A Modest Proposal

The genus Homo appeared on planet Earth about 2.5 million years ago, the species Homo Sapiens appeared roughly 800,000 years ago, and the subspecies Homo Sapiens Sapiens (double-wise?  Hah!) (that’s US, modern humans) about 200,000 years ago (as I am no paleoanthropologist, I can be excused for mis-stating the dates, but that does not affect my argument).  We modern humans traded hunting and gathering for the domestication of animals and agriculture a mere 12,000 years ago.  The Industrial Revolution (beginning with steam power) began less than 300 years ago, and the wide-spread use of electricity took place over decades from the late 1880’s through the Great Depression (still on-going in many places in the world).  Before that transformative transition, all of your ancestors knew what the Milky Way* was (they could see it, even if they didn't know what it was!) and they could see it every night.  And the stars that they could see with the naked eye!  Not hundreds, not thousands, more like 100,000 - uncountable.  The advent of Cell Phone technology in the 1990’s and of “Smart Phones” (Blackberry, iPhone and Android) in the last fifteen years signified the last nail in the coffin of our being able to differentiate work from play and rest, and our entire dependency on Industry, Electricity and Technology.  When you go on vacation today, even if you spend it on Tahiti; do you really go on vacation, are you really isolated in any real sense from your workaday world?  Even there, a real night sky overhead, do you ever look UP?  What is the difference between you and a robot that mimics you?  Today, we "know" the difference, but the tomorrow when we won't see the difference is not that far in the future.

I have a modest proposal that will strike most folks as just plain crazy.  But I mean it in all seriousness.  I propose that all regional electric utilities schedule one or two electrical black-outs of 12, 24 or 36 hours duration per year, randomly assigned so that no one will be able to prepare for them.  There is no need for a regional electric company to collude with another to go black at the same time as a region’s worth of black-out is wide enough.  But, you may say, “The wheels of industry will stop rolling for that whole time.”  OK, so they will take a vacation, is that so bad?  “Well, what about life-support systems, people will die.”  Not true, no life-support system without a generator backup is a real life-support system.  “OK, fine but what is your point?  Why do you want us to go black every year?”  I am glad you asked.  It is a common-place that there is a spike in babies born nine months after a blackout.  It is as though folks would rather watch TV than make love, rather work than make love, rather surf the Web than make love.  Until all the lights go out and they can't work, watch TV, or surf.  Sad.  It is also the case that ten thousand generations of humans got by without electricity or smart phones.  They had their challenges, to be sure.  Might you be able to survive these challenges?  Are you quite sure?  We have got so dependent on our modern miracles that it is altogether likely that a huge majority of us would not be able to survive, not in the WILD but in a world without electricity.  That too is sad.  A change in our environment surprises us.  But most of us have fond memories of those blackouts that WE experienced, even those of us who did not have a loving partner.  And especially if we looked UP, and saw a real night sky!

More than anything, I want all of you to see real night skies.  Most of you have never seen "a real night sky."  Never!  And that is a bloody shame.  There is nothing that connects us with the entire universe better than a "real night sky."  Learn to love a blackout, and don't forget to look UP!

The Milky Way as seen by our ancestors, which we could see every night if the lights were out!

Don’t “vote” on this idea now as no one will be proposing it as a campaign promise any time soon.  Let it go, no need to think about it.  It may or it may not grow on you unconsciously until one day you may wonder “where is everyone who thinks this crazy idea may be worth a try?”  Before you can’t tell the difference between a human being and a robot designed to mimic a human being.

*  The Milky Way, you do know what the Milky Way is, don't you?  It's our home galaxy!  Some 100 to 400 billion stars and even more planets held together by gravity, a likely black hole at its core.  We live in the Orion suburbs.  And my title was borrowed, with permission, from Jonathan Swift.  Haven't read it?  For shame.  Do so!

Addendum: Friday, 02/10/2023

Upon sober reflection, as the reason for my modest proposal was for folks to experience a night sky or two, there is no reason for any regional blackout to begin before astronomical sunset (that is when the sky goes completely dark) or to end after astronomical sunrise (first moments of light).  So, no need for a 24 or 36 hour blackout.  And no need for a blackout to last even twelve hours.  I feel so much better!

Addendum: Friday, 02/24/2023

A word from Neil deGrasse Tyson