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US policy is fueling Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis

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More than five months after the fall of Kabul, the Afghan economy is on the brink of collapse, leaving millions of people at risk of extreme poverty or starvation. One major culprit: the US decision to halt aid to the country and freeze billions in Afghan government funds.
The scope of the humanitarian crisis facing Afghanistan is massive: According to <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1109712">UN Secretary-General António Guterres</a>, “virtually every man, woman and child in Afghanistan could face acute poverty” without massive investment from the international community and a concerted effort to rebuild the nation’s economy.
Guterres spoke to reporters regarding the scale of the crisis during last week’s launch of the UN’s funding drive for Afghanistan — the largest-ever fundraising appeal for a single country. The organization is requesting <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1109492">more than $5 billion in aid</a> to help the Afghan people, both inside the country and in refugee camps in bordering nations like Uzbekistan and Pakistan.
Prior to the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/8/15/22626082/kabul-capital-fall-afghanistan-government-taliban-forces-explained">fall of Kabul in August 2021</a>, the Afghan economy relied heavily on foreign aid; after the Taliban takeover, that influx of cash <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/20/opinions/afghan-economy-falling-house-cards-miliband/index.html">ceased</a>. Under Taliban rule, unemployment is rampant and banks operate intermittently, with people able to withdraw no more than $100 in a month. On top of that, the US froze much of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/08/17/treasury-taliban-money-afghanistan/">$9.4 billion in Afghan currency reserves</a> in Afghanistan’s central bank in August — a move which has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/14/opinion/afghanistan-bank-money.html">functionally cut the country off</a> from many foreign banks and left the Central Bank of Afghanistan unable to access its reserves and shore up the country’s cash flow.
Now, much of the country is facing poverty and starvation: In December, <a href="https://www.wfp.org/news/15-millions-afghans-receive-wfp-food-assistance-so-far-2021-massive-uplift-needed-economy">the World Food Program (WFP) found that 98 percent of Afghans aren’t getting enough to eat</a>, and <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1109712">Guterres warned this month</a> that “we are in a race against time to help the Afghan people.”
Specifically, Afghanistan’s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/20/opinions/afghan-economy-falling-house-cards-miliband/index.html">economic collapse</a> means many people, including some members of the Taliban, can’t afford to buy food. In the aftermath of the US withdrawal, many Afghans working as interpreters, aid workers, prosecutors, professors, and journalists suddenly lost their positions and their incomes, and many have been forced into hiding, further hampering their ability to provide even the most basic necessities — blankets, food, fuel, and medicine — for their families.
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/08/afghanistan-winter-crisis/">Freezing temperatures</a> are also forcing families to make the critical choice between food to sustain their families and fuel to keep them warm in the bitter winter months.
“Everywhere we go, we find thousands more people who need help,” said Babar Baloch, a spokesman for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, told the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/08/afghanistan-winter-crisis/">Washington Post</a> earlier this month. “They haven’t been driven from their homes, but they have lost their jobs, they have no savings, and their life systems are in collapse. They are not on our lists, but they come and wait outside the distribution sites, saying, ‘What about us?’”
“Everything is connected. The government has collapsed, people have no salaries, and the economy has gone to zero,” Shahwali Khan, a vendor in Kabul, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/08/afghanistan-winter-crisis/">told the Post</a>. “People can’t afford to buy now, and we can’t afford to sell.”
Many of Afghanistan’s current problems are intimately connected to the US withdrawal from the country last year, and the Taliban’s ensuing takeover of the central government. Since then, US sanctions and an abrupt end to international aid have wrecked Afghanistan’s economy and sent it spiraling into crisis.
The US and <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/12/1108642">the UN</a> have made some concessions to allow humanitarian aid to operate outside the auspices of the Taliban; the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0545#:~:text=There%20are%20no%20OFAC-administered,individuals%2C%20entities%2C%20or%20property%20in">granted some licenses</a> to aid groups to operate in Afghanistan without running afoul of of financial restrictions on certain individuals and institutions in the country.
But, as experts have said, it’s not nearly enough to bring the Afghan people anywhere close to the needed aid, and regardless of the OFAC licenses, the Afghan banking system is still essentially <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/14/opinion/afghanistan-bank-money.html">held hostage by US sanctions against the Taliban</a>.
“Sanctions are intended to have a chilling effect, in that sanctions will always go beyond the face of the text,” Adam Weinstein, a research fellow with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/12/28/afghanistan-economy-collapse-us-sanctions/">the Intercept</a> in December. Banks and businesses don’t want to risk dealing in places or sectors with economic restrictions from the US, for fear that they’ll violate a prohibition and be subject to sanctions themselves, Weinstein explained.
To that end, more than 40 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus <a href="https://progressives.house.gov/_cache/files/7/9/79c380ca-661d-4158-9a88-f3a67ca24cdd/0C4CB37A3A6799AA59E3FCF4E01FCF3F.12-20-21-afghanistan-humanitarian-crisis-letter-1-.pdf">sent a letter</a> to President Joe Biden last month, urging him to release the frozen currency reserves, which belong to the Central Bank of Afghanistan and the Afghan people.
“No increase in food and medical aid can compensate for the macroeconomic harm of soaring prices of basic commodities, a banking collapse, a balance-of-payments crisis, a freeze on civil servants’ salaries, and other severe consequences that are rippling throughout Afghan society, harming the most vulnerable,” the letter warns.
So far, however, no policy shift has been forthcoming. As of earlier this month, the US has pledged <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/press-releases/jan-11-2022-usaid-announces-308-million-humanitarian-assistance-afghanistan">an additional $308 million</a> in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, but the Afghan central bank reserves remain frozen.
While some aid is getting to Afghans via the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and the WFP, those organizations often have stringent requirements regarding who qualifies for aid. In a nation on the brink, many who are in desperate need <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/08/afghanistan-winter-crisis/">don’t qualify for aid</a> because they don’t fit the program’s focus area or because they’re not poor enough.
And while Afghanistan’s current crisis isn’t wholly caused by external factors — even without sanctions by the US and its allies, the Taliban’s inability to manage the bureaucracy of government would have created issues, as would the pandemic and a <a href="https://reliefweb.int/disaster/dr-2021-000022-afg#overview">severe drought</a> that began in June last year — US actions do play a substantial role.
The chilling effect of sanctions is keeping businesses and banks from actually engaging with the economy. As House Democrats pointed out in their letter last month, relatively simple steps — like <a href="https://progressives.house.gov/_cache/files/7/9/79c380ca-661d-4158-9a88-f3a67ca24cdd/0C4CB37A3A6799AA59E3FCF4E01FCF3F.12-20-21-afghanistan-humanitarian-crisis-letter-1-.pdf">issuing letters to international businesses</a> assuring them that they are not violating US sanctions — could help alleviate the crisis and shore up the Afghan private sector, but Treasury has yet to do so.
“Restoring a minimally functioning public sector and stopping Afghanistan’s economic free-fall will require lifting restrictions on ordinary business and easing the prohibition on assistance to or through the government,” Laurel Miller, director of the International Crisis Group’s Asia program, wrote in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/opinion/afghanistan-taliban-us.html">a New York Times op-ed this month</a>. “Without that, there’s little hope that humanitarian aid can be more than a palliative.”
Humanitarian aid, at least on a large, international scale, doesn’t seem to be forthcoming, either; the UN’s <a href="https://fts.unocha.org/appeals/overview/2022/plans">Financial Tracking Service</a> shows less than $29 million of the $4.4 billion needed to keep Afghanistan from disaster has been funded so far.
In the meantime, however, the Taliban will hold talks this coming week with Western nations, including Norway, Britain, the US, Italy, France, and Germany, about humanitarian aid. The talks should not be seen as a legitimization of Taliban rule, Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt stressed to <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220121-taliban-to-meet-western-officials-in-norway-for-aid-talks">AFP</a> on Friday, “but we must talk to the de facto authorities in the country. We cannot allow the political situation to lead to an even worse humanitarian disaster.”
UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths echoed that sentiment in his initial call for donations last week, saying that unless the Afghan economy can recover and begin to provide for people, the crisis will only worsen.
Without aid, <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1109492">Griffiths said</a>, “next year we’ll be asking for $10 billion.”
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/1/22/22896235/afghanistan-poverty-famine-winter-humanitarian-crisis-sanctions">https://www.vox.com/2022/1/22/22896235/afghanistan-poverty-famine-winter-humanitarian-crisis-sanctions</a>

