Fear is the Mind-Killer Part 1
I don't mean to tread on ground that had already been traversed by everyone with a political bent that begins with "lib", but I have to hold them accountable too. Libertarians, Liberals, Conservatives, Anarchist, Motorheads, wastoids.... whoops, but seriously, fear is used as the catch all to convince others that it is time for action. Whether it is to fight terrorists, start a war, stop the combustion process in all its forms, stop the government, go to heaven, vote, or eat vegetables, fear is the common impetus for human action.
I must admit that I have an advantage. My father did not instill me with societal fear, but instead raised me to believe that the worst outcome was the most common outcome, so the only thing to do is prepare for the inevitable. I am happy to report that so far he has been wrong, but I do appreciate the idealism this manner of upbringing has sparked in me. To give an example that is oft repeated in the family: I know how to survive nuclear winter. I have known how to survive it since I was 8 years old. I will avoid the nitty-gritty details of it all, but just know that I do not fear nuclear winter because I have been empowered with the means to survive in the worst of conditions. To be fair, old pops could be wrong, and I will be the first to be devoured by cockroaches the size of Labradors, but I feel confident that I would survive, and, if comic books are to be believed, mutate into a super-being of unimaginable power and spend the rest of my life posing and talking to myself.
Because of fear we are continuing to allow our liberties to be eroded. Not just to counter terrorism, but to support propaganda that we accept as morality. For example: There appears, almost monthly, a bill, or even a few lines in a bill, that would mandate a broadcast flag be attached to radio and/or television broadcasts that would make it both difficult and illegal to record over the air television/radio. We can see this as ludicrous because we are accustomed to our TiVos, however we are already beginning to believe as a society that there is some moral wrong in copying a DVD or computer program for personal use or a backup. In fact according to the DMCA passed in 1998 it is already illegal. This does not make it immoral as the recent law conflicts with the definition of fair use as established in the beta max case. We are a law abiding society, but we are far too passive and afraid of the law
The entire environmentalist movement is pushed forward by fear. There comes a point when the layman can no longer understand the numbers or cause and effect of a large system. When this happens, hypothesis becomes hyperbole and the future generations of scientists make assumptions before doing their research. This further skews the results and leads toward a rather predictable landslide of panic. I'm still waiting for the ozone to disappear, the population of the earth to overrun the world like ants, global cooling, and mutants. Every decade the focus shifts, but every decade the story is the same; we must frantically do something, or our children and grandchildren will die. This never involves much thought, it only involves frantically doing what you're told. This is not to say that I am against environmental protection. I am, however, against the method by which the environmental spirit propagates.
Fear keeps one of the best solutions to the environmental "crisis" from being further researched and used: nuclear energy. If you're worried about waste product and nuclear storage I suggest you look up fast breeder reactors and France's Phenix. To put it simply, nuclear waste can be transmuted by the neutron discharge of another fission reaction, and a new element is created with a very short half-life, virtually eliminating the difficulties of nuclear waste storage. The funniest part is that a larger version of the Phenix was stopped due to the actions of an environmentalist group worried about nuclear proliferation (a side effect of the design means it is easier to extract weapons grade fissionable nuclear materials from such a reactor).
This has gotten long.... I'll continue it later.
I must admit that I have an advantage. My father did not instill me with societal fear, but instead raised me to believe that the worst outcome was the most common outcome, so the only thing to do is prepare for the inevitable. I am happy to report that so far he has been wrong, but I do appreciate the idealism this manner of upbringing has sparked in me. To give an example that is oft repeated in the family: I know how to survive nuclear winter. I have known how to survive it since I was 8 years old. I will avoid the nitty-gritty details of it all, but just know that I do not fear nuclear winter because I have been empowered with the means to survive in the worst of conditions. To be fair, old pops could be wrong, and I will be the first to be devoured by cockroaches the size of Labradors, but I feel confident that I would survive, and, if comic books are to be believed, mutate into a super-being of unimaginable power and spend the rest of my life posing and talking to myself.
Because of fear we are continuing to allow our liberties to be eroded. Not just to counter terrorism, but to support propaganda that we accept as morality. For example: There appears, almost monthly, a bill, or even a few lines in a bill, that would mandate a broadcast flag be attached to radio and/or television broadcasts that would make it both difficult and illegal to record over the air television/radio. We can see this as ludicrous because we are accustomed to our TiVos, however we are already beginning to believe as a society that there is some moral wrong in copying a DVD or computer program for personal use or a backup. In fact according to the DMCA passed in 1998 it is already illegal. This does not make it immoral as the recent law conflicts with the definition of fair use as established in the beta max case. We are a law abiding society, but we are far too passive and afraid of the law
The entire environmentalist movement is pushed forward by fear. There comes a point when the layman can no longer understand the numbers or cause and effect of a large system. When this happens, hypothesis becomes hyperbole and the future generations of scientists make assumptions before doing their research. This further skews the results and leads toward a rather predictable landslide of panic. I'm still waiting for the ozone to disappear, the population of the earth to overrun the world like ants, global cooling, and mutants. Every decade the focus shifts, but every decade the story is the same; we must frantically do something, or our children and grandchildren will die. This never involves much thought, it only involves frantically doing what you're told. This is not to say that I am against environmental protection. I am, however, against the method by which the environmental spirit propagates.
Fear keeps one of the best solutions to the environmental "crisis" from being further researched and used: nuclear energy. If you're worried about waste product and nuclear storage I suggest you look up fast breeder reactors and France's Phenix. To put it simply, nuclear waste can be transmuted by the neutron discharge of another fission reaction, and a new element is created with a very short half-life, virtually eliminating the difficulties of nuclear waste storage. The funniest part is that a larger version of the Phenix was stopped due to the actions of an environmentalist group worried about nuclear proliferation (a side effect of the design means it is easier to extract weapons grade fissionable nuclear materials from such a reactor).
This has gotten long.... I'll continue it later.
Comments
Post a Comment