What better way to distract oneself from pandemic woes than reading or watching tales of apocalyptic destruction? I mean, psychological gains from downward comparisons are real!(And yes, today’s musings are long, but then a rainy weekend awaits….)

The earliest apocalyptic writings, found in Jewish, later Christian biblical chapters at least promised that if one only behaved according to proscription there was a flicker of hope. There might be if not rescue then at least redemption after a period of despair.

More modern fare written about apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic scenarios provided scintillas of optimism through either the survival of appropriately tough heroes/heroines or the promises of miraculous scientific advancements that enabled new beginnings. Here is a list of some of the best, each in their own way trying to impart lessons of caution, all urgently linked to an existing world we choose to ignore at our peril. Some I read were Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003,)Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006,)José Saramago’s Blindness (1995,) Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower (1993.) I’d add the latest Joy Williams’ novel, Harrow,(2021) to the list, but it is a hard, hard read. They are all bleak. Importantly, instructive. It is no longer about (the) God(s) punishing us, but our own greed and negligence causing humanity’s destruction.

And then there is Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves (2015,) a book I devoured. The moon, falling apart for inexplicable reasons, showers earth with its disintegrated pieces, leaving what’s left of humanity to scramble for an alternative home in the universe, in caves or on ocean floors. 5000 years later they have survived by the billions somewhere out there, still mired in the same old conflicts that riled humanity, with issues of race, power and war as central as ever. It is a fascinating tale of adventure and a deep dive into systems, technology, genetics and associated philosophical issues.

If you don’t have the patience to read some 800 pages of this and also prefer your virtue-signaling served with a dollop of humor, you might turn to the movies instead. I saw two over the last weeks that deserve consideration, one of them quite funny. (Spoiler alert – I will discuss endings. Shall we say, any remaining optimism has fallen by the wayside, with the speed and gravity of cosmic debris…)

The first one is Adam McKay’s (The Big Short, Vice) new film Don’t Look Up. The story is simple on the surface: a large comet is approaching earth, threatening to obliterate it completely upon impact within 6 months and some days. The astronomers who try to warn are treated as Cassandras, first ignored then exploited for political purposes. The world looks away – a “Don’t look up” movement literally suggesting an ostrich’s behavior can save you – wasting time when potential measures could have mitigated the disaster, including a businessman who controls the government and wants to mine the comet for industrial materials. The comet hits, the world is destroyed, the evil politicians and the businessman, a cross of Jobs/Musk/ Zuckerberg escape to a planetary world where they are eaten by dinosaurs.

Along the way, everything that is a current political issue in the face of existential danger, be it pandemic or climate change, is skewered with dark satire and smart irony. And that is what the film is really about, rather than an extinction event per se: The role of a divided nation, the influence of mass media, the function of the entertainment world with musical superstars, technological industries, science denial, social media influencing, capitalism run berserk, political manipulation for corrupt purposes, all undermining possible rescue. (David Sirota, one of Bernie’s speech writers, was responsible for the script.) The film allows you to laugh a lot while being utterly depressed about the plausibility of its depictions. It also makes you feel part of a “we” who understand what is said as well as who is ridiculed (“them,”) making for an astonishing sense of community while you’re sitting there watching alone on your couch.

Well, so it was for me and half of the reviews I read (author and journalist Michael Harriot called it a documentary, only half in jest, Naomi Klein strongly recommended it.); the other half was scathingly critical, and many of my family and friends were giving up on the film before they were half-way in, being unmoved by the over-the-top one-liners and attempts at humor while messaging that we are doomed if we leave measures against potential destruction (climate change is clearly the intended allegory) in the hands of politicians instead of scientists. My simple mind, meanwhile, just giggled.

One could indeed argue that the film’s allegorical use of a comet, a higher fate threat, papers over the fact that climate change is manmade. I see that choice, however, as a smart one. It allows not-yet committed viewers to think through the costs of passivity without being turned off by feeling immediately guilty. Here are some thoughts by the film’s director.

The second apocalyptic tale I watched was a Korean series, also on Netflix, called The Silent Sea. It contained no humor and was utterly long, yet fascinating for its philosophical implications. Here the world is ravaged by climate change and water life-threateningly scarce, distributed via a hierarchical system imposed by authoritarian regimes. A group of engineers and scientists are sent to a research station on the moon to retrieve some mystery samples produced in a facility which was seemingly shut down by a radiation accident. A parallel mission by yet another evil industrial imperium is set to interfere, having planted two of their own among the research crew, starting to kill the good guys. It turns out the samples are of lunar water, a substance that can replicate itself to unending streams of liquid if finding a living host, yet ultimately lethal to humans who will drown in their own lungs when infected with it by a mere touch.

We learn that the government did illegal human research and cloning with children, scores of whom died in the course of trying to find a usable water replicator to rescue all of humanity. All but one, that is, a girl who has developed DNA to resist the infectious parts, acquiring some super powers along the way. She and the two female members of the retrieval team, a doctor and a scientist, are the only survivors of the mission in the end, rescued but flying off to an unknown fate of further experimentation on earth. Maybe humanity will be saved by the magical self-producing liquid, but at what cost?

The series is offering a plethora of important issues, from economic inequality that can kill you, to the ethics of scientific experimentation for a larger cause, the sacrificing of some for the greater good, or the saving of the world left in greedy hands that want to profit off it. Yet all of them are only subtly presented, with few suggested resolutions, leaving the viewer intellectually scrambling and frightened without the release provided by laughter.

So who is reached by the message shared by both tales, that the clock is ticking towards these kinds of scenarios? That a grim fate awaits unless we make some hard decisions now? We know what the solutions are regarding mitigation of a climate catastrophe; we also have some measures against threats of falling debris via the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (a NASA offshoot.) I doubt, though, that climate deniers will respond to the warnings, if they listen to them at all – why should they, when they are the targets of scorn? How should the rest of us act, those already aware of multiple existential risks? As I write this the CDC just declared that those infected with Covid could end quarantine after 5 instead of 10 days and without proof of a negative test so that employer demands can be met. Aren’t we shrugging it all off in great resignation, feeling powerless to do anything?

And those of us who accept the apocalyptic premises, do we enjoy laughing on the sofa while watching our imminent demise? Sort of “might as well,” while resigning into learned helplessness? Or are we subtly pushed into assumptions that science will have the means to rescue us if we only let it (with the Koreans at least acknowledging the huge, really unacceptable price one pays for potential discoveries?) Have we given up on wrestling it out of the hands of monopolies who hold the power, helplessly skewering their founders with condescension and scorn as a last ditch attempt to make ourselves feel involved?

I don’t have the answer. Or maybe I fear them to be in the affirmative. I do know that I was happy for laughter, so rare these days, perfectly aware that it involved gallows humor.

I did also “look up,” and around on my walk through a snow dusted landscape last week, hiking LaTourelle Falls.

Music today is from Leo Janacek’s satirical opera The Excursions of Mr. Broucek to the Moon. Full version here.

Excerpt in better sound quality here.

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