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Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

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Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#31

Post by mikeash »

mc32 wrote: post #28
throwaway613834 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> One of the things I like about the sharing economy (Uber, Airbnb, etc) is that we're slowly being reminded that it's okay to trust our neighbors > Except it's not neighbors but complete strangers you're asked to trust, and that trust is sometime misplaced. I'm guessing you've never lived in a place where the common means of transportation is to just stand by the street, look for the next car coming by with empty s…

So I guess when people complain about being assaulted by poor vetting by Uber, that's just noise and the uproar is overblown and we should accept assault by taxi drivers as the price of living in society.

Since zero crime is an impossible goal, the discussion is ultimately a question of how much assault by taxi drivers we should accept.

Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#32

Post by mc32 »

throwaway613834 wrote: post #30
mc32 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I guess when people complain about being assaulted by poor vetting by Uber, that's just noise and the uproar is overblown and we should accept assault by taxi drivers as the price of living in society.

> So I guess when people complain about being assaulted by poor vetting by Uber, that's just noise and the uproar is overblown and we should accept assault by taxi drivers as the price of living in society. What kind of a strawman is that? Where did I ever suggest you should just "accept assault by taxi drivers"? Go report them so that we can weed them out. Nobody suggested we do nothing.

My implication is there is a balance between doing nothing and acceptance and doing reasonable due diligence to combat social issues.

Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#33

Post by [deleted] »

brazzy wrote: post #25
joshfraser wrote: post #20

Despite the constant fear mongering of "stranger danger", turns out most people don't actually want to kill you. One of the things I like about the sharing economy (Uber, Airbnb, etc) is that we're slowly being reminded that it's okay to trust our neighbors, despite the constant attempts by the media to spread fear.

> turns out most people don't actually want to kill you. All it takes is one person who does. > One of the things I like about the sharing economy (Uber, Airbnb, etc) is that we're slowly being reminded that it's okay to trust our neighbors Except it's not neighbors but complete strangers you're asked to trust, and that trust is sometime misplaced. There's absolutely no difference in that between the "sharing economy…

[deleted]

Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#34

Post by smokey_the_bear »

II2II wrote: post #19

Fears aside, I suspect that the larger tragedy is that Halloween treats are now mostly sugary candy and chocolate. I remember a time when there was much more variety. I also remember how quickly things changed after the first (likely unsubstantiated) scare in my community.

There were a few houses near me that gave out something special in the late 80s. One house gave out baggies of home made popcorn, brownies at another, candy apples at one house, and one house took a polaroid of you in your costume. These were all beloved houses.

I'd love to do that for the younger kids in my neighborhood. But a lot of the slightly older kids that come to my door are awfully surly. They are trying to grab handfuls of candy from the bowl as you are trying to give them one, and they also steal anything else that happens to be on your front porch that night. I don't really want to deal with trying to give them something special.

Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#35

Post by filoleg »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #22
joshfraser wrote: post #20

Despite the constant fear mongering of "stranger danger", turns out most people don't actually want to kill you. One of the things I like about the sharing economy (Uber, Airbnb, etc) is that we're slowly being reminded that it's okay to trust our neighbors, despite the constant attempts by the media to spread fear.

Except when you neighbors are the ones renting out the apartment next to you on air bnb, and you have drunk noisy people bumping around next door all the time.

I don't see how it is different from having noisy drunk people as your permanent neighbors. Ultimately, your non-airbnb permanent neighbors are just as much of a stranger to you, with certain specific exceptions.

Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#36

Post by hexane360 »

mikeash wrote: post #31
mc32 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I guess when people complain about being assaulted by poor vetting by Uber, that's just noise and the uproar is overblown and we should accept assault by taxi drivers as the price of living in society.

Since zero crime is an impossible goal, the discussion is ultimately a question of how much assault by taxi drivers we should accept.

And we also have to consider how much we as a society lose by not having a taxi system with x amount of danger.

1000 people gaining a little bit quickly outweighs 1 person losing a lot (at least from a purely utilitarian perspective)

Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#37

Post by hexane360 »

analog31 wrote: post #29
II2II wrote: post #19

Fears aside, I suspect that the larger tragedy is that Halloween treats are now mostly sugary candy and chocolate. I remember a time when there was much more variety. I also remember how quickly things changed after the first (likely unsubstantiated) scare in my community.

The only variety that I can remember as a kid, was the house on the next street where they gave out Chick Tracts instead of candy.

It seems a little counterintuitive to hand out anti-halloween material to trick-or-treaters. I mean, it's still observing Halloween even if it's not candy you're giving out.

Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#38

Post by ebcode »

I remember being a kid (8 or 9) and sitting down with my friend at his house with his parents and going through all our candy together to check for danger signs. Sure enough, there was a single-wrapped Reese's peanut-butter cup with a hole in the wrapper, and we opened it up and found a sewing needle stuck inside the peanut-butter cup. (I don't think I'm making this up, but memories being what they are, this might have been a story that was told to me. I do remember vividly the breaking of the peanut-butter cup into two pieces and the needle falling on the table, though, so I'm inclined to believe the memory.)

This would have been in the late 1980s. So, in my case, the fear did not come from the media, but from a personal experience.

So rather than saying, "this never happens, it's just a myth", we should be saying, "this can happen, and let's take steps to protect ourselves".

Anyone remember the Tylenol Poisonings[0]? That was real, inspired copycats, and led to tamper-resistant and tamper-evident packaging. Tragic, but at least we learned from the tragedy.

While it's true that not everyone is out to get you, at the same time it's foolish to think that no-one is out to get you.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders

Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#39

Post by flukus »

filoleg wrote: post #35
NegativeLatency wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except when you neighbors are the ones renting out the apartment next to you on air bnb, and you have drunk noisy people bumping around next door all the time.

I don't see how it is different from having noisy drunk people as your permanent neighbors. Ultimately, your non-airbnb permanent neighbors are just as much of a stranger to you, with certain specific exceptions.

Your permanent neighbors tend to be noisy and drunk occasionally, people renting an airbnb are on holidays and likely to be noisy and drunk, then a week later you'll get a new batch likely to be noisy and drunk.

Re: Where Did the Fear of Poisoned Halloween Candy Come From? (2013)

#40

Post by cutcss »

ebcode wrote: post #38

I remember being a kid (8 or 9) and sitting down with my friend at his house with his parents and going through all our candy together to check for danger signs. Sure enough, there was a single-wrapped Reese's peanut-butter cup with a hole in the wrapper, and we opened it up and found a sewing needle stuck inside the peanut-butter cup. (I don't think I'm making this up, but memories being what they are, this might ha…

Believe it or chewing a sewing needle don't actually kills you; but sure you can be afraid of anything and still get validation of that fear; you know a lot of people die from heavy objects falling from buildings? You should protect from that too, it has happened before so clearly you should take steps to protect yourself (and it has happened a lot more than candy poisoning), perhaps always using a construction helmet would be a nice first step. And traffic accidents, so many pedestrians die from car accidents that its weird we all don't have personal airbags around our torsos and heads; at the end of the day being alive its the biggest risk factor of dying and the only sure way to not die is to be already death.
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