1:23:45. The Cost of Lies.

[canyonwalker]

1:23:45 is not just a series of consecutive numbers. It is a time that will live in infamy. It is the hour (and minute and second) of the morning on April 26, 1986 when reactor #4 at the Chernobyl power plant in the former USSR exploded. It is also the title of episode 1 of Chernobyl, a 5-part HBO miniseries we binged last Friday.



Episode 1 begins with the main character of docudrama, scientist Valery Legasov, who had been appointed to lead scientific aspects of the cleanup and containment of the nuclear accident. It is 2 years after the explosion. Legasov is recording memoirs on audio tape about the true culprits of the disaster. "What is the cost of lies?" he asks rhetorically. He rails against the culture of lying, and knowingly repeating lies, when it's more politically expedient than acknowledging hard truths.

Though this opening scene takes place in 1988 there's an obvious parable for today, 34 years later. Lies, and whole political regimes that depend on constant lying, are very much a part of 2022, from modern day Russia with its absurd propaganda attempting to justify its invasion of Ukraine, to the US itself, where former president Donald Trump, other Republican leaders, and propagandist personalities on Fox News promote conspiracy theories daily.

Just over a week ago Merriam-Webster named gaslighting its Word of the Year. Gaslighting very much describes how Soviet officials began suppressing facts about Chernobyl beginning seconds after it occurred. It also describes what's happening politically in the US for several years. When Trump says things like, "Don't believe what the media is telling you; they're 'fake news'" that's gaslighting.

So, what is the cost of lies? As concerns Chernobyl, it was the explosion that blew up reactor #4, spewing radiation and radioactive material in greater quantities than the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was an accident that killed untold thousands, injured possibly hundreds of thousands, and put literal millions at risk.

As concerns the US, one cost of lies in the insurrection on January 6, 2021. It's chilling to note, though, that the miniseries wasn't talking specifically about that. The show aired in 2019, over a year before the insurrection. The show's opening soliloquy warns us about what could happen. Now some of it already has.

Update: keep reading: 1:23:45. Lies & Heroic Sacrifice.

Comments

[sorcyress]

I was all set to leave a dull and pedantic comment about how one:twentythree:fortyfive are not actually consecutive numbers, until I was typing them out and stopped thinking about place value because yes of course one:twothree:fourfive are like the _epitome_ of consecutive. I am glad to have noticed that *before* making the mistake, and it feels like some sort of lesson in how pedantry doesn't pay.

I don't think I remembered that Chernobyl aired in 2019 (I haven't seen it and am looking forward to your reviews). I agree that it is chilling how much the parallels predicted some of the worst gaslighting of the last few years --"covid is over and no big deal", anyone?

~Sor

[canyonwalker]

Covid is an even better parallel to the Chernobyl disaster because it's a truth of nature. As the character Legasov elaborates during his soliloquy in the show, "The truth doesn't care about lies." A virus goes right on infecting and killing people even if people choose to believe lies that it's not real or not dangerous. In fact, exactly like an exploded nuclear power plant spewing radiation, it's MORE dangerous when people are lied to (or lie to themselves) about it because they don't know to take critical safety precautions.