I spend a lot of time worrying that the sun won’t burn evenly, and a huge, random, solar flare will annihilate life on Earth. But I shouldn’t worry about stuff like that because, as I have said before in this blog, you never get nailed by the thing you actually worry about. It’s always some totally random event that you couldn’t even imagine. I was reminded of this concept when I saw this item in the news: A U.S. nuclear-powered submarine collided with a Japanese oil tanker in the Straits of Hormuz. And just to make things interesting, 40 percent of the world’s oil travels through the Straits.
Fortunately, it was only a fender bender. But it made me laugh, and I’m not proud of that. Imagine if you tried to write a fictional story about the worst fuck-up a bunch of human beings could mastermind. It would probably involve the following elements:
1. Something nuclear
2. A full oil tanker
3. Disruption of the world’s energy sources
And you’d want it all to happen somewhere near the Middle East, where you can depend on the level-headed residents to start yelling WA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA, grab sharp objects, and start running toward Israel.
I don’t know what happens when a submarine full of nuclear weapons ignites an oil supertanker, but I’m thinking it would be fun to watch. I could probably see it from California, at least until it blinded me.
I’ve learned from my prior posts that I shouldn’t make jokes about recent deaths. But since no one died in this minor accident, I’m going to test a related theory that it’s okay to mock hypothetical deaths that didn’t happen.
If the accident had been worse, I imagine the family of the captain of the nuclear sub trying to explain to friends how he died. “Well, he plowed his nuclear-submarine into an oil supertanker. It could happen to anyone.”
If you were a friend of the family, and heard this story, you might be tempted to ask inappropriate follow-up questions, such as, “Aren’t supertankers large? Can’t you see them coming with those sonar thingees?”
The sub captain will have trouble blaming the supertanker captain. My understanding of maritime rules is that the right-of-way always goes to the “big thing that has the most trouble turning.” A supertanker is lucky if it can figure out how to turn left at India without ending up at the South Pole. The only way I can sleep at night is by assuming that the crack team of mariners inside nuclear-subs actually know what all of those buttons and knobs are for. But I have to say it’s getting harder every day to be an optimist.