Disaster Hot Takes

Please, for the love of all that you hold holy, stop spewing your spicy opinions on the latest tragedy porn taking center stage in Twitter’s panopticon cesspool.

When you’re tempted to offer your two bits on the horror of the day, instead tweet: “Oh god, those poor people. My heart goes out to them!”

That’s all.

Whether it’s the Los Angeles wildfire inferno or an ugly mass shooting in Texas, send your thoughts and prayers, and keep your uninformed “here’s what it all means” rancorous garbage to yourself.

“I’m not uninformed!”

Of course you are, you cocksure nitwit. The event you’re drooling over for clicks just happened a few hours ago. I guarantee 80% of the info you’re hearing is incomplete or outright wrong. The “fog of war” is a cliché for a reason. In any chaotic event, the people who know what’s going on (if there are any) are busy dealing with the thing and, in any case, probably only see a small piece of the puzzle. The people telling us about the thing—from stunned government spokespeople to decent reporters to grifting Twitter turds—are necessarily going to garble some of the facts because they’re human (or assholes).

And unless you’re an actual wildfire fire prevention expert (or ballistics expert, or hurricane relief expert, etc.), the “facts” you think you know are probably wrong. Too many people file something their cousin Joey’s wife’s hairdresser told them as “rock solid evidence” in their memory banks.

Early disaster news gathering is like playing a game of “telephone” in the dark while air-raid sirens are drilling holes in your eardrums.¹ Whatever you’ve heard—whether from mainstream or social media—it’s distorted.²

And it’s ten times worse if any political angle can be squeezed into the event.

Mass shootings are easy. “It’s gun control, stupid!” “No, it’s liberal schools that radicalize kids!” “It’s Christian nationalism!” “It’s trans groomers!” “It’s racism!”³

The Los Angeles wildfires? “It’s incompetent leftist governments that have DEI-staffed fire departments and spend more on the homeless than fire prevention!” “Are you insane? Climate change has led to hotter, drier weather, making wildfires bigger and harder to stop!”

And those initial takes might not be all wrong. I can imagine incompetent government officials not doing enough to prevent the fires. I can imagine long-term weather patterns making events like this worse. But at this early stage, we’re guessing. Some of those factors certainly matter somewhat, but I suspect the biggest cause of the out-of-control wildfires is building dense residential neighborhoods nestled in beautiful, easily crisped foliage in the heart of a dry country prone to high winds that has the potential to turn any spark⁴ into ground zero in hell.

“Pandemonium,” by John Martin (1841). In the Louvre.

But I don’t know; nobody knows. This is why I’m fine waiting a few days for smarter, better-informed people to weigh in with carefully considered evidence. They’ll face criticism—it’s not THAT, it’s THIS!—and we’ll eliminate some of the stupider ideas and maybe reach a consensus explanation.

Because there’s no rush! There’s no need for an answer today. Gun control will not get passed today. Liberal governors will not be kicked out of office today. Take a breath, and wait.

This doesn’t mean doing nothing at all. If it’s a big disaster like a hurricane, reach out to charities that do good work in the hard-hit region.⁵ Send some money, send some positive vibes, and then go hug someone you love. When lives are tragically cut short, it’s a note from fate reminding us we must always treasure our family and friends.

EDIT
P.S. I just listened to a (short) personal account from writer Meghan Daum that I highly recommend to you. It IS an expert account because she’s an expert in what happened to her. Special Episode: Letter From the Los Angeles Fires. She has some general smart thoughts (“If the fires are at zero percent containment, so is anyone’s idea of what really happened”), but mostly, she just tells her own story. She’s a good egg. I’m a long-time subscriber to her podcast. I like her for many reasons, but starting because her book “The Problem with Everything” was an important early step in my road to becoming more critical of lefty madness. Maybe you could subscribe to her as well.

1. And everyone playing is either named “Dunning” or “Kruger.”

2. I trust the New York Times or The Economist more than BigBoob420 on a topic like this.

3. It’s always racism.

4. And with millions of humans, there are millions of potential sparks.

5. The American Red Cross is well-rated by Charity Navigator: https://www.redcross.org/about-us/our-work/disaster-relief/wildfire-relief.html