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I think some of the fear is justified. Climate change is a very real threat and it's justifiably scary. Our government, in the last 8 years, used remotely ope

I think some of the fear is justified. Climate change is a very real threat and it's justifiably scary. Our government, in the last 8 years, used remotely operated drones to carry out extrajudicial killings of American citizens -- including a teenage boy. Our security state now engages in mass surveillance of us in a time when our government is engaging in extraordinary rendition of suspected "terrorists" in secret with limited oversight. Economic inequality is worse than at almost any time in human history, including the gilded age prior to the great depression. That's not rhetoric, those are simple statements of fact. Those things are scary and fear of them is justified. We may be -- in this very moment -- at the safest point in human history. But the fear isn't about where we are. It's about where we're headed.

SideburnsOfDoom 10y ago
> Climate change ... extrajudicial killings ... those are simple statements of fact. Those things are scary and fear of them is justified. The funny thing is though, the anxieties that you see on TV are pretty much fear of anything but those things. You will see big-league fear-mongers using "hit them harder" with more extraordinary rendition and "climate change is a con to handicap us" lines of thought.
- karmelapple 10y ago
  This. The people talking about fear the most are not talking about any of the things in the grandparent post, and instead are asking to double down on that behavior.
jacquesm 10y ago
> Our government, in the last 8 years, used remotely operated drones to carry out extrajudicial killings of American citizens -- including a teenage boy. Not my government, but still I can't help but wonder why it should matter that they are American citizens. A very large multiple of citizens of other countries is murdered in this way and from where I'm sitting I don't see much difference between the two.
- tossaway1 10y ago
  One reason it matters is because our Constitution explicitly grants citizens (not foreigners) certain rights. Our government is not allowed to violate those rights and if they do, they can technically be held accountable. The government can do shady things to outsiders within the constraints of the Constitution. As long as our government is honoring the Constitution, we have some hope of fixing its problems/flaws. If they decide they don't need to honor the Constitution, we have little hope of doing so...
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
  - blaze33 10y ago
    There's still this thing called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that says "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person". The United States voted for it in 1948.
    - matt_wulfeck 10y ago
      And does it have any teeth? What happens when governments break it? At least in the United States there's a clear solution to the American government breaking the constitution, and that's an armed revolt as a last resort and a finally new government (but not necessarily new constitution). I'm absolutely not suggesting Americans do this. it's a just a consequence outlined both in history and the constitution.
  - legulere 10y ago
    The problem is not adherence to some constitution (especially the American constitution which contains quite some arbitrary and outdated things), but basic human rights. A constitution can be a legal framework for basic human rights, but many are pretty bad at that and the US has actively decided to not honor human rights (not accepting rulings of the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, etc.)
mcv 10y ago
There's plenty of reason for concern, but actual fear doesn't help you make rational decisions. We need a rational response to complex issues, not an emotional one. Fear is a bad advisor.
zer0gravity 10y ago
People have locks to their house doors but they don't have locks to their minds. Any burglar can come in and plant, not steal ideas, and then people think, hey.. this is my idea, it's in my mind. Critical thinking, this is the antidote. Protect your mind with critical thinking, and don't let any idea enter unscrutinized. It's better to dismiss it then let it enter unscrutinized. But don't dismiss everything, or you'll develop confirmation bias. Put in the effort to reflect on/research some of them..
harryf 10y ago
What's unique about this time in history is the degree of transparency and information we have available... > Our government, in the last 8 years, used remotely operated drones to carry out extrajudicial killings of American citizens -- including a teenage boy. Governments have done all manner of terrible things to their own people and others throughout history. What's new in this era is it's becoming harder and harder to hide such acts. That means, as a citizenry, we're collectively confronted with topics which, in the past, were kept hidden from us. That in turn means we have more "triggers" of fearful responses, and of course industries are growing to exploit that, but ultimately we're talking about something which is a Good Thing(TM).
- dsfyu404ed 10y ago
  It would feel so much nicer if they were hidden. You can't fear something you're unaware of. Even if there's lots of horrible things, any one person being made aware of more than a few is unlikely. I'm by no means advocating a lack of transparency but ignorance is bliss.
Bartweiss 10y ago
Without diving into specifics, I'm usually annoyed by people pitching "we're safer now than ever!" That argument almost always hinges on day-to-day, statistical safety; the most common citations are crime rates and life expectancies. It's a good rejoinder to certain things (like the cable news fixation on kidnappings and murders), but it's a deeply incomplete story. A lot of the most potent fears are black swan issues - something like bioweapons terrorism obviously isn't going to be reflected in everyday murder rates. Other issues are predictable and measurable, but not yet devastating. Environmental issues - not just warming, but things like drought and antibiotic resistance - are real and obvious problems. The fact that their harms will be suffered in the near future rather than now is no reason to neglect them. Very simply, the statistical argument for current safety is true but unrelated to a lot of what concerns us.
- L_Rahman 10y ago
  People pitching "we're safer now than ever" do so to allay cable news and talk radio induced fears of crime rates and immigration. There's an entirely different discussion to be had about existential threats to humanity, but 1. the majority of the populace is pre-occupied with fighting the cable news fear battle 2. the existential threats from antibiotic resistance, bioweapons and climate change require people to understand large numbers and dispersed threats. Humans tend to be bad at this on average.
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    True enough. A lot of the most popular fears are either unsupported or provably untrue; most of my friends grew up being warned that (effectively nonexistent) childsnatchers and murderers lurked behind every corner. The cable news fixation on lurid crimes by people who don't look like us is absurd and alarming. I guess I'm reacting more to the neoliberal insistence that things are getting better, and so we should all stay on this trajectory and not raise too many objections. It's a bait-and-switch where you rebut a popular fear ("crime is rising!") and pretend you've proven the broader point that there's nothing serious to fear. This sort of thing: https://www.wired.com/2016/10/president-obama-guest-edits-wired-essay https://www.wired.com/2016/10/president-obama-guest-edits-wi.... We're deeply wired to not appreciate low probability risk, but I think that there's also a popular technocratic-left narrative that actively minimizes those risks. (I also think that a lot of our ostensibly political gains amount to credit-taking for a handful of good outcomes in environmentalism and technology, but that's another matter.)
moises_silva 10y ago
> Economic inequality is worse than at almost any time in human history, including the gilded age prior to the great depression. I'm curious about this. Care to point to some references on this?
NumberCruncher 10y ago
>> I think some of the fear is justified. Just imagine for a second how it would be living in a world without penicillin. You will realise that your fear is caused by the pigbearman.

