Our Newfound Fear of Risk • Hacker News Board

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#41

Post by icegreentea » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 3:50 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #34

Vivtek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And did that invasion change anything? Were the Taliban or al Qaeda eliminated by that invasion? Did you notice that the exact same justification was used to attack neighboring Iraq? Sorry, but I happen to have lived through that year and the years following, and I know that given an America that lived up to its own hype, an invasion was easily avoidable. It's just that such an America doesn't exist. Too bad for us a…

Even if the invasion was required, nothing required us to occupy the place for a decade and counting, turning it into a perpetual war. Hook up with the Northern Alliance, bomb the hell out of their enemies, set them up, leave. They can't hold on to power? Oh well. The point has been made. The country returns to dictatorship and chaos? Well, that happened anyway.

You may recall the last time something like that happened to Afghanistan, it led to the whole civil war that resulted in the rise of the Taliban and AQ in the first place.

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#42

Post by mikeash » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 3:52 PM UTC

icegreentea wrote: post #41

mikeash wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the invasion was required, nothing required us to occupy the place for a decade and counting, turning it into a perpetual war. Hook up with the Northern Alliance, bomb the hell out of their enemies, set them up, leave. They can't hold on to power? Oh well. The point has been made. The country returns to dictatorship and chaos? Well, that happened anyway.

You may recall the last time something like that happened to Afghanistan, it led to the whole civil war that resulted in the rise of the Taliban and AQ in the first place.

As opposed to this time, which is leading to a whole civil war that's probably going to result in the rise of the Taliban again?

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#43

Post by awj » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 3:54 PM UTC

newobj wrote: post #11

Related: at the PARK this weekend, and heard all the following utterances in the span of ten minutes from some parents: "NO RUNNING!" "IT'S DANGEROUS HERE" "YOU'RE GONNA GET HURT" "NO RUNNING!" Talk about instilling fear and creating risk aversion. Sometimes you just have to let a child find out for themselves what's safe and what isn't. What you can get up and dust yourself off from and what you can't. It's hard to…

As a parent-to-be, this is the one thing that scares me most. You can't learn risk assessment while living in a bubble. Which means I'm going to have to watch my kids run into problems I know I could prevent because what they learn from the experience is more valuable than preventing the situation.

That is a terrifyingly difficult decision, given the potential consequences.

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#44

Post by alayne » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 3:58 PM UTC

newobj wrote: post #11

Related: at the PARK this weekend, and heard all the following utterances in the span of ten minutes from some parents: "NO RUNNING!" "IT'S DANGEROUS HERE" "YOU'RE GONNA GET HURT" "NO RUNNING!" Talk about instilling fear and creating risk aversion. Sometimes you just have to let a child find out for themselves what's safe and what isn't. What you can get up and dust yourself off from and what you can't. It's hard to…

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.

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#45

Post by BillyMaize » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 4:03 PM UTC

newobj wrote: post #11

Related: at the PARK this weekend, and heard all the following utterances in the span of ten minutes from some parents: "NO RUNNING!" "IT'S DANGEROUS HERE" "YOU'RE GONNA GET HURT" "NO RUNNING!" Talk about instilling fear and creating risk aversion. Sometimes you just have to let a child find out for themselves what's safe and what isn't. What you can get up and dust yourself off from and what you can't. It's hard to…

Having grown up with parents who acted like this I can say it makes for a miserable childhood.

I wasn't allowed to even ride my bike past one neighbors house on each side when I was a kid because my parents were convinced I would be kidnapped. I couldn't go to a friends house without my parents walking me all the way up to the door and then I had to report home every hour or two or they would call the police as if I was missing. They wouldn't even let me use sharp silverware because I might have hurt myself accidentally. And don't get me started on learning to drive....

I realized only in college how sheltered my life was when I noticed how everyone else was living their lives while I was constantly afraid I was going to die any minute. It has taken years to undo the damage and I honestly despise my parents for it (among other reasons as well).

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#46

Post by graeme » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 4:03 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #38

rayiner wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd bet that much of the issue stems from the decline in birth rates among middle/upper middle class parents relative to the days of yore. When you only manage to pop out one or two kids, at great career sacrifice and monetary expense, each one seems to matter more than they did back in the day. Also, paradoxically, the safer things get the more people worry about the dangers that remain. This is rational. Say doing…

I would say it's got less to do with the perceived (even subconsciously) value of the children, and more the experience of the parents. For the first child, you're often hyper-conscious of threats and problems. With later children you've better assessed what's important to pay attention to and what isn't.

In case anyone didn't notice the implied point here: a far greater percentage of children are now the first child.

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#47

Post by graeme » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 4:06 PM UTC

alayne wrote: post #44

newobj wrote: post #11

Related: at the PARK this weekend, and heard all the following utterances in the span of ten minutes from some parents: "NO RUNNING!" "IT'S DANGEROUS HERE" "YOU'RE GONNA GET HURT" "NO RUNNING!" Talk about instilling fear and creating risk aversion. Sometimes you just have to let a child find out for themselves what's safe and what isn't. What you can get up and dust yourself off from and what you can't. It's hard to…

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.

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#48

Post by graeme » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 4:08 PM UTC

HPLovecraft wrote: post #37

alan_cx wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1984, the US funded IRA bombed the entire UK government, nearly killed them all. The UK did not invade Northern Ireland or Ireland. The police investigated, made arrests and people were convicted. Acting humanely is not that hard.

link to US government funding? Or are you referring to private funding by US citizens?

Private funding. It's well known the ira raised funds from easy coast cities.

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#49

Post by zeteo » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 4:11 PM UTC

It was a lot easier to tolerate risk when people had a common Big Picture. This could be provided by religion, ideology etc. Such attitudes still hold in some places, e.g. Amish communities seem more resilient after school shootings [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_school_shooting#Amish_com...

Re: Our Newfound Fear of Risk

#50

Post by gioele » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 4:16 PM UTC

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. But this sounds counter-intuitive, as personal responsibility is acknowledged as an effective mechanism to make people do their work right.

I think that a good middle-ground is what happens with judges in most of EU. In most systems you cannot directly sue a single judge for some misconduct that happened during a process. What you have to do is to sue "the state". Another judge will then judge the matter but then it is you vs the state, not against a single person; it is the state that takes care of all the legal things and legal costs. This gives the judges the freedom they need to be severe but just. Without this protection they will always be afraid of being sued by the losing party, especially when the losing party is a big, rich corporation.

Obviously, to counterbalance this exceptionally high degree of defence enjoyed by the judges, the state usually punish the judge with a fine or a suspension. But the intermediation of the state is able to rebalance the risks: if you do something wrong you risk a big fine, but you will not be dragged personally in a 10-year process that will destroy your career and your finances.