Don't Rain On His Doomsday Parade
I have to keep reminding myself that Joe Romm comes from a journalism family. Because it escapes me how he could take issue with this rapturous story getting front page treatment in yesterday’s NYT.
Abby Haddad Carson and Robert Carson say Saturday is Judgment Day; the children, Joseph, Faith and Grace, right, do not.
The story not only has a legitimate news hook, but it’s also poignant, disturbing and, as the headline suggests, even humorous. It also does what journalism does at its best–connect a larger phenomenon to a personal story, of which, in this case, most anyone with parents and siblings will be able to relate to.
Now, as we all know, the sophisticated media would not fall for a prediction as preposterous as this. Well compare this to the Y2K bug in which all electronics were supposed to fail at midnight January 1, 2000. This was supposed to be TEOTWAWKI or ” The End of the World as We Know It”. The elite media were full of scare stories. Power grids, telephone networks, cash registers and everything else were supposed to fail. . New Zealand is the first large country to greet the new day or new year. People were starting rumours that New Zealand had suddenly vanished from the Internet and all communication networks. Some people believed the rumours
So these people are 11 years late. The world as we know it has already ended.
The clock rollover problem (eg going 98 99 and then back to 00) is a standard issue in operating and other systems. There has to be a clock and it has to have a maximum value. The systems are set up to cope with this and it is not a difficult problem to deal with. All the elite media had to do was to ask somebody and they would have found outbut then why waste a good story. A comparison between the followers of Camp and the followers of the elite media would be an interesting sociological story. Faith in authority is a common human trait
If Orson Welles were still alive, he could do a radio play about this. Sophisticated city dwellers would not believe that the world was ending
Tom Gray, your portrayal of the Y2K issue is misleading. Yes, fears were overblown. No, it wasn’t a minor issue. The only reason there weren’t many problems due to it is how much effort went into fixing the bug before 2000 came around. If not for that, there would have been a lot of problems.
Re 2
And the bug was fixed with straightforward engineering. There was no need to hype a technical issue into a “TEOTWAWKI” or “ The End of the World as We Know It” issue.
Hyping fear by quoting authority figires is not uncommon in the media. The Y2K bug might have been “unprecedented”. It might have been “worse than we thought”.
The moral of this description of Y2K was that a problem with potentially serious consequences but a straightforward engineering solution was blown out of all proportion by the media. Self-interested parties hyped the issue for their own reasons that were not directly connected with the issue.
Now AGW is a far more serious issue than Y2K. Engineering solutions are not clear. Even the nature of the problem has been obscured by years of self-interested hype.
However it is a problem that can be addressed if were to be addressed as an issue unto itself. If it becomes entwined with multitudes of extraneous issues like consumption, free markets, equity, new urbanism, academic status etc then there will be no effective way found to address it.
Did anybody read the comments at Climate Progress.
Some of them seem to reinforce Brendan O’Neill’s point below, without any selfawareness of a parallel with the CAGW version of AGW.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100088694/green-predictions-of-end-times-are-just-as-demented-as-christian-ones-so-why-are-they-treated-more-seriously/
The really weird thing about Camping and his 21 May movement is how outdated it seems. Because in recent years, end-of-the-worldism has been well and truly secularised. Doomsday is no longer the property of the religious ““ it has been stolen and updated and dolled up as “science” by an army of misanthropic greens. Environmentalist writer Mark Lynas says humanity’s “tipping point” is in 2015. “We have 18 months to stop climate change disaster”, said Prince Charles in May 2008. And yet November 2009 came and went without even a murmur of climatic catastrophe, just as surely as this Saturday will pass without Jesus arriving on a stead to blast us with lightning.
Greens are as consistently wrong as hot-headed God-botherers in their predictions of End Times: in 1990, the founder of the doomsday porn mag The Ecologist, Edward Goldsmith, wrote a book titled 5,000 Days to Save the Planet. Does anyone remember the planet dying in 2003? Me neither.
This sort of comment is misleading, but vague enough not to necessarily be untrue.
The moral of this description of Y2K was that a problem with potentially serious consequences but a straightforward engineering solution was blown out of all proportion by the media.
I’d like to know what this “straightforward engineering solution” was. I’m hesitant on the word “engineering,” but I’m really lost on “solution.” It sounds like you are trying to say there was a single solution found for the entire issue, but that is far from true. The problem affected numerous systems, and many different solutions were necessary. Anything from credit card transactions to dialysis machines were known to be at risk. There were dozens of operating systems affected by this problem, much less programs, networks and computer systems. A single solution did not exist.
Had no actions been taken to prevent or fix issues related to Y2K, the long-term effects would have been catastrophic. It is largely thanks to preparation and foresight no serious problems happened (had it not been for Erik Naggum’s efforts a decade prior, a major retooling of mail systems would have been necessary).