SideburnsOfDoom 10y ago

> Climate change ... extrajudicial killings ... those are simple statements of fact. Those things are scary and fear of them is justified. The funny thing is though, the anxieties that you see on TV are pretty much fear of anything but those things. You will see big-league fear-mongers using "hit them harder" with more extraordinary rendition and "climate change is a con to handicap us" lines of thought.

karmelapple 10y ago
This. The people talking about fear the most are not talking about any of the things in the grandparent post, and instead are asking to double down on that behavior.

jacquesm 10y ago

> Our government, in the last 8 years, used remotely operated drones to carry out extrajudicial killings of American citizens -- including a teenage boy. Not my government, but still I can't help but wonder why it should matter that they are American citizens. A very large multiple of citizens of other countries is murdered in this way and from where I'm sitting I don't see much difference between the two.

tossaway1 10y ago
One reason it matters is because our Constitution explicitly grants citizens (not foreigners) certain rights. Our government is not allowed to violate those rights and if they do, they can technically be held accountable. The government can do shady things to outsiders within the constraints of the Constitution. As long as our government is honoring the Constitution, we have some hope of fixing its problems/flaws. If they decide they don't need to honor the Constitution, we have little hope of doing so...
- digi_owl 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
- blaze33 10y ago
  There's still this thing called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that says "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person". The United States voted for it in 1948.
  - matt_wulfeck 10y ago
    And does it have any teeth? What happens when governments break it? At least in the United States there's a clear solution to the American government breaking the constitution, and that's an armed revolt as a last resort and a finally new government (but not necessarily new constitution). I'm absolutely not suggesting Americans do this. it's a just a consequence outlined both in history and the constitution.
- legulere 10y ago
  The problem is not adherence to some constitution (especially the American constitution which contains quite some arbitrary and outdated things), but basic human rights. A constitution can be a legal framework for basic human rights, but many are pretty bad at that and the US has actively decided to not honor human rights (not accepting rulings of the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, etc.)

