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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, statistica

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.)

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.)