Cory Doctorow: "The wildest part is that it ha…" - Mamot - Le Mastodon de La Quadrature du Net

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Cory Doctorow @pluralistic

Designated Survivors: The gerontocratic elephant in the graveyard

https://doctorow.medium.com/designated-survivors-2dded3cbed2

An overgrown graveyard. One of the tombstones is actually the US Capitol. The shadow of a scythe looms over the scene.

#gerontocracy #actuary #AllCausesMortality

Cory Doctorow @pluralistic

Now they just die.

https://doctorow.medium.com/designated-survivors-2dded3cbed2

By my thirties, all of the mentors old enough to be my grandparents were dead. Many of the ones old enough to be my parents were dead, too. A few of the ones old enough to be an older sibling died, too. One of my dearest friends lay down to sleep and never awoke, felled by a freak brain-bleed.

In my forties, I lost all my grandparents, most of the great uncles and aunts, several cousins, more friends. Some of my friends lost their kids, too: cancer, OD, suicide. Cars, of course.

Now, in my fifties, my friends and I count our dead, name them, mourn them, remember them.

Last month, as we named our dead, a dear old pal said, “It used to be that when I heard about a friend dying, I thought, ‘I wish he’d asked for help,’ or ‘What a freak accident.’ Now I just think, ‘at least it was quick.’” Because they used to die by suicide or misadventure.

Now, they just die.

#Actuary #NaturalCauses

Cory Doctorow @pluralistic

A grim contingency to ponder (but ponder it we must).

https://doctorow.medium.com/designated-survivors-2dded3cbed2

Every winter, both houses of Congress gather to hear the American President deliver the State of the Union address. These speeches are usually pretty thin gruel, but everyone attends.

Everyone, that is, except for one person: the designated survivor, a single official who sits out the State of the Union in a distant, armored, “undisclosed location.”

This “survivor” is sequestered in case a nuclear blast or other horrific catastrophe wipes out all those lawmakers and officials who have gathered to hear the President’s boasts.

It’s a grim contingency to ponder, but the US government has the executive function and foresight to contemplate this low-probability, high-consequence event, and take measures to ensure that if it comes to pass, things will go on.

#StateOfTheUnion #DesignatedSurvivor

Cory Doctorow @pluralistic

A less-than-super (but decidedly superannuated) supermajority.

https://doctorow.medium.com/designated-survivors-2dded3cbed2

The current president is 80 years old. His presumed opponent for 2024 is 77 years old.

Four US Senators are in their eighties. Twenty nine US senators are in their seventies. Seven more are sixty-eight or sixty-nine.

The current Democratic Senate majority is 51-49.

Twelve members of the House are in their eighties. Sixty-two reps are in their seventies (thirteen more are sixty-nine).

The current Republican Congressional majority is 222–213.

Two Supreme Court justices are in their seventies (Clarence Thomas is 75). Three more are in their sixties.

The right-wing Supreme Court “supermajority” is 6–3.

#SCOTUS #Senate #Congress

Cory Doctorow @pluralistic@mamot.fr

The wildest part is that it hasn’t happened already.

https://doctorow.medium.com/designated-survivors-2dded3cbed2

“Natural causes” could provoke a complete turnover in one or all of the most important chambers for lawmaking and dispute resolution in the richest, most powerful country in the world.

As a science fiction writer, I can come up with plenty of ways that this could be a blessing, or a curse (as a decent human being, of course, I don’t wish death on anyone).

If there was a 13 percent chance that an assassin could end the Democratic Senate majority this year, the whole nation would be on high alert. If there was a 4.9–6.55 percent chance that a killer would nail the US President this year, the manhunt would be even more all-consuming than a missing billionaire’s submarine.

But this completely foreseeable, undeniable risk — one that every single one of us contends with every time we gather with our old friends — is completely unremarked-upon.

Indeed, once you start thinking about this, the wildest part is that it hasn’t happened already.

#BlackSwan #Actuary

Jul 01, 2023, 11:25 PM··Web

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