Fairy tale 11 - How Bad Does It Have to Get?

Everyone had been wondering for ages but eventually it was decided that there should be some actual proper experiments to find out: just how bad does it have to get before someone does something about it?

There were seven experiments.

The first experiment took place in a house.  In this particular culture the patriarchy ordained that the woman should do most of the cleaning.  In the experiment the woman stopped cleaning the house and waited to see if the man would spontaneously begin to do any chores.

How bad does it have to get?

In the second experiment, all the people in the quiet bit of town were subjected to a wide range of new noises: amplified music from a teenager’s bedroom, drilling and hammering from where the builders are working on a new extension, the sound of trains passing nearby, the shouts of angry neighbours, a deep reverberating bass line from a passing car that never passes, and so on.  The noise is incessant and grates on the soul.

How bad does it have to get?

In the third experiment, the big factory on the eastern side of the city closes down.  And then another one closes.  Several businesses, all of which were dependent on the big factories, they also close.  Suddenly and for the first time in generations, there is lots of unemployment and there seem to be no new jobs.  The government and the council come up with a couple of rescue plans, but they just make things worse because they remind private sector investors how terrible it all is.

How bad does it have to get?

In the fourth experiment the entire city is overtaken by ethnic strife.  People of different skin colours, of different religious persuasion and with family histories from a range of different countries all begin to get on one another’s nerves.  The most powerful ethnic sub-group begins to blame other groups for all the things that are going wrong, and a web of mutual blame and counter-blame characterises virtually all debate about the city’s manifold problems.  There are increasing instances of muggings and assault and robbery across ethnic lines, and then there is a fully-fledged riot.

How bad does it have to get?

In the fifth experiment an entire region of the country is subjected to several decades of persistent underinvestment and economic failure.  Poverty is rife.  Decay is acute.  Hopelessness is widespread.

How bad does it have to get?

In the sixth experiment, the whole country decides to inflict the most savage act of economic and geo-political suicide upon itself.  It rips up its friendship with numerous nearby nations, introduces a range of self-defeating changes to its trading relations, makes travel more difficult, withdraws from a range of international treaties intended to make everyone safer and then tries to pretend that everything is in fact better than it was before.

How bad does it have to get?

And in the final and largest experiment, the entire world decides to ruin its natural environment by progressively increasing the temperature of the air and thereby destroying habitats, sending species to extinction, cooking the oceans, enhancing extreme weather events like floods and drought, making it harder to grow food, increasing the probability of mass death through famine and increasing the likelihood of wars between peoples who are desperate for access to ever-dwindling water supplies.

How bad does it have to get?

Everyone is very keen to know the results.