Content Warning: major Attack on Titan spoilers!!!!!
You can tell a particular event is gripping when both the New York Times and Fox News run headlines on the same subject. “The wonders never cease!” A couple of days ago, a balloon floating above Montana escaped the media current to capture our nation’s attention. The balloon was polarizing from the start; it came from China. Theory building began immediately, with the Pentagon and military community arguing that it is a Surveillance Balloon that they have been tracking for days as it rode the air from Alaska down to the Western USA. China and others argue that it is a civilian craft created for observation. My quirky little gamer reaction, of course, was this panel from Attack on Titan:
Attack on Titan is so awesome because the story’s twists are constantly redefining the context of the world as the reader knows it, especially technologically. At one point, it is revealed that the world within the walls is governed by a CIA-esque, highly secretive wing of the military police. At one point, the main characters interrogate a police higher up and learn that the royal family has been purposefully killing off anyone that creates technological innovations that might threaten the power structure… or escape the walls. Strikingly, a couple that managed to create a balloon are taken out.
This scene elicits a lot of frustration from me. It is a dramatization of a real life instance of Germans escaping East Berlin during the 20th century cold war. People want to be free! And what is more free and weightless and mobile than a balloon catching the current of a cloud? I feel a similar frustration regarding the Chinese balloon now hovering over Montana. The balloon could very well be a CCP surveillance device sent to take pictures of military bases. Regardless, decades old satellite technology can apparently already accomplish the same thing with a lot less work. What’s more, I can’t help but feel the Pentagon is trying to feed us another Gulf of Tonkin incident to inflame American tensions against our codependent geopolitical adversary across the Pacific. The military has been monitoring this thing for days, yet the information was only made public when it reached Montana and public outcry made the object impossible for the government to ignore. When one studies history, one becomes painfully aware of just how often foolishness repeats itself. Going to war over a harmless (even if illegal) camera balloon is not my preferred timeline.
On a more important note, however, (one that transcends politics) I think this balloon phenomenon highlights an urgent human problem facing our modern world. Look at this marvelous thing we have created: balloons! They ride the air without propulsion or engines or flapping wings. They captivate our children. We have the technology and the aptitude to send these things across the sea to people far away. A spy balloon is an affront to national security and our nation’s sovereignty, but a civilian device created to study the world and see new places? That is a marvel, and I think it is worth missing the political spectacle of shooting the thing on the off chance that this balloon is innocent.
I think an adequate response would be to send balloons back. Let’s play with these tensions and see if China is being frank with us. At worst, we lose some balloons. At best, we make a connection with people that we have yet to understand very well. We should expand this gesture of peace to China’s neighbors as well. Whenever North Korea decides to test missiles in Japanese airspace, we should respond by sending a fleet of balloons into Korean airspace laden with hard drives and books and chocolate. Send them Elden Ring and a computer capable of running it. Porn. Fuck it, send them a couple ounces of weed. Kim will shoot them down and we’ll keep flying them out. Wouldn’t be the most wasteful thing we have ever done, and the off chance that somebody living in the shadows gets to glimpse a larger world is worth it. America’s power is in the freedom and sheer creativity of our culture. Our sharpest weapon is our ability to think freely and respond to strangeness without hostility (if we try hard enough). Somebody in China has already captivated us with this balloon. Why not play along?
Technology is supposed to set us free. So often, we use it to build prisons. We put up walls across borders. Our laws build invisible walls in the sky. Our technology creates walls within our minds. It is tragic that our governments prevent us from communicating with one another by balloon. I think it is important that we do not use this incident as an opportunity to build our walls and prejudices even higher.
To be free like a balloon!