Prompted by a Charles Stross blog thread again. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/03/memetic-prophylactic-recommend.html#comment-293316 Much discussion that centred on a bunch of Brits saying "The USA seems to be a scared society. And it's self justifying." And then other Brits pointing out that the UK is not that different. The gist being that if you constantly reinforce the idea that bad actors are going to try to get you, then everyone ends up paranoid, unwilling to help others, isolated and angry. A beautiful recipe for an impending social explosion.
It's a self-perpetuating arms race as well. If everybody locks their doors to avoid being burgled, the burglars will look for the unlocked door. When they can't find one they'll look for the easy break in. And then the one without the burglar alarm. Or the Video cams. Or the bars on all the windows. Or without the attack dog and fully autonomous robot tasers.
Reminds me of one of the principles of Zenarchy, prisons create prisoners; crime laws create crime.
De-fearing starts with yourself. The first thing is to get comfortable with comparing the rates of negative (and positive!) outcomes for different activities or choices. For example if motorcycling is twice as dangerous as driving does that mean you shouldn't ride? If my chance of dying go up to 1/1, 000,000 that's a lot different than if they go up to 1/2.
Then you have to start spreading the sanity to family and friends.
+Ron Porter Say you want a revolution, huh? I was always a bit dis-satisfied with the slogan "if you want to change the world, first change yourself". It has some truthiness, but it denies any ability for the man of action to also change the world.
The whole point of asking the question is to try and sneak up on an answer to how we get from here to there. Constantly ramping up the fear (to obtain power, win votes, make money, get funding, or whatever) becomes a self fulfilling prophesy.
+Julian Bond No, not 'only change yourself', but 'first change yourself'. After you've made the change in yourself, or at least have the process under way, you can start taking it to the world. All very easy to say, but I'm not the man of action you need. I'm content to live it for myself and do my best to educate friends and family.
17 Amwell St
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/03/memetic-prophylactic-recommend.html#comment-293316 Much discussion that centred on a bunch of Brits saying "The USA seems to be a scared society. And it's self justifying." And then other Brits pointing out that the UK is not that different. The gist being that if you constantly reinforce the idea that bad actors are going to try to get you, then everyone ends up paranoid, unwilling to help others, isolated and angry. A beautiful recipe for an impending social explosion.
It's a self-perpetuating arms race as well. If everybody locks their doors to avoid being burgled, the burglars will look for the unlocked door. When they can't find one they'll look for the easy break in. And then the one without the burglar alarm. Or the Video cams. Or the bars on all the windows. Or without the attack dog and fully autonomous robot tasers.
Reminds me of one of the principles of Zenarchy, prisons create prisoners; crime laws create crime.
Then you have to start spreading the sanity to family and friends.
The whole point of asking the question is to try and sneak up on an answer to how we get from here to there. Constantly ramping up the fear (to obtain power, win votes, make money, get funding, or whatever) becomes a self fulfilling prophesy.