vox US policy is fueling Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis

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PJW Live: Some Good News For a Change

The British government has claimed that it intends to send private security contractors to knock on the doors of anyone returning from holidays to make sure they are quarantining upon their return, as required by law.
Home Secretary Priti Patel <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9597685/Priti-Patel-reveals-plans-10-000-quarantine-checks-day.html">announced Wednesday</a> that those returning from destinations that have not been added to the government’s ‘green list’ should expect to be checked on at their homes.
The warning comes after the government lifted international travel restrictions on Monday, allowing people to go on holiday, but with extensive caveats.
Patel claimed that 10,000 checks will be conducted every day by private contractors hired <a href="https://www.mitie.com/all-services/security-fire/?filter-service=security-and-fire&filter-search=">via the firm Mitie</a>, and if people are found to be flouting quarantine or acting noncompliant, police will be called to deal with them, with the authorisation to issue fines of up to £10,000.
The government has decreed that a negative PCR test and ten day quarantine is required for anyone returning from countries it has not deemed to be completely safe to visit, including the popular destinations of The U.S., France, Spain and Greece.
Those returning will then have to take a further two PCR tests (at their own expense) and test negative to be allowed out of their houses after the ten day period.
“People will not go unchecked,” Patel threatened. adding “Significant resources have been put in place – millions of pounds – in terms of the follow-up checking of people around their testing and making sure they stay at home. It has been stepped up.”
Discouraging travel to so called ‘amber list’ countries, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-travel-expect-knock-on-the-door-when-you-return-from-amber-countries-priti-patel-warns-12311649">told Sky News</a> Thursday that “You’ve got to quarantine. People will come to your house to check your quarantine. It’s expensive. We’re not at the stage of saying to people, go to those places on holiday. Please don’t.”
Health Secretary Matt Hancock also claimed that the door to door checks are already underway, with 30,000 being conducted last week.
Boris Johnson told MPs yesterday that visits to medium-risk destinations are only acceptable in ‘extreme circumstances’. 
The announcement came after millions of people had already booked trips to the destinations, and in many cases have already arrived there, prompting fury from travellers, airlines and booking agents.
Julia Lo Bue-Said, of Advantage Travel Partnership described the government’s actions as “typical nanny state tactics.”
She added “Surely the British public can make up their own mind if they wish to quarantine in order to visit an amber country. As long as protocols are followed, testing is in place and rules in the destination are adhered to we see no reason why we cannot be allowed to travel safely to amber destinations for leisure. Otherwise, make those amber countries red.”
In related news, it has been revealed that UK ‘Covid passports’ officially rolled out for use during international travel <a href="https://summit.news/2021/05/20/privacy-watchdog-uk-covid-passport-small-print-says-it-will-be-used-domestically/">will eventually be used domestically</a> to restrict the movement of the population, according to the small print on the NHS website.
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revolution summit PJW Live: Some Good News For a Change

The British government has claimed that it intends to send private security contractors to knock on the doors of anyone returning from holid...

Elite Panicking That the Public Doesn’t Trust Them

Speaking with the World Economic Forum Wednesday, Bill Gates called for an aggressive implementation of carbon taxes in order to force middle income countries to fundamentally alter their entire industry sectors.
Gates declared that “The rich countries have to play a central role, both funding RND and having policies, in some cases carbon taxes will be used to drive the demand for these clean products.”
He continued, “Only by doing that in an aggressive way will the economic costs be brought down enough that we can turn to all the middle income countries and say ‘OK, change your whole cement industry, change your whole steel industry.'”
“The number of companies working on these things is very exciting,” Gates proclaimed.
He further lamented that “Some of them will fail, a lot of them will fail,” but asserted “we only need a reasonable number, a few dozen of them to make it through and that’s what we have to accelerate.”
Watch:
In his books, World Economic Forum founder and globalist Klaus Schwab makes clear that the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ or ‘The Great Reset’ will lead to the abolition of private property.
That message is echoed on the WEF’s <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/how-life-could-change-2030/">official website</a>, which states, “Welcome to the year 2030. Welcome to my city – or should I say, “our city”. I don’t own anything. I don’t own a car. I don’t own a house. I don’t own any appliances or any clothes.”
Apparently, you won’t be allowed to own any private property and your only recourse will be to live in a state of permanent dependency on a small number of rich elitists who own everything.
That used to be called feudalism, which is a form of slavery.
Indeed, while Americans are being told by technocrats that the future is one without private property, Gates himself and other billionaires have been buying up huge amounts of farmland.
Gates is now the biggest owner of farmland in America, according to a Forbes report from last year.
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Meanwhile, the great unwashed will be <a href="https://summit.news/2020/12/29/great-reset-tiny-houses-pushed-as-solution-to-climate-change/">pushed to living in tiny houses or pods</a>, with living standards dramatically lowered in the name of saving the planet.
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revolution summit Elite Panicking That the Public Doesn’t Trust Them

Speaking with the World Economic Forum Wednesday, Bill Gates called for an aggressive implementation of carbon taxes in order to force middl...

