Would you want to know if the world was about to end?

[MrVisible]

I was appalled to read this story this morning: Armageddon Asteroids Best Kept Secret.

A scientific adviser to the United States government has suggested that secrecy might be the best option if scientists were ever to discover that a giant asteroid was on course to collide with Earth.

In certain circumstances, nothing could be done to avoid such a collision and ensuing destruction, and it would be best not to tell the public anything, said Geoffrey Sommer, of the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California.
…
“Overreaction not just by the public but by policy-makers scurrying around before the thing actually hits because we can’t do anything about it anyway … to a large extent you are better off not adding to your social costs,” said Dr Sommer, who is also an adviser on terrorism.

Better off? Social costs? What in the name of hell is this man on? If we’re all going to die in a fiery armageddon, we deserve the right to make our peace however we see fit. What do the social costs matter, if the planet’s depopulated?

Does he think we should look neat and orderly in the moment of our death so that alien anthropologists centuries hence will think we were well-mannered? Does he imagine that somewhere up there, a British nanny will cluck approvingly at the orderly fashion in which we accepted extinction?

If we’re gonna collectively buy the farm, I want it to be in the most human way possible. Laughing, weeping, raging, loving. I want drama, I want resolution, I want the fire from the sky to find us all deeply, completely engaged, aware. If the end of the whole human race isn’t poetry, then it’s all been worthless.

Whatever horrors might occur in the last hours, whatever dramas might play out in the knowledge of certain death, I much prefer dying in the knowledge of what’s coming. To perish, like the dinosaurs, with nothing but “Hey, look, bright light…” in my mind is abhorrent to me.

Wouldn’t you rather know?

[Brynda]

Yes, absolutely. Everything you said. I would want to know and to have a chance to say goodbye. It would be painful as hell, but I would still want to know.

I suspect that the people who don’t want to know are the same ones who want to die in their sleep. Not a bad option for some, and I can see why some people would choose it, but not me. Given my choice (and I know I won’t be) I want some time to say goodbye and thank you to the people I loved.

[Parallax]

Does he think we should look neat and orderly in the moment of our death so that alien anthropologists centuries hence will think we were well-mannered?

That makes me think about one of my favorite Roger Waters songs.

[Fretful_Porpentine]

I’d rather not know. What good would it do? If I’m only going to have a few hours to live, I sure as hell don’t want to spend them in abject misery and terror.

And yes, I do want to die in my sleep.

[Tusculan]

This reminds me of an Asimov story in which a guy finds out that the sun is going be triggered into a supernova by some indestructible ‘proton’-like object and decides to keep silent about it, since nothing can stop it and telling the world will only create havoc and misery all around. Made a lot of sense to me.
Those who’ve seen another reply by me on another tread must think I’m an Asimov nut. Really, I’m not (not to imply there is anything wrong with that). I just happenned to read a lot of his stories at a young and impressionable age.

[Will_Repair]

Saw that and was thinking of starting this, er my own, thread.
My comments would of been I’d like to know so I would have time to do unspeakable things to him.

Really, I think we should know. Perhaps he just wants the information kept secrect to avoid a rush for the mine shaft he had his eye on.