The Flaming Lips

by Pseud O'Nym

Last night during dinner, LMS asked something that only a child can, in that innocently curious yet direct way that children have, one that demanded a simple but unambiguous answer.

“Is Boris Johnson going to die?”

I must confess to being stunned for a second, not because I knew what my answer was going to be and whether or not to sugar coat it, but because parents have consistently spoken of him in the most unflattering terms regarding his handling of Brexit that I was amazed she would care.

“Everyone’s going to die eventually.” I said.

Alright, alright, I know she meant in terms of his being in intensive care because of the virus, but what other possible answer could I give? Her father, not being as blunt as me, or possibly wishing to ameliorate matters or simply not wanting his daughter to have nightmares, quickly added, “We don’t know if he’ll die from this.” which thinking about it is saying the same thing in possibly a more child friendly way.

I mean he will die. You will. I will, a fact that I’m more than a trifle irked by, but as I’ve repeatedly written in my posts, the extinction of the human race is by far the best thing for the planet. In the short time mankind has been about – roughly 3 seconds if the life of the planet is measured as a 24hr clock – we’ve managed to plunder and pollute it, the overwhelming majority of this done in the last roughly 200 years or since The Industrial Reveloution. Since then our destruction has been conducted at a breathtakingly impressive way – impressive in a ironical and  cynical way.

That we realise this but seem incapable of undertaking a global effort of collective, urgent and immediate action to remedy this only proves how desirable our extinction is. We’ve been told consistently that a reduction of CO2 levels by 1.5 degrees was possible perhaps, by 2050, but 2030? Well that was just nonsense! Remember how the Green Party was derided for advocating that at the last election? Of course you do! Where all the same bullshit was shit out of the mouths of a more diverse group of bullshitters. ‘We can cut taxes and increase spending on public services. We can create more jobs, create a strong economy because there is such a thing as sustainable development’.  But it was still bullshit, causing me to wonder ‘Who’s worse, the bullshitter or the person who believes their bullshit?’

The point is that in the space of a month there’s been more done– drastic certainly – to prove that concerted global action can be undertaken if the will is there. It seems to me then that people don’t care about future generations, they don’t think in those terms. It’s too nebulous, too abstract, too complicated. Instead they worry about themselves. They don’t want to die.

But just like Boris Johnson, eventually, they will.