Thich Nhat Hanh’s final mindfulness lesson: how to die peacefully

The International Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism has <a href="https://twitter.com/thichnhathanh/status/1484612530228154373">announced</a> that <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thichnhathanh/photos/a.136121339634/10156881013129635/?type=3&theater">Thich Naht Hanh</a> passed away on January 22 in Huế, Vietnam. We are republishing this interview with one of his senior disciples. It first appeared on Vox in March 2019.
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Thich Nhat Hanh has done more than perhaps any Buddhist alive today to articulate and disseminate the core Buddhist teachings of mindfulness, kindness, and compassion to a broad global audience. The Vietnamese monk, who has written more than 100 books, is second only to the Dalai Lama in fame and influence.
Nhat Hanh made his name doing human rights and reconciliation work during the Vietnam War, which led Martin Luther King Jr. to nominate him for a Nobel Prize.
He’s considered the father of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engaged_Buddhism">“engaged Buddhism,”</a> a movement linking mindfulness practice with social action. He’s also built a network of <a href="https://plumvillage.org/monastic-practice-centres/">monasteries and retreat centers</a> in six countries around the world, including the United States.
In 2014, Nhat Hanh, who is now 93 years old, had a stroke at <a href="http://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/">Plum Village</a>, the monastery and retreat center in southwest France he founded in 1982 that was also his home base. Though he was unable to speak after the stroke, he continued to lead the community, using his left arm and facial expressions to communicate.
In October 2018, Nhat Hanh stunned his disciples by informing them that he would like to return home to Vietnam to pass his final days at the <a href="https://plumvillage.org/news/thich-nhat-hanh-returns-to-vietnam/">Tu Hieu root temple</a> in Hue, where he became a monk in 1942 at age 16. (The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/world/asia/thich-nhat-hanh-vietnam.html">reports</a> that nine US senators visited him there in April.)
As Time’s Liam Fitzpatrick <a href="http://time.com/5511729/monk-mindfulness-art-of-dying/?xid=tcoshare">wrote</a>, Nhat Hanh was exiled from Vietnam for his antiwar activism from 1966 until he was finally invited back in 2005. But his return to his homeland is less about political reconciliation than something much deeper. And it contains lessons for all of us about how to die peacefully and how to let go of the people we love.
When I heard that Nhat Hanh had returned to Vietnam, I wanted to learn more about the decision. So in February I called up Brother Phap Dung, a senior disciple and monk who is helping to run Plum Village in Nhat Hanh’s absence. (I spoke to Phap Dung in 2016 right after Donald Trump won the presidential election, about <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/11/22/13638374/buddhist-monk-mindfulness">how we can use mindfulness in times of conflict</a>.)
Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
<figure class="e-image"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1642812346_1214_110508" data-cdata='{"asset_id":15947225,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hd8Db5089a5GImyw2vl_yuWfUD4=/0x0:1280x800/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0_BVTqUItP823arbxyUakoTykX8=/0x0:1280x800/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/85JrYFvuIGCUok3IUYtdWzud-AM=/0x0:1280x800/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vpvnDOs8ipLLAryvmjxLxMTstc4=/0x0:1280x800/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KN7WUCoDmLajempLxoMqgxb02rE=/0x0:1280x800/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dF5sVECeo4wC0QAEcOseaXOOnrM=/0x0:1280x800/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/AXzYeEB4Vvd25bTV0Q4cMoHPpjo=/0x0:1280x800/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1Y_iErHcwUJjX1dZW92wuS9etGI=/0x0:1280x800/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Ur6MDwBZgYyCBdWuCANpuDgrpZo=/0x0:1280x800/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="1280" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ChNlSvxHH576funByorUOKlSShE=/0x0:1280x800/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JmRspBdCtZx66YyNkaH5vAuvqMo=/0x0:1280x800/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mYgC4KSB6ahchgKuJFhOr--qJck=/0x0:1280x800/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NbAJZDeePj7CEnxOnd_d6qMKabs=/0x0:1280x800/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0kcgKKHX-o8b8JU1pRXQBdEuIaM=/0x0:1280x800/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mwHY2UWffJuDpp6XR5G2McTGR1c=/0x0:1280x800/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0Q1kYGHWUD_DX2DhifyXjRqcT34=/0x0:1280x800/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3xg17SSDcnG9X7VLnl0LCgfk2Lo=/0x0:1280x800/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HPT4OJ9pdzwFiEkkudGngNuVTLw=/0x0:1280x800/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Y4OuOm7gJqNYnKQaOj1NiSJ-LHo=/0x0:1280x800/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1280x800):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947225/Thay_Phap_Dung___Uganda___PHOTO___Wouter_Verhoeven.jpg 1920w" /></picture>
<figcaption>Brother Phap Dung, a senior disciple of Thich Nhat Hanh, leading a meditation on a trip to Uganda in early 2019.</figcaption>
<cite>Wouter Verhoeven</cite></figure>
<h4>Eliza Barclay</h4>
Tell me about your teacher’s decision to go to Vietnam and how you interpret the meaning of it.
<h4>Phap Dung</h4>
He’s definitely coming back to his roots.
He has come back to the place where he grew up as a monk. The message is to remember we don’t come from nowhere. We have roots. We have ancestors. We are part of a lineage or stream.
It’s a beautiful message, to see ourselves as a stream, as a lineage, and it is the deepest teaching in Buddhism: non-self. We are empty of a separate self, and yet at the same time, we are full of our ancestors.
He has emphasized this Vietnamese tradition of ancestral worship as a practice in our community. Worship here means to remember. For him to return to Vietnam is to point out that we are a stream that runs way back to the time of the Buddha in India, beyond even Vietnam and China.
<h4>Eliza Barclay</h4>
So he is reconnecting to the stream that came before him. And that suggests the larger community he has built is connected to that stream too. The stream will continue flowing after him.
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<h4>Phap Dung</h4>
It’s like the circle that he often draws with the calligraphy brush. He’s returned to Vietnam after 50 years of being in the West. When he first left to call for peace during the Vietnam War was the start of the circle; slowly, he traveled to other countries to do the teaching, making the rounds. And then slowly he returned to Asia, to Indonesia, Hong Kong, China. Eventually, Vietnam opened up to allow him to return three other times. This return now is kind of like a closing of the circle.
It’s also like the light of the candle being transferred, to the next candle, to many other candles, for us to continue to live and practice and to continue his work. For me, it feels like that, like the light is lit in each one of us.
<h4>Eliza Barclay</h4>
And as one of his senior monks, do you feel like you are passing the candle too?
<h4>Phap Dung</h4>
Before I met Thay in 1992, I was not aware, I was running busy and doing my architectural, ambitious things in the US. But he taught me to really enjoy living in the present moment, that it is something that we can train in.
Now as I practice, I am keeping the candlelight illuminated, and I can also share the practice with others. Now I’m teaching and caring for the monks, nuns, and lay friends who come to our community just as our teacher did.
<h4>Eliza Barclay</h4>
So he is 92 and his health is fragile, but he is not bedridden. What is he up to in Vietnam?
<h4>Phap Dung</h4>
The first thing he did when he got there was to go to the stupa [shrine], light a candle, and touch the earth. Paying respect like that — it’s like plugging in. You can get so much energy when you can remember your teacher.
He’s not sitting around waiting. He is doing his best to enjoy the rest of his life. He is eating regularly. He even can now drink tea and invite his students to enjoy a cup with him. And his actions are very deliberate.