So yes, the Y2K problem was overblown. That’s human nature. However, it was a very real problem.
How hard would that be to process- that God is coming- ‘good’ and my daughter doesn’t believe in any of this stuff and will suffer the consequences of her lack of faith ‘bad’. I can only imagine family dinners being somewhat intense in that home.
Today I watched some video of the believers being interviewed around about a month before ‘rapture’. They all gave a sincere impression that they were %100 committed to this idea. Like everything else had been chipped away, leaving only a singular vision, a single thought. It was really interesting to watch just from that angle alone. I wonder how they are feeling now?
In my experience with Y2K, there were several methods used. Firstly older systems were abandoned and replaced with newly designed one that. So for example, older cash registers were simply scrapped. Modifying them for their remaining expected life was not cost efficient.
For systems in which this could not be done, regression testing was used. Features were triggered under the problematic condition and checks were made that the desired outcome was achieved. This is the same sort of testing that is done routinely for purposes of system evolution. New features are added and these are tested for proper operation simply and in combination with others. Y2K compatibility was just anotehr feature added to the release plan.
Maybe I am missing something but the Y2K bug was handled in much the same manner as any upgrade would be. The problem was recognized and dealt with by standard engineering techniques. The result was as expected. Y2K came and went with no significant issues.The media hype was completely unnecessary.
I just wonder how much of the AGW hype is of the same sort. Perhaps if the problem was just addressed as a problem and not as an apocalyptic test of the virtue of humanity and its institutions then it could be addressed rationally. Perhaps that Y2K offered no opportunity for political advantage allowed it to be addressed and solved. AGW is just too conducive to the advancement of differing and incompatible political proposals is what makes it so intractable as a problem.
I disagree again, Keith. It completely escapes me how anyone can think of that mawkish invasion of privacy of an obviously troubled family as good journailsm in any sense. I haven’t read Joe’s piece but I can’t imagine what point you are trying to make by this. It’s exactly what journalism should NOT do.
Look it’s one thing to look at some representative people’s lives when greta events overtake them, to put the great event in context. In this case, the great event was an advertising buy for a fraudulent product, and the story was about some victims. Both sad and inconsequential. I call it voyeurism, not news. We seem to have really differing ideas of what journalism is for. What’s more, I don’t understand yours.
“We seem to have really differing ideas of what journalism is for.”
That has been obvious for some time.
Yes, I can see why an ad buy for an evangelical view of the world going badly wrong might make Mr. Tobis a bit nervous.
A good, funny story.
The best comment at CP was a Leland Palmer:
‘I think that this story is tapping into the anxiety that we all have about global warming, and tipping points. I think we all fear the tipping points- the deniers as much as the rest of us. It’s fear based denial and fearful acceptance of AGW that is driving this, IMO.’
A friend just sent me this. Joke or “entrepreneurial spirit” I wonder?
http://eternal-earthbound-pets.com/Home_Page.html
Keith, yes, of course it’s just another example of our disagreement and my confusion. When I say I really don’t understand what idea of journalism calls this an admirable piece of reporting, though, I’m not just asserting my opinion. I’m inviting you to explain so I and otehrs like me can make a good faith effort at understanding.
What mainstream journalists and especially journalism profs think journalism should be is, I think, a very important question. I intend to keep asking it.
The extent to which journalists dislike questions and duck them is beginning to strike me as ironic.
Michael,
Other than John Fleck, I don’t think anyone else has spent as much time as I have in engaging with you over the norms of journalism. It’s not been a productive use of my time. (Fleck, I believe, has given up, as well.)
Your main problem is that you think you are representative of the average reader. You are not.
Most people (who are still print consumers) like to see a variety of stories (both soft and hard news) in their newspapers and magazines. The proof is there for you to see on any given day.
OK, that actually helps. Your point about print consumers is well taken. If I were still buying my daily reading in bulk I suppose I would still want the funny pages and the crossword in there. I’m not sure this justifies the front page, though.
But another point is that there is a sense in which this story was anything but soft. I think it was childishly cruel, or if you prefer, uncivilized. And I think at least the Times if anyone at all has some obligation to behave like civilized adults.
What MT says…and what most people want..i.e. a ‘variety of stories’ doesn’t really cut it Keith..writing for that ‘market’ is more pandering than journalism..I suppose you would include People magazine and the other ‘journals’ like the goofy ones at the checkout in the supermarkets. I would think that anyone who is genuinely interested in AGW is not your ‘average reader’ either.
Perhaps I’m being a little cranky after seeing part of Oprah’s last show which is representative of the shallow celebrity driven gawking and preening that – along with fear mongering – fills up so much of what constitutes the mass media.
I’ll go to bed now.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/hook-roles-media-climate-change-blame-game.html
Nice post, grypo.
Thanks