MAD

Here's the next page from my book of 304 Drawing Prompts (the previous page appeared with my earlier entry); the prompt for this current work was "Castle".

The blue script is hard to read; it is supposed to say "many people". So, if every picture is worth 1,000 words, this picture's thousand-word message could be interpreted as follows: "Many people enter the castle (it is lasagna)."

Dear diary,

Which do you prefer: “Doomsday Machine” or “Doomsday Device”? I like the alliteration of “device”, but I think I favor “machine” — it sounds more dangerous. Here’s the proof: If a representative from an espionage agency were to appear at your residence and say, “We regret to inform you that, unwittingly, you have married one of our devices.” You would exclaim, “Ah, tough break but, que será, at least the thing works.” Whereas, if the news were “Your spouse is a machine,” you’d say: “Well that explains why it’s always skulking in the shadows and trying to knife me.”

Last night I listened to a speech from Daniel Ellsberg, the former U.S. military analyst and whistleblower who released the Pentagon Papers. He talked about worldwide nuclear annihilation and the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction: “MAD”. (Apparently there’s a high probability of these things occurring; therefore be scared.) Then I watched a film from the 1940s about a guy who unknowingly marries a Nazi-in-hiding. That’s why these things were on my mind.

At the moment, Wikipedia begins its entry for “Doomsday device” (not “machine”, mind ye) with this definition:

a hypothetical construction that could destroy all life on Earth, instigating “doomsday” – a term used for the end of the planet.

Mr. Ellsberg, being in a position to know, says that we could remove the word “hypothetical” from the above definition, as not only the U.S. but other nations already possess such devices.

I don’t have anything important to say about this subject; I just wanted to define the term clearly, at the outset, so that we could be on the same page while I daydream a little.

When a fellow country tries to harm your country, you are inclined to retaliate in a fashion so severe that not only your opponent’s country would be annihilated, but your own land & populace as well would expire in the aftermath. Say your friend bombs your favorite cities; OK, now your bright idea is to drop so many counter-bombs on your friend that the ash and smoke from the devastation will rise up and poison the entire global atmosphere, leaving nothing alive in its wake except two trees. (The tree of life, and the tree of knowledge — the latter just in case we wanna go thru all this again.) And you are so in love with this idea of yours that you are willing to pay as much as ten thousand dollars to have a mechanism built which guarantees this death-for-all scenario shall transpire automatically.

Moreover, when you show up at the showroom with your money to finalize the transaction, you look behind the display counter and notice that there are a number of duplicate machines in matching boxes stacked and waiting to be sold, and that there are six or seven other customers in line behind you, waiting to purchase their own Doomsday Device for their own peace-of-mind. You ask the clerk, “What’s all this?” gesturing toward the inventory. The clerk says, “Yes, we’re having our Christmas sale right now; $10,000 dollars apiece.” So you buy a couple more, to give as gifts to diplomats from allied nations.

Now here’s what I wonder. This contractor that you hired to custom-build your machine is now making ten grand per sale. Or, rather, ten grand is the retail price, so the amount that they take home as profit is probably a fraction of that. It takes, say, nine thousand dollars to construct a functioning omnicide inducer; that’s the cost of the raw materials; and then you have to pay your employees who work in the shop — that’s one arc-welder, a handful of scientists, and a clerk to stand at the cash register and deal with patrons — so, in the end, you pocket a crisp $33-dollar bill for every machine that leaves the showroom. Alright, now here’s what I wonder:

If you are the corporate person who’s selling Doomsday Devices to all the free world’s leaders, what’s your incentive to make sure these engines of ultra-catastrophe actually work? (Recall above, when you realized that your spouse is not a real human being but just a device, you sighed “Oh well, at least the thing is operative and reliable.”) For it’s crucial for products to be able to perform as advertised. If I buy an automatic firearm, I don’t want its bullets jamming up when I’m at the North Pole trying to slay reindeer. Likewise, if I decide to fork over ten thousand U.S. taxpayer dollars to purchase a Global Death Machine, the damn thing better not conk out when the going gets tough.

If you, the prime minister of this great nation, were to be confronted with the possibility of an orphan from some less sophisticated country tossing a makeshift firecracker at the wall of one of your military bases that you’ve established within her home town, how embarrassing it would be, with the whole world watching, if the universe DID NOT explode as a consequence of this insult.

My point is that it’s in the interest of whoever manufactures these Doomsday Devices to make them mal-functional. That’s where the real incentive lies. For, if you offer a quality product, in this case, you ensure that your profits go up in smoke. Whereas, if you sell shoddy merchandise that can’t perform the claim stamped on its packaging — “Obliterates all existence, or your money back!” — then you pocket the proceeds from every new sale and actually get to SPEND those fresh returns, cuz there’s still a planet with a living population offering its goods and services at a markup.

Even if one or two countries get wise your scam, because they try to employ their devices but no world ends up dying (it doesn’t even graze the kids on the playground across the street from where the device is installed) — no problem: you just give these particular customers their money back, like it says in the commercial. It’s no skin off your back; for every refund that you grant to be subtracted from your ever-growing fortune is more than offset by the gains from the remaining countries whose reps still believe their machines are legit. (“This contraption is ready to bring the whole show down, I trust it sincerely — we just haven’t been attacked yet,” — that’s what they tell themselves, so that they can sleep at night.) Since the odds are that the vast majority of countries will not need to use their Doomsday Device, your corporation will always remain in the black. (“When a business is in the black, it means that it does not owe any money and is solvent.”)

Yet even if the dissatisfied customers choose to make a stink about your products being intentionally defective, and they report you to their consumer-watchdog of choice, you’re still not going to be seen as a villain, in the court of public opinion; because, rather than causing harm, the specious way that you engaged in commerce had the effect of preserving lives. In fact, you literally saved the world. That’s how I’d argue, if I were your lawyer:

“My client’s actions resulted in Earth NOT becoming uninhabitable. Because of his recklessness, all planetary life is NOT presently dying in agony. And yet, for this, you want to fine my client seven hundred dollars (which is almost the entire balance he has in his on-shore bank account, I happen to know); by virtue of so-called ‘dishonest business dealings’? Can you even do that? I mean, is ‘dishonesty’ actually considered a punishable offence, in the realm of business? I’m asking sincerely — I moved here only recently, and you, the people of this great nation, all instantly elected me to serve as prime minister, because the previous officeholder left in disgrace, and no one else wanted the position; so now I’m moonlighting as the legal representative for the Doomsday Corporation, just to make some extra cash. I never finished law school. I never actually even attended law school. I just filled out the forms and turned in all the paperwork for enrollment, so that the school would have my name on record, in case future employers might attempt to check my background; but I never went to any of the classes. I’m really a blogger, which is just a more glamorous term for evil scribe. So I’m sort of winging it, here, as a defense attorney — I probably would’ve made a better prosecutor, cuz I like to gesture forcefully with my arms, and point and yell at people (I have a knack for faultfinding). Therefore any charity that you can extend me, by way of a favorable verdict, or even a simple round of applause, would be greatly appreciated. I’ll now take a seat and await your good judgment.”