Once, the attendants took him out to visit before the lunar new year to enjoy the flower market. On their way back, he directed the entourage to change course and to go to a few particular temples. At first, everyone was confused, until they found out that these temples had an affiliation to our community. He remembered the exact location of these temples and the direction to get there. The attendants realized that he wanted to visit the temple of a monk who had lived a long time in Plum Village, France; and another one where he studied as a young monk. It’s very clear that although he’s physically limited, and in a wheelchair, he is still living his life, doing what his body and health allows.
Anytime he’s healthy enough, he shows up for <a href="https://www.lionsroar.com/the-practice-of-sangha/">sangha gatherings</a> and community gatherings. Even though he doesn’t have to do anything. For him, there is no such thing as retirement.
<h4>Eliza Barclay</h4>
But you are also in this process of letting him go, right?
<h4>Phap Dung</h4>
Of course, letting go is one of our main practices. It goes along with recognizing the impermanent nature of things, of the world, and of our loved ones.
This transition period is his last and deepest teaching to our community. He is showing us how to make the transition gracefully, even after the stroke and being limited physically. He still enjoys his day every chance he gets.
My practice is not to wait for the moment when he takes his last breath. Each day I practice to let him go, by letting him be with me, within me, and with each of my conscious breaths. He is alive in my breath, in my awareness.
Breathing in, I breathe with my teacher within me; breathing out, I see him smiling with me. When we make a step with gentleness, we let him walk with us, and we allow him to continue within our steps. Letting go is also the practice of letting in, letting your teacher be alive in you, and to see that he is more than just a physical body now in Vietnam.
<h4>Eliza Barclay</h4>
What have you learned about dying from your teacher?
<h4>Phap Dung</h4>
There is dying in the sense of letting this body go, letting go of feelings, emotions, these things we call our identity, and practicing to let those go.
The trouble is, we don’t let ourselves die day by day. Instead, we carry ideas about each other and ourselves. Sometimes it’s good, but sometimes it’s detrimental to our growth. We brand ourselves and imprison ourselves to an idea.
Letting go is a practice not only when you reach 90. It’s one of the highest practices. This can move you toward equanimity, a state of freedom, a form of peace. Waking up each day as a rebirth, now that is a practice.
In the historical dimension, we practice to accept that we will get to a point where the body will be limited and we will be sick. There is birth, old age, sickness, and death. How will we deal with it?
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334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="800" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YjE-rbSNGqDjkH93bmNua6qWBnE=/0x0:800x1207/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:800x1207):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947235/Plum_Village_Practice_Center___Thich_Nhat_Hanh_leading_walking_meditation_in_Plum_Village__France__2014_.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cnKbQ_FFiuSHvkb6UJzppI2uYAY=/0x0:800x1207/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:800x1207):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947235/Plum_Village_Practice_Center___Thich_Nhat_Hanh_leading_walking_meditation_in_Plum_Village__France__2014_.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/yfdJ2xncqXhlA4AJiUQ2YfQif4Q=/0x0:800x1207/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:800x1207):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947235/Plum_Village_Practice_Center___Thich_Nhat_Hanh_leading_walking_meditation_in_Plum_Village__France__2014_.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_C4evUhl78fTu8SORxPn-s6j-Ss=/0x0:800x1207/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:800x1207):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947235/Plum_Village_Practice_Center___Thich_Nhat_Hanh_leading_walking_meditation_in_Plum_Village__France__2014_.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sfPJwhpwHp6VKygPv4aE1X6rwBI=/0x0:800x1207/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:800x1207):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947235/Plum_Village_Practice_Center___Thich_Nhat_Hanh_leading_walking_meditation_in_Plum_Village__France__2014_.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ka8jpHT_geR0Cb7Q4-qb8SIVzWM=/0x0:800x1207/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:800x1207):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947235/Plum_Village_Practice_Center___Thich_Nhat_Hanh_leading_walking_meditation_in_Plum_Village__France__2014_.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Et_8zhe8Z-z1heHpHoliOIj0v7M=/0x0:800x1207/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:800x1207):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947235/Plum_Village_Practice_Center___Thich_Nhat_Hanh_leading_walking_meditation_in_Plum_Village__France__2014_.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cuI0OSuycx5tS9gYZBSrDkbQnwQ=/0x0:800x1207/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:800x1207):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947235/Plum_Village_Practice_Center___Thich_Nhat_Hanh_leading_walking_meditation_in_Plum_Village__France__2014_.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1N52dDYY8-dv5BNfaNvC0rlCy58=/0x0:800x1207/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:800x1207):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947235/Plum_Village_Practice_Center___Thich_Nhat_Hanh_leading_walking_meditation_in_Plum_Village__France__2014_.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/f6TrHaA5UoENHsdHvd8GjeghAdk=/0x0:800x1207/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:800x1207):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/15947235/Plum_Village_Practice_Center___Thich_Nhat_Hanh_leading_walking_meditation_in_Plum_Village__France__2014_.jpg 1920w" /></picture>
<figcaption>Thich Nhat Hanh leading a walking meditation at the Plum Village practice center in France in 2014.</figcaption>
<cite>PVCEB</cite></figure>
<h4>Eliza Barclay</h4>
What are some of the most important teachings from Buddhism about dying?
<h4>Phap Dung</h4>
We are aware that one day we are all going to deteriorate and die — our neurons, our arms, our flesh and bones. But if our practice and our awareness is strong enough, we can see beyond the dying body and pay attention also to the spiritual body. We continue through the spirit of our speech, our thinking, and our actions. These three aspects of body, speech, and mind continues.
In Buddhism, we call this the nature of no birth and no death. It is the other dimension of the ultimate. It’s not something idealized, or clean. The body has to do what it does, and the mind as well.
But in the ultimate dimension, there is continuation. We can cultivate this awareness of this nature of no birth and no death, this way of living in the ultimate dimension; then slowly our fear of death will lessen.
This awareness also helps us be more mindful in our daily life, to cherish every moment and everyone in our life.
One of the most powerful teachings that he shared with us before he got sick was about not building a stupa [shrine for his remains] for him and putting his ashes in an urn for us to pray to. He strongly commanded us not to do this. I will paraphrase his message:
“Please do not build a stupa for me. Please do not put my ashes in a vase, lock me inside, and limit who I am. I know this will be difficult for some of you. If you must build a stupa though, please make sure that you put a sign on it that says, ‘I am not in here.’ In addition, you can also put another sign that says, ‘I am not out there either,’ and a third sign that says, ‘If I am anywhere, it is in your mindful breathing and in your peaceful steps.’”
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/3/11/18196457/thich-nhat-hanh-health-mindfulness-plum-village">https://www.vox.com/2019/3/11/18196457/thich-nhat-hanh-health-mindfulness-plum-village</a>

