I hate to be a jerk, but I don’t care about the Government. I don’t care if it gets its feelings hurt or doesn’t get what it wants for its birthday. And I have a good reason for this:
The Government Is Not A Person.
This is a verifiable fact. But wait: there’s more. There are actually MANY governments. There isn’t even just one. True story.
As an individual who is grimly awaiting the end of society as we know it, I do not have much faith in any government except to provide me with useful grant money for being generally awesome (until society collapses). It should be noted, however, that many people believe Various Governments to be actually responsible for the smooth functioning of human society and therefore of significant concern.
Now, let’s say that we were writers / editors at Vanity Fair and our job was on the line and all we had to turn in was a REALLY LONG story about cyber-warfare and it is the day before our deadline and WE ARE GOING TO GET FIRED IF WE DON’T PULL SOMETHING VERY EXCITING OUT OF OUR METAPHORICAL BUTT.
That is the only possible explanation I can see for this article, which actually has the audacity and butt-headedness to say that cyber warfare is scarier than nuclear warfare.
Yes. Let me restate that for the readers in the back:
Vanity Fair actually comes out and says that having a few banks hacked and having governments send each other viruses IS SCARIER THAN HAVING YOUR ENTIRE PLANET BLOWN UP, resulting in LITERALLY COUNTLESS human deaths, animal deaths, plant deaths, eco-system collapses, and possibly, the end of life on Earth.
Of course, any kind of warfare is bad news. And, as mentioned, some people are Seriously Concerned about The Government. But the kind of war that deletes files from computers (aka: invisible things that exist only in the ether) or monitor information (they don’t need cyber warfare for that! The government is watching everything you do online already!) or cause a few banking websites to crash (oh no! they will have to buy more bandwidth! That is clearly worse than dying a slow and terrible death and knowing that all of life dies with you in a barren post-nuclear wasteland in which the very rain burns your skin!) IS BETTER THAN ANY OTHER KIND OF WARFARE.
It truly must be a slow day in journalism.
so true, Kathryn. I wish more people listened to you – the world would be a better place. It is pretty silly how people treat the government as a person – I mean, a “government” doesn’t even have one of the five senses – doesn’t sound like a person to me!
You are awesome, Kathryn, and I think the world is a better place because you are in it!