know how it behaves.
So my friends who left their groceries outside their front door for hours and scrubbed their oranges with dishwashing liquid were neither stupid nor insane. They were trying something that may or may not have been helpful.
When I stayed away from live theater longer than most of my friends, I was also not stupid or crazy. I was cautious and uncertain and willing to sacrifice something I very much love which contributes to my mental health in order to maybe decrease the likelihood that I might die on a ventilator.
But still, when my friend Pamela invited me to join her to see Jessica Chastain tackle Nora Helmer in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, I donned my KN95 mask and hurried to the theater. But after 20 minutes of sitting masked in an audience where I did not spot one other masked person and growing frustrated that my glasses were fogging and I was missing details of a wonderful actress’ performance, I impulsively removed my mask for the rest of the show.
Three days later I came down with CoVid.
But having had a few vaccinations by then, I was not hospitalized and only suffered mild aches, fever and restlessness for about 72 hours.
Looking back, I have no regrets. But that’s only because of the unique set of factors I carry around as part of my preferences, values, history, medical condition, etc. etc.
So when a contractor recently showed up to give me an estimate on some work on the house and was masked and asked me to hang back 10 feet I didn’t judge him to be stupid or crazy. I understood that he carries a whole set of factors of his own which I cannot know.
So, yeah, science is messy. You know what else is messy? Human relationships. And another messy unpredictable and sometimes irritating thing?
Government of the people, by the people and for the people.
The U.S. Federal government is being taken apart. And whether you’re applauding or mourning, every one of us needs to be clear about what this means for managing our day to day existence.
All of this is to say, we are each now, whether we like it or not, the captain of our own paths forward through each day, week, month and year. Where we once could take for granted that airplanes hardly ever fall from the sky, measles has virtually been eradicated, the water coming out of our taps is safe to drink and a vacation abroad will not result in our arrest upon our return to our country, the future is now a bit more of a gamble.
We’re going to have to learn how to cope with this new weight upon our shoulders that comes from a deep understanding that at every turn these days we are going it alone because we would be foolish to pretend that the safety measures we grew up taking for granted, almost as an American birthright, are not rapidly being disappeared.
So just sniff that pound of beef you just bought before you cook it. And maybe learn to love it more well done than rare.
It’s a little exhausting having to slow down at every green light just to be sure nobody’s running their red light. Sleep is less of a given these days. And if you have any doubt about that, take a look at the time stamp on this little item. I’m posting at 4:45AM.
But hopefully, we’re each finding our way to take care of each other, to show kindness and compassion and to thank the people we love for putting up with us. If you’re one of mine, thank you. No, really.
Now, here’s a little something to hopefully brighten your day.