Reckoning with Reality

Luck is random. Preparation is not

The ground shakes.
A massive, deadly earthquake in Taiwan. 
A smaller tremor rattles the Northeast, felt from Boston to Philadelphia. 

For those of us on the west coast of North America, we are well aware the Earth has its faults. Solid ground is a misnomer. We are all living on shifting tectonic plates. 

There is an old saying that earthquakes don’t kill people, buildings do. Which is largely true and an instructive way for us to consider our place in the world more generally. 

If you experience an earthquake in the middle of an open field, you might get tossed around a bit, but you should be ok. In the middle of a dense and poorly constructed urban center, however? It is likely a far more tragic story. 

Taiwan is used to quakes, and plans accordingly. Strict building codes and innovative construction technologies drastically minimized the damage from the shaking ground and consequently the loss of life. 

They were also fortunate that the epicenter for this latest earthquake was not Taipei. 

A mixture of luck and preparedness will always be the factor that determines the scale of a natural disaster’s impact on human life and material damages. We can’t control the luck part of the equation — when, where, and with what ferocity a disaster will strike. But we can choose to be prepared. Or not.

Every time there is a big earthquake somewhere in the world, California newspapers invariably run a version of the same story — what would the impact be if a tremor of that magnitude struck one of our population centers? We can’t know for sure, but we do know that far too few buildings have been retrofitted for stability. In places like the East Coast, where earthquakes are much rarer, preparation is even less robust. If a big one happens to hit, the effects could be catastrophic. 

So much of life is about playing the odds. That’s the entire idea behind insurance. But I worry that this country is too prone to wishful thinking and shortsightedness, eager to embrace wilful ignorance and the quick fix. 

Our political dysfunction — the grandstanding, gaslighting, and grievance peddling — exacerbates a dangerous inability to confront reality. Nobody likes spending time and money preparing for something that only might happen. It’s easy to scapegoat people saying, “But folks, we really should worry about...” (fill in the blank). 

Denigrating science, ignoring facts, and refusing to reckon with reality have become trademarks of the modern Republican Party. It is being led by a serial con man whose entire brand is acting recklessly and avoiding consequences. 

We saw how well that worked during a global pandemic.

And then there’s the matter of our climate crisis, which will almost certainly makes natural disasters more severe and unpredictable. There is plenty of blame to go around for human inaction. But here again, Republicans have played an outsized role. For decades, they attacked science and anyone who said we needed to prepare for a new reality. So much time has been lost. One wonders what the tally would be if we could measure the full cost to the future of the planet due to their self-centered intransigence. 

But it would be wrong to paint an entirely bleak picture. Not all humans are shortsighted. There are many who care about preparing for the future and investing in making things safer. It requires both innovation and regulation. It’s necessary to have science, industry, and government working together. 

We also need to have the right people with the right mindset. In short, it requires real leadership and not chest-pounding approximations. 

I have a favorite quote from the French scientist Louis Pasteur, "Chance favors the prepared mind.” Luck is random. Preparation is not. Be prepared and you’re more likely to be lucky.