I Dream Awake

With all of the debates I’ve heard and been involved in between those in favor and against the Iraq war, almost everyone who has brought up the WMD angle has… struggled… with just what they are talking about. It seems pretty clear to me that there is a big gap between the reality of what WMD are and the most common understanding of them. These “thoughts of a freelance theorist” I read earlier today do a better job with wording what that gap is made of than all of the experts, pundits, journalists, etc, I’ve listened to and argued with put together. It’s simple and to the point:

In Lord of Rings, the plot revolves around an attempt by all parties to control Sauron’s ring of power. The ring is an item unique in all the world. Whomever controls that one item rules the world.

This plot device of unique item is fairly common in literature and movies. Hitchcock called it a McGuffin. Every character has to be looking for that unique item.

It’s not just fantasy items like magic rings and swords that get that treatment. Technology does to. Most James Bond movies feature some piece of technology so unique that control of it will lead to world domination.

All this would just be of interest to students of fictions except that for a large section of the population their gut feel for how technology actually works comes from works of fiction. Most people in the contemporary world have no direct experience with researching, creating or manufacturing actual technology. They may use it but they don’t understand how it comes to be. It is very easy for people to think of technological items like nuclear reactors or computers in the same way they see them portrayed in the movies.

It’s very clear from reading the ongoing debate about the extent of Saddam’s WMD’s that most people have absolutely no idea of the technological issues involved. Most people, even major politicians and media figures talk about WMDs as if they were McGuffins. They act as if we expected to find a giant throbbing orb in an underground base under Baghdad that had WMD written on it. They think that WMD’s were discrete objects or things that could be located and controlled.

Technology doesn’t work like that.

There is more, of course.

Now I don’t expect anyone to really change their mind based on a bit of writing like that. Anyone can put a bunch of words together and publish them. That’s the beauty of instant publishing. Whether the thoughts behind the words are brilliant or worthless pulp is up to the reader to figure out. But for anyone that is still open to examining their own assumptions, I think the way this freelance theorist is looking at the common misunderstandings about WMD is one step in the right direction.