Keep Armageddon Secret

Do you want to know when the end is near?

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We can be quite certain that, at some point in time, an asteroid or comet will collide with our planet and wipe out much of its life - including us. We can also be certain that governments with large enough telescopes will find out earlier than the rest of the population, but too late to do anything about it. Should the world's people be informed of their imminent armageddon?

It's an interesting question, and Geoffrey Sommer of the Rand Corporation, a scientific adviser to the United States government, has argued that in such a situation secrecy would be the best policy. If nothing at all can be done to stop or deflect such a massive object and prevent armageddon from occurring, then the public should be permitted to go about their daily business in blissful ignorance, unaware that a literally earth-shattering event will soon occur.

There are certainly some good reasons to take such a position. We can readily imagine the horrible consequence of a world-wide panic with people rioting in the streets, demanding that something be done when nothing is available. There are surely many who would regard the approaching end as license to do as they wish - after all, there won't be any long-term consequences that might otherwise impede them. Rape, murder, revenge, and all manner of suffering may increase, unnecessarily adding to people's psychological and emotional stress when facing the likely demise of the human species.

Not telling the public would avoid such terrible consequences because people could continue to act normally. Even though the secret of armageddon would become more and more likely to get out as the object approaches and becomes visible to more observers, at least the time of panic would be shortened and the amount of suffering reduced.

That, however, may not be enough to outweigh the simple notion that people deserve to be informed about such important matters. Even if there is nothing that can be done about it, I suspect that most people will want to know. People will want to put their affairs in order, do things they always hoped to do, spend their last days with loved-ones, and perhaps make peace with their gods. Should a bureaucrat or public policy maker really be allowed to decide to take that away from us?

It is also arguable that concerns about panic are misplaced. At the same meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science where Sommer gave his opinion, Lee Clarke of Rutgers University argued that more than 50 years of research on human behavior contradict "the panic myth." An international authority on civil defense and community responses to disaster, Clarke explained that:

People rarely lose control. ...Policymakers have yet to accept this. People are quite capable of following plans, even in the face of extreme calamities, but such plans must be there.

At the same time, even if there isn't a massive panic, it seems likely that serious problems would be unavoidable. Because many people would want to do things they always wanted to do or spend the last of their time with loved-ones, they won't be able to perform the jobs they normally work at - and this includes doctors, nurses, firefighters, police, etc. We would be faced with the very real possibility of a massive breakdown of vital social services not because of riots, but because so many individuals suddenly find themselves with something of greater personal significance to do.

There are a lot of personal reasons to want to know that you and everyone else will soon die. There are a lot of social reasons to think that perhaps people should not be told - or, if they are told, it happens at a very late stage when failures of social services won't cause quite so much unnecessary suffering. Perhaps because of this, many people can have a double-standard on this issue: they may want to know themselves, but would be inclined to keep the information from everyone else.

This suggests that while they may trust themselves with information about armageddon, they don't necessarily trust everyone else with it. Do you trust yourself with such information? Do you trust others, or even the rest of the human population with such information? If the end of the world were approaching, would you want to know?