vox Thich Nhat Hanh’s final mindfulness lesson: how to die peacefully

The International Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism has announced that Thich Naht Hanh passed away on January 22 in Huế, Vietna...

Stop canceling normal people who go viral

<div><img class="ff-og-image-inserted" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/PD1wtdOyXOjWjGnW4ItViVVSMSA=/0x181:2072x1266/fit-in/1200x630/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23185657/GettyImages_1359909034.jpg" /></div>
What’s worse, ghosting someone you met on a dating app or calling up that guy’s workplace and demanding he be fired for ghosting someone on a dating app? This is a question that nobody in the world should ever have to think about, but is unfortunately the kind of question that we must ask ourselves every time a random person is anointed as the internet’s main character.
What I’m talking about, in this case, is a guy known as <a href="https://www.gawker.com/culture/we-should-kill-cb2-brad-this-one-guy-i-heard-about">“West Elm Caleb,”</a> a 25-year-old who works at West Elm and does not seem like a very fun person to date. On TikTok, multiple women have accused him of ghosting, sending unsolicited photos of his dick, and scheduling several dates in the same day. If you have ever been a single 25-year-old in New York City, this kind of behavior is, while certainly not great, hardly uncommon.
But what happened next followed the same exact pattern as <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22841564/internet-trends-tiktok-sea-shanties-bama-rush">everything that has gone viral on TikTok ever</a>. Millions of people became invested in this (niche! not very interesting!) drama because it gives us something easy to be angry or curious or self-righteous about, something to project our own experiences onto, and thereby contributing even more content to the growing avalanche. Naturally, some decided to go look up the central character’s address, phone number, and workplace and share it on the internet.
You do not need me to tell you that the punishment does not exactly seem to fit the crime. What started at the level of juicy group chat drama has exploded into a national conversation, bypassing all measures of scale and scope. The same has happened with other people who have been the target of such dynamics — <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/tiktok-true-crime-conspiracy-theory-fake-1264687/">Sabrina Prater</a>, for instance, the trans woman who was accused of being a serial killer for posting a video of herself dancing that supposedly had “bad vibes,” or Couch Guy, whose crime was seeming unexcited to see his girlfriend enter the room in a TikTok video.
“It’s on social media, so it’s public!” one could argue as a case for people’s right to act like forensic analysts on social media, and that is true. But this justification is typically valid when a) the person posting is someone of note, like a celebrity or a politician, and b) when the stakes are even a little bit high. In most cases of normal-person canceling, neither standard is met. Instead, it’s mob justice and vigilante detective work typically reserved for, say, unmasking the Zodiac killer, except weaponized against normal people.
In other words, it’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/22384308/cancel-culture-free-speech-accountability-debate">cancel culture</a> in its creepiest form. And thanks to algorithms that prioritize engagement above all else, the stuff that gets people riled up the most is what floats to the surface. West Elm Caleb is only the latest example of many to come.
Imagine: You, a college student, are about to surprise your long-distance boyfriend at his own school. You’ve choreographed the moment; your mutual friends are there to help you orchestrate and film the big reveal. You enter the room, he gets up to hug you, everyone’s smiling. You set the resulting video to an Ellie Goulding song that plays at the emotional height of the rom-com Bridget Jones’s Baby. You post it on TikTok.
This is what <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@laurenzarras/video/7010543290449693957?_d=secCgYIASAHKAESPgo8rzeuxptZB5Ks0I9m744vs%2F5yQdjklmXRs2Z6RGOF2sobrtCSbnlk5u7gno3LFHb91I%2BAY8XIUKeoZCWtGgA%3D&checksum=6ed3cf35308b5c29be054ba5c5d920ff154bb81494ed69234eb614cef825a06e&language=en&preview_pb=0&sec_user_id=MS4wLjABAAAAs0JihxBX4JI157fYB6krg1f_KVsBoTs0mNNI3wU92SRX1qZ7w5RdbJjNtAEsqvTh&share_app_id=1233&share_item_id=7010543290449693957&share_link_id=F2357E8F-6D63-4364-AE56-815E060F5C94&source=h5_m&timestamp=1633624861&tt_from=copy&u_code=d41jhelkcamicj&user_id=6641902906864533510&utm_campaign=client_share&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=copy&_r=1&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1">Lauren Zarras did on September 21</a>, although nothing that happened after would go according to plan. Almost immediately, commenters began to joke about the video’s “bad vibes.” “You can FEEL the awkward tension bro,” wrote one.
Many noted that when Lauren entered the room, her boyfriend was sitting on the couch with three other girls. “Girl he ain’t loyal,” said another commenter. “He hugged her like she was his aunt at Christmas dinner.” “I’ve never seen someone look so unhappy to see their girlfriend.” As of Friday afternoon, it had 60 million views.
Lauren and her boyfriend — now known internet-wide as “Couch Guy” — had fallen into a common predicament: posting something online in an attempt to garner a certain reaction, then receiving the opposite. There are all kinds of flavors of this phenomenon, from the college student who posted a clip of their newly released song <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/21575707/tiktok-cringe">only to be ridiculed for it</a>, to the spiritual influencer whose video about coincidences and manifestation <a href="https://www.insider.com/william-knight-tiktok-no-such-thing-as-a-coincidence-2021-7">turned him into a meme</a>. Just last week, a woman <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/magazine/dorland-v-larson.html">pitched a story</a> to the Times about a perceived slight from a fellow writer, presumably under the belief that she’d come off looking sympathetic, but then ended up being Twitter’s main character (never a good thing).
