This commentary is by Walt Amses of North Calais.
Although I’m pretty sure we’ve reached the point where a lot that happens doesn’t raise an eyebrow, never mind receive serious attention, I’m still trying not to write it all off as a total loss. I keep thinking it’ll be OK, if only …
But we’ve become so used to ongoing catastrophe, carefully orchestrated confusion and the transformation of formerly vital issues to trivial senselessness that the evening news, congressional shenanigans and weather forecasts from hell all mesh seamlessly into just another episode of reality TV.
Ravaged by websites like Instagram, concentrating for any length of time is near impossible with the lifespan of a thought similar to that of a mayfly, here so briefly they’re born without a mouth or stomach. Their job is not to eat as ours is fast becoming not to think — at least not too much.
While some estimates claim the average human may generate approximately 45 thoughts a minute or between 50,000 and 70,000 in a normal day, researchers at the University of Oregon have concluded that our brains have built-in limitations on the number we can entertain at one time.
While it does depend on the complexity of a given idea, we generally can only handle four discrete thoughts simultaneously, which — considering the thousands we come up with on our own, coupled with however many we encounter from incalculable news feeds, assorted platforms, television, radio, podcasts, newspapers and whichever user-friendly propaganda we seek out — means we’re all in way over our heads. A massive volume of information traveling at warp speed is essentially useless, like a deck of cards manipulated by a sleight-of-hand artist like Ricky Jay. Now you see it. Now you don’t.
Which aptly describes a news story that came and went last week without much fanfare as the world quickly moved on to other, more important things like Taylor Swift’s new NFL boyfriend; where to watch “Leave it to Beaver” reruns; the latest shark, alligator or grizzly bear attack; and how “The Bachelor” franchise will be resuscitated by elders seeking love. I can’t wait.
An emergency on a military jet may not necessarily be important on its face, but I have to admit I worked myself into a minor tizzy over not only the way it went down, so to speak, but the subsequent responses from those involved, including the pilot and the Marine Corps, which managed to balance entertainment and terror in equal measures.
Initially a story for “The Onion”, the situation quickly morphed into a series of WTF questions regarding the incident’s implications for national security.
Things began unraveling when a Marine fighter pilot in an F-35 out of Joint Base Charleston began experiencing a malfunction of some sort and safely ejected, parachuting into a suburban backyard not far from the airfield. Routine so far, but things got pretty weird pretty quickly.
A military veteran myself, I always assumed they had a protocol for everything, especially emergencies, and if a sophisticated, $100 million aircraft off in the wild blue yonder without a pilot isn’t an emergency, I don’t know what is. So I was mystified when the pilot — instead of hitting up the chain of command — called 911 instead.
The ensuing conversation where the homeowner tried to explain what had happened left the operator dazed and confused: “I’m sorry — what happened?”
The unidentified aviator tried to clarify: “Ma’am, a military jet crashed. I’m the pilot. … I’m not sure where the airplane is. … I ejected.” As if that weren’t curious enough, the military’s next move — seeking the public’s help in locating the aircraft as though it were a wayward house cat — begged more than a few questions. Like, how stealthy is a stealth fighter? Or how do you lose a whole plane; did your radar get repossessed? That they didn’t find it until the next afternoon prompted me to wonder about our national security but it turns out this plane is nowhere near the worst thing the military has misplaced.
Imagine the 911 call if your problem was losing a nuclear weapon, which the military has done at least six times since 1950 without ever having recovered a single one. They’re still scattered about, including one dropped into the Pacific off Alaska in 1956 as a precaution when a B-36 bomber developed engine trouble.
Six years later, a B-47 with two nuclear cores en route to Morocco was reported missing over the Mediterranean (and still is). In 1958, another bomb was dropped over Wassaw Sound near the mouth of the Savannah River and remains buried in the mud. There are others, but you get the picture.
Although we must take an organization started by Irving Kristol and Henry Kissinger serving as honorary chairman with a large grain of salt, The National Interest, a foreign-policy and world-affairs website regarding the military’s penchant for misplacing things, highlights a memorable line from a 1996 John Woo movie: “I don’t know what’s scarier, losing nuclear weapons or that it happens so often there’s actually a name for it.” I don’t remember how “Broken Arrow” ended but I’m pretty certain no one suggested calling 911.
The Marine Corps continues investigating what happened to the F-35 over South Carolina, offering some details on how the plane kept flying after the pilot’s abrupt departure, citing its flight control software that keeps an aircraft level if a pilot becomes incapacitated or loses “situational awareness.” The search was also hampered, according to the U.S. Marine Corps, by its ability to evade radar and technology that wipes out communication systems if a pilot ejects. In other words, doing exactly what it was designed to do.
Ironic, right? We build a fighter with numerous bells and whistles and flip out when it begins sounding like a boardwalk carousel on Coney Island. We design an aircraft so stealthy that we eventually can’t even find it ourselves. We should probably take some serious heed when our technology begins biting us in the butt.
I shudder to think what might happen with AI waiting in the wings. Calling 911 might not be a viable option.
