HOW TO BE AFRAID

[defrog]

Following up on yesterday’s post, in which I pointed to a column on how society has reached a point where parents are afraid to let their kids go out and play in the same way that most people my age or older were allowed to 30 years ago, which begged the question: is the world really more dangerous, or are parents just more afraid?

trillsie raised a good point about awareness. Basically, we know a lot more now than we did 30 or 40 years ago. So we know of more things that are harmful to us and our kids, and so we worry more.

Fair call. The question remains, though: how much should we be worrying about all these “new” dangers, and are our concerns proportionate to the actual risk?

I’ve linked to this before, but it’s worth relinking: Bruce Schneier wrote a brilliant piece after the Virginia Tech shootings about how  people tend not to be very good at analyzing risk, especially when it comes to threats we hear about but rarely encounter in real life.

In case yr in a rush, I’ll paste the relevant bits:

We fear being murdered, kidnapped, raped and assaulted by strangers, when it's far more likely that the perpetrator of such offenses is a relative or a friend. We worry about airplane crashes and rampaging shooters instead of automobile crashes and domestic violence – both far more common.

In the United States, dogs, snakes, bees and pigs each kill more people per year than sharks. In fact, dogs kill more humans than any animal except for other humans. Sharks are more dangerous than dogs, yes, but we're far more likely to encounter dogs than sharks.

I tell people that if it's in the news, don't worry about it. The very definition of "news" is "something that hardly ever happens." It's when something isn't in the news, when it's so common that it's no longer news -- car crashes, domestic violence -- that you should start worrying.

But that's not the way we think. Psychologist Scott Plous said it well in The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making: "In very general terms: (1) The more available an event is, the more frequent or probable it will seem; (2) the more vivid a piece of information is, the more easily recalled and convincing it will be; and (3) the more salient something is, the more likely it will be to appear causal."

So, when faced with a very available and highly vivid event like 9/11 or the Virginia Tech shootings, we overreact. And when faced with all the salient related events, we assume causality. We pass the Patriot Act. We think if we give guns out to students, or maybe make it harder for students to get guns, we'll have solved the problem. We don't let our children go to playgrounds unsupervised. We stay out of the ocean because we read about a shark attack somewhere.

And so on. I recommend reading the whole thing (especially for the links Schneier includes to back his points).

Obviously, none of this means that it’s okay for yr kids to play in the bad part of town or take candy from strangers, or whatever, or that parents are silly to worry. It’s all human nature. But it’s also worth knowing that the world outside isn’t as dangerous as it looks on CNN, to say nothing of how dangerous both al Qaeda and the Bush administration have tried to make it look.

Again, it's easy for me to talk, because I have no kids and don't intend to. Plus, I'm a child of the Cold War – when I was growing up, we had the prospect of global thermonuclear annihilation to look forward to every morning. Talk about exaggerated risk.

But I think it stands to reason that if you let fear dictate yr life, you end up with a society where kids can’t go out and play, teachers carry guns to school, Muslims are thrown off planes for praying, the TSA declares water a potential weapon, and a worryingly growing number of cops and security guards are convinced that photography in public places is an act of terrorism.

And who wants their kids to grow up in a world like that?

No fear,

This is dF

Comments

I'm of two minds...

[ellakite.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, I agree that statistically the average person is more likely to be hit by a car than be eaten by a shark. I'll also state that the most emotionally traumatic incidents in my personal life were caused by members of my own family. And I know that's the way the world usually "works".

That all being said: Me and my family have repeatedly been the victims of random violence. While a young child, three men invaded our home and robbed us at gunpoint... and we lived in a "good", safe neighborhood, just 3 blocks away from from the local police precinct. In junior high school I was the victim of several unprovoked attacks by total strangers, one of which broke my jaw so badly that I have a case of TMJ. And I am a personal eyewitness to the attacks on 9/11, as my work place is less than 1/2 mile straight up the street from the World Trade Center. You've seen the video of the panicked crowd running when the first tower collapsed? I was right in the middle of that... and in genuine fear of getting trampled in the process.

I will not discuss incidents which happened to my siblings (out of respect for their privacy), but please believe me: what I've just described is merely the tip of the iceberg.

Stuff happens. While I agree that most of the crap that's shown in the news is overplayed & most people overreact to it, it still happens to people. If it happened to me, it can happen to anyone. I'm not recommending that people hide from the world or try to "Patriot Act" away these problems... but people should stop and think about these things at least one point in their lives. They should seriously ask themselves: What would I do if I were trapped in a burning building? What do I do if there's a tornado nearby? I think the greatest danger in most of these situations is panic, and making bad decisions in a moment of crisis. I used to teach the EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS merit badge in the Boy Scouts. I wish I'd never needed this knowledge... but I'm glad I had it when I needed it.

Don't be afraid... but be prepared, just in case. That's my $0.02.

Re: I'm of two minds...

[def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com]

Wise words. Living without fear doesn't mean being stupid and careless, or saying "O that will never happen to me." Thanks for sharing.