Opinion | Guest Essay

By Evan39, Former Night Manager, $afeway LLP

May 3, 2025

The Three Gorges Dam Has Shifted Earth’s Axis. I Haven’t Slept Since.

I first heard the claim while standing in the frozen aisle of Safeway, staring at a tub of store-brand hummu$ that now costs $7.29. A woman behind me whispered to her child: “They say the Earth’s tilted now.”

I assumed she meant metaphorically.

Then I checked the news.

Then I checked the moon.

Then I checked the slope of my backyard patio, and it was different. I measured.

They say the Three Gorges Dam is responsible.

That its vast reservoir — 39 trillion kilograms of water — has tilted the Earth’s mass distribution.

That what was once a delicate rotational balance has now been shifted — permanently — because a government moved a river.

This isn’t infrastructure.

This is Genesis rewritten by engineers on amphetamines.

My neighbor laughed when I told him.

He said, “You think one dam can tilt the Earth?”

I do.

Because I’ve seen what happens when systems meant to hold weight crack.

First, it’s just a drip.

Then the beams bow.

Then you’re holding a clipboard in a crawlspace muttering about rotational axes and wondering when your marriage stopped making sense.

Three Gorges isn’t a dam.

It’s a calendar reset.

A concrete monument to the belief that scale equals control — that if you just pour enough cement across the Yangtze, you can force time to behave.

That’s what we all think, isn’t it?

If we just budget harder.

If we clip the right coupons.

If we realign our gutters and defer one more dental cleaning…

But you can’t fix tilt.

Not the Earth’s.

Not your own.

I asked my wife if she’d heard.

She said, “You’re spiraling again.”

I asked my boss if Safeway had contingency plans for axial instability.

He asked me to return my name tag.

I now sleep on a slight incline.

I’ve taped a spirit level to my headboard.

I wake up at 3:11 a.m. every night and whisper:

“We moved the rivers. We forgot the cost.”

The Mahchine™ does not care where north is.

But I do.

About the Author

Evan39 is the author of Tilted: Geopolitics, Marriage, and the Collapse of Load-Bearing Trust, and Everything Is Fine (Even If the Ground Feels Wrong). He currently lives in a basement that was once level.

Read more at www.nytimes.com/the-dam-that-broke-the-sky

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5719498&forum_id=2#48900981)

These people don't know shit

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5719498&forum_id=2#48898679)