mcv 10y ago

There's plenty of reason for concern, but actual fear doesn't help you make rational decisions. We need a rational response to complex issues, not an emotional one. Fear is a bad advisor.

zer0gravity 10y ago

People have locks to their house doors but they don't have locks to their minds. Any burglar can come in and plant, not steal ideas, and then people think, hey.. this is my idea, it's in my mind. Critical thinking, this is the antidote. Protect your mind with critical thinking, and don't let any idea enter unscrutinized. It's better to dismiss it then let it enter unscrutinized. But don't dismiss everything, or you'll develop confirmation bias. Put in the effort to reflect on/research some of them..

harryf 10y ago

What's unique about this time in history is the degree of transparency and information we have available... > Our government, in the last 8 years, used remotely operated drones to carry out extrajudicial killings of American citizens -- including a teenage boy. Governments have done all manner of terrible things to their own people and others throughout history. What's new in this era is it's becoming harder and harder to hide such acts. That means, as a citizenry, we're collectively confronted with topics which, in the past, were kept hidden from us. That in turn means we have more "triggers" of fearful responses, and of course industries are growing to exploit that, but ultimately we're talking about something which is a Good Thing(TM).

dsfyu404ed 10y ago
It would feel so much nicer if they were hidden. You can't fear something you're unaware of. Even if there's lots of horrible things, any one person being made aware of more than a few is unlikely. I'm by no means advocating a lack of transparency but ignorance is bliss.

Bartweiss 10y ago

Without diving into specifics, I'm usually annoyed by people pitching "we're safer now than ever!" That argument almost always hinges on day-to-day, statistical safety; the most common citations are crime rates and life expectancies. It's a good rejoinder to certain things (like the cable news fixation on kidnappings and murders), but it's a deeply incomplete story. A lot of the most potent fears are black swan issues - something like bioweapons terrorism obviously isn't going to be reflected in everyday murder rates. Other issues are predictable and measurable, but not yet devastating. Environmental issues - not just warming, but things like drought and antibiotic resistance - are real and obvious problems. The fact that their harms will be suffered in the near future rather than now is no reason to neglect them. Very simply, the statistical argument for current safety is true but unrelated to a lot of what concerns us.

L_Rahman 10y ago
People pitching "we're safer now than ever" do so to allay cable news and talk radio induced fears of crime rates and immigration. There's an entirely different discussion to be had about existential threats to humanity, but 1. the majority of the populace is pre-occupied with fighting the cable news fear battle 2. the existential threats from antibiotic resistance, bioweapons and climate change require people to understand large numbers and dispersed threats. Humans tend to be bad at this on average.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  True enough. A lot of the most popular fears are either unsupported or provably untrue; most of my friends grew up being warned that (effectively nonexistent) childsnatchers and murderers lurked behind every corner. The cable news fixation on lurid crimes by people who don't look like us is absurd and alarming. I guess I'm reacting more to the neoliberal insistence that things are getting better, and so we should all stay on this trajectory and not raise too many objections. It's a bait-and-switch where you rebut a popular fear ("crime is rising!") and pretend you've proven the broader point that there's nothing serious to fear. This sort of thing: https://www.wired.com/2016/10/president-obama-guest-edits-wired-essay https://www.wired.com/2016/10/president-obama-guest-edits-wi.... We're deeply wired to not appreciate low probability risk, but I think that there's also a popular technocratic-left narrative that actively minimizes those risks. (I also think that a lot of our ostensibly political gains amount to credit-taking for a handful of good outcomes in environmentalism and technology, but that's another matter.)

moises_silva 10y ago

> Economic inequality is worse than at almost any time in human history, including the gilded age prior to the great depression. I'm curious about this. Care to point to some references on this?

NumberCruncher 10y ago

>> I think some of the fear is justified. Just imagine for a second how it would be living in a world without penicillin. You will realise that your fear is caused by the pigbearman.