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Why We're Living in the Age of Fear

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Re: Why We're Living in the Age of Fear

#51

Post by wmccullough »

pjc50 wrote: post #28
wmccullough wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I'm not a scientist, sociologist, psychologist or any other -ist, so I'm not saying this from a quantitative place. This comes from a place of observation on my part. Take it for what it is. I think fear is a natural human attribute left over from an earlier time in human existence, I really do. From a young age, if we're lucky enough to have parents, we flock to them because we perceive that the monster…

Universe 25 did not have all its needs met: it was chronically overcrowded. That was the whole point of Calhoun's experiments.

Thank you for the info, I missed that part.

Re: Why We're Living in the Age of Fear

#52

Post by wu-ikkyu »

Gruselbauer wrote: post #25
cel1ne wrote: post #9

We live in the age of fear because the hose of information that floods us is constantly opened further: Letters → Telegram → Telephone → Radio → TV → Internet → Mobile Internet. Human beings need time to manage their emotions. Time spent waiting. Time being bored. Time when NO new information, not even positive, is arriving. We are constantly distracted and thus increasingly unable to sort out our feelings. That is t…

There is no feasible way for me to agree more with this. I very much belong to those negatively affected by this phenomenon. I'd wager many a HN commenter is. My RSS feeds are a carefully crafted web of information, as much of a not-echo chamber I can create. From stuff I don't agree with on almost anything - Breitbart and its national counterparts, neocon blogs, libertarian thinktanks - to sources I think of as pret…

What practical use do you get out of reading "news" such as:

>Breitbart and its national counterparts, neocon blogs, libertarian thinktanks - to sources I think of as pretty neutral - like the simple feeds of press conglomerates just feeding headlines...

If you are feeling such crippling despair from consuming this information, why are you consuming it (Assuming you're not a sadist.)? Especially when you said yourself you know it's not true.

"News" is often like fast food -- it's made as quickly and cheaply as possible, is highly lacking in nutritional value, and is detrimental to health.

Re: Why We're Living in the Age of Fear

#53

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

dbingham wrote: post #35

I think some of the fear is justified. Climate change is a very real threat and it's justifiably scary. Our government, in the last 8 years, used remotely operated drones to carry out extrajudicial killings of American citizens -- including a teenage boy. Our security state now engages in mass surveillance of us in a time when our government is engaging in extraordinary rendition of suspected "terrorists" in secret w…

> Climate change ... extrajudicial killings ... those are simple statements of fact. Those things are scary and fear of them is justified.

The funny thing is though, the anxieties that you see on TV are pretty much fear of anything but those things. You will see big-league fear-mongers using "hit them harder" with more extraordinary rendition and "climate change is a con to handicap us" lines of thought.

Re: Why We're Living in the Age of Fear

#54

Post by wmccullough »

golemotron wrote: post #19
wmccullough wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I'm not a scientist, sociologist, psychologist or any other -ist, so I'm not saying this from a quantitative place. This comes from a place of observation on my part. Take it for what it is. I think fear is a natural human attribute left over from an earlier time in human existence, I really do. From a young age, if we're lucky enough to have parents, we flock to them because we perceive that the monster…

> I think fear is a natural human attribute left over from an earlier time in human existence, I really do. It's not a leftover, it's a survival mechanism. If fear were stripped away from a person or a society, it wouldn't last long. It's easy to think that rational thought would keep people from dancing on the edge of a cliff but rationality can be undermined through persuasion, self-delusion, and lack of conscious…

Fair enough, these are good points. I didn't state it but what comes to mind for me is that surviving isn't nearly as hard from a physical perspective (At least not in the U.S.), but I think our fear has been replaced. We no longer need to kill a wildebeest by hand to get its food, but we do have to maintain a job to get food.

Re: Why We're Living in the Age of Fear

#55

Post by jacquesm »

dbingham wrote: post #35

I think some of the fear is justified. Climate change is a very real threat and it's justifiably scary. Our government, in the last 8 years, used remotely operated drones to carry out extrajudicial killings of American citizens -- including a teenage boy. Our security state now engages in mass surveillance of us in a time when our government is engaging in extraordinary rendition of suspected "terrorists" in secret w…

> Our government, in the last 8 years, used remotely operated drones to carry out extrajudicial killings of American citizens -- including a teenage boy.

Not my government, but still I can't help but wonder why it should matter that they are American citizens. A very large multiple of citizens of other countries is murdered in this way and from where I'm sitting I don't see much difference between the two.

Re: Why We're Living in the Age of Fear

#58

Post by pantalaimon »

acqq wrote: post #14
cel1ne wrote: post #9

We live in the age of fear because the hose of information that floods us is constantly opened further: Letters → Telegram → Telephone → Radio → TV → Internet → Mobile Internet. Human beings need time to manage their emotions. Time spent waiting. Time being bored. Time when NO new information, not even positive, is arriving. We are constantly distracted and thus increasingly unable to sort out our feelings. That is t…

> to really help the world is turning off it's platform for a one day each week For this to work, there would have to be solidarity among the other platforms, all of them turning off on the same day (yes, even HN!) But I can actually imagine the world's productivity boost on such a day.

I don't know why you are downvoted, HN is a big part of my news addiction cycle, but I can't help it.

There is a certain satisfaction in reading news, being in the know about new developments - even if 80% of the time it doesn't help you at all/you'll forget about it the next day.

I'm wasting so much time on news sites and other pages that inform me about new developments, it's quite sad.

Most of the time there isn't even any news to be had - it's just "oh, nothing new here, moving on" in a cycle through different pages - then the thought lingers on that there might be something new by now and I start again from the beginning.

Re: Why We're Living in the Age of Fear

#59

Post by wepple »

knz wrote: post #32
grecy wrote: post #13

I'm traveling in West Africa right now, and it's fascinating me how different the reality here on the ground is to what thousands of people tried to warn me off. A huge percentage of people think "Africa" is a war-torn, disease infested hell hole and that I would be murdered on day one. I have spent a massive amount of time wondering why people have such a distorted view of reality, and are so adamant about it - even…

> Australia is actually a very stable place, nothing much really happens (no civil war, no prime ministers assassinated, little violence etc.) Of course, the media looks for something sensationalist, and now a massive number of people think Australia is "full of deadly animals waiting to kill you". America is the same. Despite all of the rhetoric about the election, gun violence, and policing the US is largely a safe…

Whilst I mostly agree, I think the key difference is that the US has a majority control of international media, and whilst they love to hype up domestic concerns for viewer ratings, they're significantly more reckless when talking about "not-America".

The fact that you level Australia and the US has both "safe and stable"; the US is an order of magnitude more troublesome than Aus (As someone who has lived in Australia but currently lives in & loves the US)

Re: Why We're Living in the Age of Fear

#60

Post by distances »

cholantesh wrote: post #39
jontayesp wrote: post #30

Also, don't discount the role religion plays on fear (yes I am a Christian.) The popular idea in the church is that we are currently living in the end times and the world will progressively become more sinful/dangerous until the earth is destroyed and recreated by Jesus. This is a relatively new idea since the 19th century, but represents the current theological and emotional state of the church today. Look at Islam…

Isn't this mostly a Protestant idea? Most all Catholic/EO christians that I know dismiss 'end times' theology.

Or just US Evangelicalism, perhaps? I've never heard that the traditional European Protestants (Lutheran etc) would be preaching the end of times being here.
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