We need more emergency phone alerts
Last night, my phone, which was set to silent, erupted with the sort of siren one associates with immediately life-threatening emergencies. If you live in England or Wales, yours probably did too.
“There is a very high risk of wildfires,” read the message that appeared, once I’d fumbled the cacophonous phone out of my pocket. My lawn is brown and crunchy and we are living through the hottest summer of our lifetimes. I’ve just finished a twelve-day stretch working in a hospital with no air conditioning, and had finally sat down to consider a glass of chilled rosé, so it was useful to be brought up to speed with the fact that it’s been a trifle warm.
The alert didn’t warn us of an emergency at all; it warned us not to cause one. Our Cold War warning system was designed to give us four minutes’ notice of nuclear attack, since four minutes made all the difference. The modern system – its development more a case of supply than demand – put a national siren in almost everybody’s pocket, a direct route from the government’s mouth to your ear. How could they resist?
Sadly, not to mention predictably, they couldn’t. An opt-in system was avoided because the government thought we wouldn’t want to opt-in. Very thoughtful, really.
https://archive.is/cJ3kY
Carolen
npub1q2…k2lv6
2026-08-15 14:02:45 UTC
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npub1q2cu5ke3z57cywnyaxnjwmd7sa4ys0slhd9rt5tha7v8zlekw7tszk2lv6Seen on
wss://relay.momostr.pinkPublished at
2026-08-15 14:02:45 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "We need more emergency phone alerts\n\nLast night, my phone, which was set to silent, erupted with the sort of siren one associates with immediately life-threatening emergencies. If you live in England or Wales, yours probably did too.\n\n“There is a very high risk of wildfires,” read the message that appeared, once I’d fumbled the cacophonous phone out of my pocket. My lawn is brown and crunchy and we are living through the hottest summer of our lifetimes. I’ve just finished a twelve-day stretch working in a hospital with no air conditioning, and had finally sat down to consider a glass of chilled rosé, so it was useful to be brought up to speed with the fact that it’s been a trifle warm.\n\nThe alert didn’t warn us of an emergency at all; it warned us not to cause one. Our Cold War warning system was designed to give us four minutes’ notice of nuclear attack, since four minutes made all the difference. The modern system – its development more a case of supply than demand – put a national siren in almost everybody’s pocket, a direct route from the government’s mouth to your ear. How could they resist?\n\nSadly, not to mention predictably, they couldn’t. An opt-in system was avoided because the government thought we wouldn’t want to opt-in. Very thoughtful, really.\n\nhttps://archive.is/cJ3kY",
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