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Our Newfound Fear of Risk

schneier.com

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Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#101

Post by mhurron »

graeme wrote: post #47
alayne wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying there weren't overprotective parents before? This thread is full of a lot of confirmation bias / society is going to hell in a hand basket type of discussion. Boy, kids these days, right? I'd like to see some facts because I don't find it very credible.

Talk to some older folks. My dad describes walking to school with other schoolchildren in Montreal in the 1950s. They'd be alone, without adults, going miles. When playing, they were out dusk to dawn on city streets with no adult supervision.

I did the same thing in Toronto in the '80's, except for the walk to school bit, I was bussed then. I walked to the bus stop, across roads and whatnot.

You don't have to talk to people that old, the mass retardation of parents is a relatively new thing.

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#102

Post by JshWright »

I'm currently sitting in JFK. I found this article interesting (as I do most of Schneier's writing) and almost read parts of it aloud to my wife who is sitting across from me. It then occurred to me that discussing rational responses to terrorism while sitting in an airport would likely be ill-advised...

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#103

Post by njharman »

twoodfin wrote: post #3

Sorry, but there is no remotely possible U.S. political world in which Afghanistan is not invaded after September 11. If avoiding military action after an attack on that scale is your standard for a "smart about risk" society, you'll be waiting a long, long time.

> U.S. political world in which Afghanistan is not invaded after September 11

Agree and I wish we would have done exactly that instead of conquering Iraq.

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#104

Post by pzuraq »

indefatigable wrote: post #97
acabal wrote: post #80

I think it's become a cultural thing, unfortunately. I've spent the last few years seeing the world, and the difference in attitudes between the people of many other countries and Americans at home is striking. We've become a fear-based culture. I have an anecdote from a month or two ago. My girlfriend--she's German--and I were in Boston's central park, where there's a wading pool for children. The place was extremel…

Yet Germany has institutionalized the same mentality on a more abstract level. "Global warming might be happening, shut down the energy industry!" "We can't use nuclear power, someone might get cancer ! Keep mining coal and etching solar panels!"

That's a ridiculous comparison, The fact of the matter is that those decisions are completely logical. Whether or not global warming is happening, we will run out of fossil fuels and fissionable material eventually. Solar is renewable, self sustaining. By building out solar Germany is reducing there dependence on foreign countries and securing there future; Possibly helping to reduce global warming is just icing on the cake.

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#105

Post by Nicholas_C »

pzuraq wrote: post #104
indefatigable wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet Germany has institutionalized the same mentality on a more abstract level. "Global warming might be happening, shut down the energy industry!" "We can't use nuclear power, someone might get cancer ! Keep mining coal and etching solar panels!"

That's a ridiculous comparison, The fact of the matter is that those decisions are completely logical. Whether or not global warming is happening, we will run out of fossil fuels and fissionable material eventually. Solar is renewable, self sustaining. By building out solar Germany is reducing there dependence on foreign countries and securing there future; Possibly helping to reduce global warming is just icing on t…

>That's a ridiculous comparison, The fact of the matter is that those decisions are completely logical.

I don't think shutting down an entire industry in a knee jerk reaction is logical. Gently paring down fossil fuel energy consumption is logical. I think the extreme reaction is the illogical mentality that he was talking about.

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#106

Post by pdonis »

Fargren wrote: post #20
coldcode wrote: post #10

Bruce is always the voice of reason. Too bad the people in charge are the voices of insanity.

As Bruce points out, people who are personally responsible for things when they fail are not insane in being risk averse. From their perspective, they are just playing it safe. Maybe we should be finding a way to make no one personally responsible for failures. But this sounds counter-intuitive, as personal responsibility is acknowledged as an effective mechanism to make people do their work right.

Maybe we should be finding a way to make no one personally responsible for failures.

No, we need to stop making a small group of people, namely, the government, responsible for very large failures, by making them responsible for things that have a very large scope. Instead, a much larger group of people--i.e., everyone--need to each be responsible for a much smaller scope, so that no one person, or small group of people, has to bear by themselves the consequences of a large failure.

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#107

Post by emiliobumachar »

mikeash wrote: post #79
deerpig wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been a number of studies -- middle class children in Western countries now never go more than a couple of meters from their front door on their own. Growing up in the late 60's in New England, my parents kicked us out of the house in the morning during summers and no one thought twice about us unless we didn't show up for dinner. Children in American live under house arrest, they are used to having people…

I don't understand your last sentence. For most of what you list, nobody is forcing American parents to do this, they just choose to. Nothing stops you from letting your own children do things on their own.

Anecdote: at least one woman was arrested because her kids were playing outside:

http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/local_news/water_cooler/texas-...

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#108

Post by petervandijck »

acabal wrote: post #80

I think it's become a cultural thing, unfortunately. I've spent the last few years seeing the world, and the difference in attitudes between the people of many other countries and Americans at home is striking. We've become a fear-based culture. I have an anecdote from a month or two ago. My girlfriend--she's German--and I were in Boston's central park, where there's a wading pool for children. The place was extremel…

Which leads to a culture where everyone is afraid of touching kids that are not their own. It's really sad.

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#109

Post by emiliobumachar »

XorNot wrote: post #56

I found this article trite. It's merging 3 disparate concepts which have complex explanations, and deciding instead it's to do with risk. Militarization of the police force is a big one for example - that has practically nothing to do with risk and everything to do with politics and budgeting. It's "tough on crime" writ large, with people then demanding to see the results of all the money being spent which isn't need…

To re-state sibling ryguytilidie's point: risk aversion is the root cause. Risk aversion is the reason why voters favor politicians perceived to be "tough on crime", feeding the whole process you described.

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#110

Post by pzuraq »

Nicholas_C wrote: post #105
pzuraq wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a ridiculous comparison, The fact of the matter is that those decisions are completely logical. Whether or not global warming is happening, we will run out of fossil fuels and fissionable material eventually. Solar is renewable, self sustaining. By building out solar Germany is reducing there dependence on foreign countries and securing there future; Possibly helping to reduce global warming is just icing on t…

>That's a ridiculous comparison, The fact of the matter is that those decisions are completely logical. I don't think shutting down an entire industry in a knee jerk reaction is logical. Gently paring down fossil fuel energy consumption is logical. I think the extreme reaction is the illogical mentality that he was talking about.

It's more than a knee jerk reaction though, there are a lot of reasons to speed up the switch to solar and renewables. Global warming may have been a catalyst, but it was going to happen eventually and they figured sooner rather than later.
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