In <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2021/12/tiktok-couch-guy-internet-sleuths.html">an essay for Slate</a>, Couch Guy — real name Robert McCoy — wrote that he was “the subject of frame-by-frame body language analyses, armchair diagnoses of psychopathy, comparisons to convicted murderers, and general discussions about my ‘bad vibes.’”
Embarrassing moments have delighted the public throughout history. For a <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/21575707/tiktok-cringe">piece</a> on what happens when ordinary people go viral for the wrong reasons, Melissa Dahl, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cringeworthy-Theory-Awkwardness-Melissa-Dahl/dp/0735211639?ots=1&slotNum=1&imprToken=ccbe3012-3eb8-5a01-8c9&ascsubtag=%5B%5Dvx%5Bp%5D22480813%5Bt%5Dw%5Br%5Dgoogle.com%5Bd%5DD" has-subtag="true" data-cdata='{"rewritten_url":"https://www.amazon.com/Cringeworthy-Theory-Awkwardness-Melissa-Dahl/dp/0735211639?ots=1\u0026slotNum=1\u0026imprToken=ccbe3012-3eb8-5a01-8c9\u0026ascsubtag=[]vx[p]22480813[m]m-placeholder[s]s-placeholder[t]w[c]c-placeholder[r]google.com[d]D","subtag_max_length":99,"subtag_delim_length":2,"subtag_key":"ascsubtag","subtag_data":{"ots":"1","slotNum":"1","imprToken":"ccbe3012-3eb8-5a01-8c9","ascsubtag":"[]vx[p]22480813[m]m-placeholder[s]s-placeholder[t]w[c]c-placeholder[r]google.com[d]D"},"encode_subtag":false}'>Cringeworthy: A Theory of Awkwardness</a>, told me that it’s natural for humans to delight in schadenfreude. “It’s our brains giving us a dose of exposure therapy,” she said. “Maybe the same thing is happening for people who are drawn to cringey content, [maybe they’re] people whose deepest fear is being ostracized or made to look like a fool.”
But the way the internet has colluded to create viral moments out of normal people was perhaps pioneered a decade ago, when Rebecca Black became the epitome of the stereotype of the spoiled rich kid with a bad vanity music video. Platforms like TikTok, where even people with few or no followers often go viral overnight, expedite the shaming process.
The real toxicity within this sort of discourse comes not from viewers but from the web sleuth dynamics that play out afterward. <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/ehisosifo1/couch-guy-tiktok-explainer">BuzzFeed called</a> the image stills of Couch Guy seemingly grabbing his phone from the girl next to him “sus behavior,” while other <a href="https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM8JgUL4M/">creators claimed</a> they could tell he was cheating because of a suspiciously placed arm and a black hair tie that showed up on Couch Guy’s wrist. One woman <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@thinksplendid/video/7014507547147144454?_d=secCgYIASAHKAESPgo8GotIeTa%2FWVDUQH9l4BrVWrSaT%2F3khimsOoiNkpXsDTbY0fA7PTP5JGOKAMY8N7CHrqq4OXWy9jiRrpkQGgA%3D&checksum=7568a650e89c0d4d6c53c2c07dc88c44a3055a1ac1dee3709c7bf660dda21af1&language=en&preview_pb=0&sec_user_id=MS4wLjABAAAAX4cD2SJXs21ZajtkD6MXoytqzpLewyJ5sVah2KP3YcO1isKQCbUvn_WpO7Q2wpGG&share_app_id=1233&share_item_id=7014708692230655238&share_link_id=5F31B0B1-7CE0-40AA-9942-5F597010118E&source=h5_m&timestamp=1633709326&tt_from=copy&u_code=d38da9c9m0idg1&user_id=6626396359836762117&utm_campaign=client_share&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=copy&_r=1&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1">made a video warning</a> Lauren about how the girls on the couch “are not your friends” because they didn’t immediately jump up to hug her.
Lauren — as well as everyone else in the video — has vehemently denied any shady behavior. “These comments are getting ridiculous and I don’t know why you guys are assuming so much about our relationship,” she said in <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@laurenzarras/video/7011714947302427910?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1">one TikTok</a>. Couch Guy himself <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@souljawatchambassador/video/7014253284743449861?lang=en&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1">made one that read</a>: “Not everything is true crime. Don’t be a parasocial creep,” yet his comment section is still full of people saying things like, “You can gaslight your girlfriend, you can’t gaslight all of TikTok.”
Couch Guy’s <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@jamiemingjin/video/7015334123740876037?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1&lang=en">roommate has complained</a> of people in their dorm sneaking messages under the door and trying to ask them about the video. “Y’all are so fucking creepy sometimes, I can’t,” <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@jamiemingjin/video/7014870206031957253?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1&lang=en">he says</a>. A scroll through Lauren’s previous TikToks shows commenters flocking to every single one, positing at what <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@laurenzarras/video/6916736383222648070?lang=en&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1">precise moment they think he “lost interest</a>” in her and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@laurenzarras/video/6898125509796875525?lang=en&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1">giving warnings like</a>, “it’s like watching a soap opera and knowing who the bad guy is.”
Humans love gossip and creating drama where there is none, even more so during the quieter pandemic <a href="https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/relationships-love/a34848377/gossip-quarantine/">months</a>. There is a difference, though, between speculating on a celebrity’s dating life and a random college couple who, whether or not they end up together, insist they’re happy right now. There are real-world consequences that can get scary quickly. It’s time to leave West Elm Caleb, Couch Guy, and whatever unfortunate soul becomes the internet’s next reluctant main character, alone.
Update, January 21, 3 pm ET: This story was originally published on October 12, 2021, and has been updated to include details about West Elm Caleb.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22716772/west-elm-caleb-couch-guy-tiktok-cancel">https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22716772/west-elm-caleb-couch-guy-tiktok-cancel</a>

