AWD Final Debate: Battle of the Threats

Have you ever watched a presidential debate?  In the months leading up to this past election (or in any cycles previous), did you feel overwhelmed, irritated, or downright angry after listening to 60 minutes of incoherent squabbling, dodging of questions, and weak attempts to secure moral high ground via transparent logical fallacies and errors of reasoning?  Our AWD final project will be similar yet very, very different. We aim to organize a different kind of debate, with adjacent phenomena and ideas yet completely distinct subject matters.

The format of the project is a 10-minute, pre-recorded video styled as a mock CNN town hall. It will, technically, be a heated debate where each individual will provide convincing evidence for why their “doomsday scenario” will prevail; further, individuals will interact with each other, thus squaring different aspects of the course content with each other and engaging with themes and ideas from different weeks of the class. This interdisciplinary approach will allow for new and exciting points to be made, and perhaps more macro-scale ideas to be elucidated.  

Our group’s final project includes the following individuals: Dillan Prasad, Katya Drovetsky, Jack Atkins, and Omar Hussein.  We have decided to pursue an interdisciplinary video format for our project in which three individuals (corresponding to group members) argue for the end of civilization as caused by 1) climate change, 2) biological/pandemics, and 3) nuclear annihilation.

Katya Drovetsky, the spokesperson regarding the threat of climate change, will emphasize how the timescale of this threat is in many ways more pressing than the others discussed, as it is already happening as we speak. All that is required for us to see a worsening of the negative effects of climate change is a continued lack of sufficient action that is currently happening. The discussion on climate change will be compiled and bolstered by statistics pulled from a recent article published by the World Meteorological Organization, as well as the Synthesis report from IPCC5 that was assigned as reading in the class for Week 2 (Environmental Devastation). Supplemental readings, specifically, Kolbert’s “Three scenarios for the future of climate change” and McKibben’s “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math” will also be used to scientifically frame the risk surrounding this threat. Memo discussions and class content from Week 2 will likewise be used to inform the argument and help frame the overall risk associated with the published data. 

The biological speaker, Dillan Prasad, will address the existential and perhaps unstoppable threat of future pandemics.  His primary arguments concern the interplay of evolution and socioeconomic factors.  Since the discovery of antibiotics in the mid 20th century, these drugs have saved millions–perhaps even billions–of lives from bacterial infections around the world.  However, this has come at a cost; essentially, by overprescribing antibiotics around the world, we have collectively accelerated the selective evolutionary forces on pathogens–particularly bacterial and viral ones, which obey the laws of evolution despite the fact that viruses are nonliving–thus causing these pandemic-potential diseases to evolve antibiotic resistance.  In simple terms, many pathogens are evolving the capacity to evade any known treatment or pharmaceutical that medical knowledge currently has to offer, thus having the potential to be far more lethal and pervasive than the scope of normal illnesses.

The evolutionary conditions for pandemics are even more grave for humanity when considered in the context of social and economic forces.  Chiefly, as pathogens evolve antibiotic resistance and become increasingly difficult to treat, the pharmaceuticals that are needed to kill them are becoming increasingly elusive, complicated, and cost-effective to develop. Can we blame companies for no longer funding these esoteric, hypothetical treatments?

Many of these ideas were drawn from two guest speakers: Suzet McKinney and Dipesh Chakrabarty, both of whom discussed how pandemic have shaped humanity.  In particular, many of these ideas are adapted from course readings such as Biodefense in Crisis and the film Contagion.

Jack Atkins, the commentator on the existential nuclear threat to humanity, will largely draw his arguments from ideas discussed in class during consideration of materials from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, along with the guest speaker.  He most centrally contends that the nuclear threat is one that is both looming and socially-rooted.

It is difficult to truly imagine the scale of destruction both material and abstract that could result from the usage of nuclear weaponry.  Jack discusses how the average person, though scared of this possibility, is unlikely to fully appreciate or comprehend the scale of this destruction, and thus commits the possibility of nuclear holocaust to the category of “unrealistic hypothetical,” effectively negating the very real dangers of nuclear usage and precluding the possibility of widespread prophylactic reform.

Further, Jack discusses how misinformation and other social phenomena complicate the nuclear question.  In rallying together as multicultural nuclear-armed nations, we must strive to propagate and consume clear information if we are to move forward with some effective policy measures to counteract this growing threat–together.

To wrap up the discussion and podcast the moderator, Omar Hussein, will assume the role of an unbiased party and explain how some of the other potential threats to humanity’s survival may not necessarily be an inherent danger. Although current technology and resources make goals such as ending social inequality, climate change or nuclear proliferation seem out of reach, the future will bring many innovations that may provide solutions to some of our greatest threats. For example, once the public perception surrounding Artificial Intelligence and Biotechnology shifts to a more positive tone, they can be used to solve  global issues of pandemics, starvation, and even green energy. In order to ensure that emerging technologies are used for the benefit of humanity, it is important that we combat existential threats such as the spread of misinformation which causes much of the division we see in the world.

Ultimately, the aim of this project is to create an entertaining and therefore uniquely engaging way to present the facts surrounding these existential threats to the general public. One major problem is the lack of conversation and overall knowledge surrounding these issues amongst the people who make up the voting population (at least in the US) that have the power to elect officials who will encourage tangible positive change in regards to these issues. There isn’t one correct answer here, so we instead leave the project as an open-ended final poll to track how people’s opinions on the matter may look after being presented with the facts we use in our debate. Overall, our project helps start a conversation and presents an easily accessible and digestible format to engage with these questions that are tough to understand and grapple with. 

Link to video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k4w2v-Kh5mfyHTbcj2Z8hZGA96cuFKl0/view?usp=sharing

Link to final survey (results displayed after answers submitted → “View previous  responses”):   https://forms.gle/JaNwwd1isihFbRfn7