Eventually, you're going to die (so get over it)

As usual, xkcd has it right

With faster, masstier (it's a word now, dammit) media, mass fear becomes easier to achieve. Part of this is the downside of an imaginative age: being able to envision all sorts of possibilities includes plenty of horrors too. Part of it is the fact that most humans in industrialized nations live drastically comfortable lives compared to most of their ancestors.

However, at some level people are aware that much of the world (and even plenty in their own lands) are in a much more terrible state. So there's a very primal fear of a sudden disaster sweeping that all away. Hence politicians and prognosticators can make some hay out of situations that, while terrible, are extremely unlikely to come to pass.

Bruce Schneier has an excellent post on exactly this topic:

At a security conference recently, the moderator asked the panel of distinguished cybersecurity leaders what their nightmare scenario was. The answers were the predictable array of large-scale attacks: against our communications infrastructure, against the power grid, against the financial system, in combination with a physical attack.

I didn't get to give my answer until the afternoon, which was: "My nightmare scenario is that people keep talking about their nightmare scenarios."

There's a certain blindness that comes from worst-case thinking. An extension of the precautionary principle, it involves imagining the worst possible outcome and then acting as if it were a certainty. It substitutes imagination for thinking, speculation for risk analysis, and fear for reason. It fosters powerlessness and vulnerability and magnifies social paralysis. And it makes us more vulnerable to the effects of terrorism.

Worst-case thinking means generally bad decision making for several reasons. First, it's only half of the cost-benefit equation. Every decision has costs and benefits, risks and rewards. By speculating about what can possibly go wrong, and then acting as if that is likely to happen, worst-case thinking focuses only on the extreme but improbable risks and does a poor job at assessing outcomes.

Second, it's based on flawed logic. It begs the question by assuming that a proponent of an action must prove that the nightmare scenario is impossible.

Third, it can be used to support any position or its opposite. If we build a nuclear power plant, it could melt down. If we don't build it, we will run short of power and society will collapse into anarchy. If we allow flights near Iceland's volcanic ash, planes will crash and people will die. If we don't, organs won’t arrive in time for transplant operations and people will die. If we don't invade Iraq, Saddam Hussein might use the nuclear weapons he might have. If we do, we might destabilize the Middle East, leading to widespread violence and death.

Of course, not all fears are equal. Those that we tend to exaggerate are more easily justified by worst-case thinking. So terrorism fears trump privacy fears, and almost everything else; technology is hard to understand and therefore scary; nuclear weapons are worse than conventional weapons; our children need to be protected at all costs; and annihilating the planet is bad. Basically, any fear that would make a good movie plot is amenable to worst-case thinking.

Fourth and finally, worst-case thinking validates ignorance. Instead of focusing on what we know, it focuses on what we don't know -- and what we can imagine.

Exactly. Dwelling in all this is an unspoken truth that most people don't want to face: there is no such thing as absolute security. Of course, no political leader wants to go on television and say "look, we'll take every reasonable precaution and do our best to protect you, but in the end there's no way to stop every maniac from doing some damage or an unforeseen natural disaster. You might die from something we can't do shit about, no matter how capable we are."

Of course, that's hardly a comforting thought, but it is reality. It's something people are generally hesitant to face in their personal lives too. We don't want to think about the fact that we may be healthy, capable and smart, but still die randomly because there are simply too many big, unpredictable things out there to prepare perfectly against every last one. We can all be eaten by the storm.

Furthermore, trying to prepare for every possibility is insane and leads to paranoia personally and societally. Since it involves choices, over-preparing for one thing opens up vulnerabilities to others. A society paranoid about invasion will pour cash into their military, but neglect infrastructure and other essentials, actually making a catastrophe more likely (this was one factor in the USSR's fall).

This isn't an excuse for a lack of prudent preparation, of course. Safety rules, contingency plans and rainy-day funds all exist for a reason, and on a societal level, people should insist that they function. A positive approach is best summed up by the "Keep Calm and Carry On" attitude of London during the Blitz: not reckless, but not freaking out at the fact that danger existed.

Similarly, on a personal level, being aware of your surroundings, living a healthy life and knowing how to defend yourself all decrease the odds of catastrophe.

But they do not eliminate it. Sooner or later, that's something we all have to face. If any of us want to end up a future worth having, we'd probably better start demanding it in our culture as well. There are many routes to a better tomorrow. Fear is not one of them.

Comments

[Stacie]

What I find interesting about this whole thing is how to reconcile it with the excessive optimism and positivity culture that's a part of this country as well. The whole "if we just take out more loans and buy more shit, the situation will fix itself by the time we have to deal with it" mentality (applied to other situations too of course, not just monetary), and the thought that if you aren't succeeding, it's obviously because you just weren't thinking positively enough and therefore it's your own damn fault, other factors having no influence whatsover.

thoughts?