vox Stop canceling normal people who go viral

What’s worse, ghosting someone you met on a dating app or calling up that guy’s workplace and demanding he be fired for ghosting someone on...

What the Doomsday Clock is really counting down to

One hundred seconds to midnight. That’s the <a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/">latest setting</a> of the Doomsday Clock, unveiled yesterday morning by the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
That matches the setting in 2020 and 2021, making all three years the closest the Clock has been to midnight in its 75-year history. “The world is no safer than it was last year at this time,” said Rachel Bronson, the president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. “The Doomsday Clock continues to hover dangerously, reminding us how much work is needed to ensure a safer and healthier planet.”
As for why the world is supposedly lingering on the edge of Armageddon, take your pick. Covid-19 has amply demonstrated just how unprepared the world was to handle a major new infectious virus, and both increasing global interconnectedness and the spread of new biological engineering tools mean that the threat from both natural and human-made pathogens will only grow. Even with increasing efforts to reduce carbon emissions, climate change is worsening year after year. New technologies like artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons, even advanced cyberhacking present harder-to-gauge but still very real dangers.
The sheer number of factors that now go into Bulletin’s annual decision can obscure the bracing clarity that the Doomsday Clock was meant to evoke. But the Clock still works for the biggest existential threat facing the world right now, the one that the Doomsday Clock was invented to illustrate 75 years ago. It’s one that has been with us for so long that it has receded into the background of our nightmares: nuclear war — and the threat is arguably greater at this moment than it has been since the end of the Cold War.
The Clock was originally the work of Martyl Langsdorf, an abstract landscape artist whose husband Alexander had been a physicist with the Manhattan Project. He was also a founder of the Bulletin, which began as a magazine put out by scientists worried about the dangers of the nuclear age and is now a nonprofit media organization that focuses on existential risks to humanity.
Martyl Langsdorf was asked to design a cover for the magazine’s June 1947 issue. Inspired by the idea of a countdown to a nuclear explosion, Langdorf chose the image of a clock with hands ticking down to midnight, because — as the Bulletin’s editors <a href="https://thebulletin.org/science-art-and-legacy-martyl">wrote in a tribute</a> to the artist — “it suggested the destruction that awaited if no one took action to stop it.”
As a symbol of the unique existential peril posed by thousands of nuclear warheads kept on a hair trigger, the Doomsday Clock is unparalleled, one of the 20th century’s <a href="https://www.artandobject.com/articles/how-mid-century-modernism-shaped-design-doomsday-clock">most iconic pieces of graphic art</a>. It’s been referenced in rock songs and TV shows, and it adorned the cover of the first issue of the Watchmen graphic novel series.
Its value is its stark simplicity. At a glance, anyone can see how close the Bulletin’s science and security experts, who meet twice a year to determine the Clock’s annual setting, believe the world is to existential catastrophe. The Clock may be wrong — predicting the apocalypse is a near-impossible task — but it cannot be misread.
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<figcaption>The test detonation of a nuclear bomb in Nevada in 1957.</figcaption>
<cite>Corbis via Getty Images</cite></figure>
Since its introduction 75 years ago, the hands of the Clock have moved backward and forward in response to geopolitical shifts and scientific advances. In 1953, it was set to two minutes to midnight after the U.S. and Soviet Union both tested thermonuclear weapons for the first time; in 1991, after the collapse of the USSR and the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, it was moved back to 17 minutes to midnight, the furthest its been to 12 in its history.
In 2018, thanks to what the Bulletin’s experts <a href="https://news.uchicago.edu/story/doomsday-clock-moves-its-closest-midnight-height-cold-war">called</a> a “breakdown in the international order” of nuclear actors and the growing threat of climate change, it was moved to 2 minutes to midnight and has been at 100 seconds since 2020.
You may begin to notice the problem here. The metaphor of a clock provides the clarity of a countdown, but the closer the hands get to midnight, the more difficult it is to attempt to accurately reflect the small changes that could push the world closer or further from doomsday.
Nor does it help that beginning in 2007 the Bulletin expanded the Clock to include any human-made threat, from climate change to anti-satellite weapons. The result is a kind of “<a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-doomsday-clock-75th-anniversary-university-of-chicago-20220113-qscczyu3vrcgvdzazo4pcmlewq-story.html">doomsday creep</a>,” as dangers that are real but unlikely to bring about the immediate end of human civilization — and which fit in poorly with the original metaphor of a clock — muddy its message.
It’s also difficult to square a clock ticking ever closer to midnight with the fact that human life on Earth, broadly defined, has been getting better over the past 75 years, not worse. Even with the Covid-19 pandemic, the growing effects of climate change, and whatever might be brewing in an AI or biotech lab somewhere, humans are far <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy">healthier</a>, <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-2020">wealthier</a>, and — at least on a day-to-day basis — <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace">safer</a> in 2022 than they were in 1947, and odds are that will still be true in 2023 regardless of the Clock’s next annual setting.
This is the paradox of life in the age of existential risk — the sheer number of ways that we can cause planetary catastrophe can make it feel as if it’s nearly midnight, but compared to how life has been through most of human history, we’re living under the noonday sun.
The one event that could change that instantly is the existential threat that the Doomsday Clock was originally designed to convey: nuclear war.
There’s a <a href="https://sgs.princeton.edu/thenuclearbiscuit">virtual reality program</a> designed by security researchers at Princeton University that’s been making the rounds in Washington over the past month.
Users don VR goggles and are transported to the Oval Office, where they play the role of the American president. A siren goes off and a military official transports you to the Situation Room, where users are confronted with a horrifying scenario: early warning sensors have detected the launch of 299 nuclear missiles from Russia that are believed with high confidence to be on a path to the American mainland and its ICBM sites, as Julian Borger <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/14/vr-game-simulating-nuclear-attack-tests-decision-making-skills">describes in a recent Guardian piece</a>.
