Tag: the illusion of control

‘Damned If They Do, damned If They Don’t’ (2017)

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Some years ago, a bunch of Italian scientists got sent to prison for failing to predict an earthquake.

Damned if They Do, Damned if They Don’t

I’m sure they would’ve gotten in just as much trouble if they had predicted an earthquake and it never happened–town evacuated, looters have a field day. etc.

This is what happens when your country, like Italy, sets up a National Commission for the Forecast and Prevention of Major Risks. Once you’ve got the plebs paying you to play God, you find out it’s not such an easy gig!

But you’re stuck with it, sunshine–because that’s humanist ideology: with The Smartest People In The World in charge of everything, nothing can ever go wrong! Unless, of course, some bad egg doesn’t do his job, or actively subverts Incredibly Smart Policies.

Can you blame Him for being mad at us?

‘We Are Not in Control’ (2015)

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Michael Crichton spent his whole career  writing books that warned of succumbing to the delusion that “we are in control.” Many of them were best-sellers; but there’s no evidence that anyone ever believed him.

We Are Not in Control

In Prey, the scientific golden calf is nanotechnology; but really it could be anything. And we have the usual Crichton scenario of cocksure scientists totally losing control and being devoured by their own creation. Shades of Frankenstein. He gives the reader a few memorably creepy scenes, while he’s at it.

Crichton ultimately lost faith in these idols–if he ever had any faith in them in the first place: The Andromeda Strain, his first best-seller, suggests he was always skeptical of that “Ye shall be as gods” sales pitch.

And how the Loving Left reviled him when he died! All because he had too much integrity to hop aboard their Global Warming bandwagon. But that’s the Diversity crowd for you: death to everyone who isn’t them.

The Illusion of Control

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I’ve been thinking about this for days. Maybe it’ll grow into a Newswithviews column. Maybe your comments will inspire me. Pitch in, everybody.

When Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park says “Boy, do I hate being right all the time,” he’s talking about his repeated warnings that the dinosaur park is going to fail spectacularly–and of course he’s right. Everything goes wrong.

And of course the park’s creators are totally flabbergasted because they were 100% sure they had everything, and I do mean everything, totally under control. In fact they had nothing under control.

As Christians we’re expected to know that God is in control of His creation. We’re lucky if we can control ourselves for five minutes, never mind managing the world.

But the delusion of this age is the illusion of control, the old con game Satan ran on Eve, “Ye shall be as gods.” In fact, think the fat-heads who believe this, they’d better be as gods because the real God does not exist, it’s all up to them to keep the planet spinning, etc. All up to them! And these are people who’d be hard-put to organize a game of hopscotch.

Rather than suffer the shock of coming to grips with their limitations, control freaks just think bigger and bigger. A lousy dinosaur park? Peanuts! They’re after global government. They aspire to micro-manage the climate. They’ll do all those things God should’ve done, but couldn’t–end war, end poverty, no more disease, everybody equal, free college education, blah-blah.

If that doesn’t scare you, what will?