An estimated 2 million Americans will die. As president, you have fewer than 15 minutes to decide whether the attack is real and whether to launch American ICBMs in response before they are potentially destroyed on the ground.
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That’s a true ticking clock, and while it might feel like a throwback to Dr. Strangelove, it’s one that could still take place at any minute of any day. Though global nuclear arsenals are far smaller than they were in the darkest days of the Cold War, there are still <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-weapons/worldwide">thousands of operational nuclear warheads</a>, more than enough to cause catastrophe on an unimaginable scale.
And while earlier this month the five permanent members of the UN Security Council put out a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/01/03/p5-statement-on-preventing-nuclear-war-and-avoiding-arms-races/">joint statement affirming</a> that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” — words first said by <a href="https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/joint-soviet-united-states-statement-summit-meeting-geneva">President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985</a> — what’s actually happening on the ground is making that horrifying VR simulation more likely, not less.
A possible Russian invasion of Ukraine could realistically result in a conventional ground war fought on European soil, and it raises the risk of conflict between the US and Russia, which together possess most of the world’s remaining nuclear arsenal. Russia <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/16/world/europe/russia-ukraine-invasion.html">has hinted</a> at the possibility of deploying nuclear weapons close to the US coastline, which would further reduce the warning time after launch to as little as five minutes, while Russian media has <a href="https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1483462529825361923">made claims</a> that the country could somehow prevail in a nuclear conflict with the US.
Washington <a href="https://k1project.columbia.edu/news/us-government-plans-spend-over-trillion-dollars-nuclear-weapons">is pursuing</a> a modernization of the US nuclear arsenal that could cost as much as $1.2 trillion over the next 30 years, while Moscow undertakes its own nuclear update. China is <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/03/china-is-rapidly-expanding-its-nuclear-arsenal-pentagon-says.html">reportedly expanding</a> its own nuclear arsenal in an effort to close the gap with the US and Russia, even as <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58812100">tensions</a> grow over Taiwan.
The risk of a nuclear conflict is “dangerously high,” Jon B. Wolfsthal, a senior adviser at the anti-nuclear initiative Global Zero and the former senior director for arms control and nonproliferation at the National Security Council, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/17/threat-nuclear-conflict-is-high-we-need-new-commitment-de-escalation/">wrote recently in the Washington Post</a>.
The result of such a war would be as predictable as it is unthinkable. The heat and shockwave from a single 800-kiloton warhead, which is the yield of most of the warheads in Russia’s ICBM arsenal, above a city of 4 million people <a href="https://interestingengineering.com/comparing-catastrophes-how-would-nuclear-war-impact-our-planet">would likely kill</a> 120,000 people immediately, with more dying in the firestorms and radiation fallout that would follow.
A regional or even global nuclear war would multiply that death toll, collapse global supply chains, and <a href="http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/nuclear/">potentially lead to devastating long-term climatic change</a>. In the worst-case scenario, as Rutgers University environmental scientist Alan Robock <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/10/19/17873822/nuclear-war-weapons-bombs-how-kill">told Vox</a> in 2018, “almost everybody on the planet would die.”
And unlike the other human-made threats the Doomsday Clock now aims to capture, it could unfold almost instantly — and even by accident. Multiple times during the Cold War technical glitches in the machinery of nuclear defense <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/26/17905796/nuclear-war-1983-stanislav-petrov-soviet-union">nearly led</a> the US or the USSR to launch their missiles by mistake, and as the VR simulation demonstrates, the sheer speed of a nuclear crisis leaves very little room for error when the clock is ticking.
As long as nuclear weapons exist in significant numbers, they present an existential threat to humanity. Unlike other disruptive technologies like AI or biological engineering, or even the fossil fuels that are the chief driver of climate change, they have no benign side. They are merely weapons, weapons of unimaginably destructive power, whether or not they inspire the dread they once did.
Yet we’ve survived the nuclear age so far because we’ve had the wisdom — and the luck — not to use them since 1945, and more can be done to ensure that remains the case.
Last year the US and Russia <a href="https://www.state.gov/on-the-extension-of-the-new-start-treaty-with-the-russian-federation/">extended</a> the New START nuclear weapons treaty, which put limits on the size of each nation’s deployed nuclear arsenal, for another five years, pausing the erosion of the post-Cold War arms control regime and giving diplomats more time to negotiate tighter limits in the future.
The US and Russia also agreed to begin new sets of dialogues on how to better maintain nuclear stability in the future, and the White House is <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/05/pentagon-biden-nuclear-weapons-519738">preparing a Nuclear Posture Review</a> that could see the US specifically pledge not to use nuclear weapons first or in response to a conventional or cyber conflict, which could help reduce the chances of a renewed nuclear arms race. Fifty-nine nations have <a href="https://www.icanw.org/signature_and_ratification_status">signed onto an international treaty</a> calling for a global ban on nuclear weapons (though none of the signatories are nuclear powers themselves).
While it will reliably continue to be set every year — at least until midnight really does strike — the Doomsday Clock may have outlived its meaning as a symbol of existential risks in a rapidly changing world where the dangers and benefits of new technologies are so co-mingled. But as a warning for the original human-made catastrophic threat, the Doomsday Clock can still tell the time — and it may be later than we think.
A version of this story was initially published in the Future Perfect newsletter. <a href="https://confirmsubscription.com/h/d/A2BA26698741513A">Sign up here to subscribe!</a>
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22893594/doomsday-clock-nuclear-war-climate-change-risk">https://www.vox.com/22893594/doomsday-clock-nuclear-war-climate-change-risk</a>

vox What the Doomsday Clock is really counting down to

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