Comment by axod | Hacker News Reader

Comment by axod | Hacker News Reader

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The problem is, people seem to genuinely like living in fear. Maybe it gives them something to talk about, maybe it's like being on a roller-coaster, but the media wouldn't blow things out of all proportion unless there was a market for it. Politicians wouldn't make some of these crazy laws if the public didn't demand it.

People buy newspapers less to hear about the real news but to be worried/scared/concerned about stupid stuff they shouldn't care about.

I think it's societies fascination with that sort of thing that needs fixing.

The vast majority of us will live largely uneventful lives and will die of old age/cancer/heart attack/etc. We're not going to have our kids abducted, be the victim of terrorism, die from swine flu etc.

Maybe it's that "You're going to lead an uneventful life" bit that people just can't bear to face.

The worst one recently is pedophilia. I went to my sons play at school a while back, and we were told we must not video the play, and at the end we were told we could take pictures, but only of our own children, not of other peoples children, and not of groups of children together!

Of course everyone ignored the headteacher and instead used common sense - taking group photos etc, but it's incredibly disturbing to see such ridiculous policies come into place. What sort of message are we sending our kids?

(If you haven't seen the Brasseye pedophilia special you should definitely watch it. Classic).

"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.

That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

--Herman Goering, Nuremberg Diary, April 18, 1946

"The problem is, people seem to genuinely like living in fear."

I don't know; I suspect people react very easily to "leadership" hints and cues about danger, and it's thus useful for politicians (of any stripe) to encourage fear.

http://sivers.org/drama

J.G. Ballard makes the same point, in the opposite direction: if we can't have both modern comforts and our hearts' desires, we may eventually give up on what we have in favor of what we want -- and may even be right to do so.

There will always be some who do. G.K. Chesterton spoke of the "rational and deliberate preference which will always to the end trouble the peace of the world, the rational and deliberate preference for a short life and a merry one." (_Napoleon of Notting Hill_, chapter 8.)

Theodore Dalrymple found that preference in many of the English homeless; he was surprised to find that homeless wandering "is not without its compensations," and sounds like he was half-convinced to turn vagrant himself -- but read the article, http://www.city-journal.org/html/6_4_oh_to_be.html. Dalrymple also detects this preference for adventure over security in some of the English underclass... and, more worrisomely, Chesterton -- who knew of what he spoke -- detected it in the Nazis.

In other words: if we value our prosperity and idleness -- or even if we value simpler, more obvious ideals like "not torturing" and "not trying to exterminate the Jews" -- we should probably do something to make life a little less dull for those who prefer something else over dullness.

I don't support Ballard's methods, to say the least (read a book or two of his and you'll see why not); but perhaps permitting Americans to fight as mercenaries abroad, and relaxing our self-defense laws at home, might be a good first step? Or making the military a better-paying and less bureaucratic place?

Our need for fear is probably very deeply rooted in the primal desire for survival.

Fear drives almost everything we do, really. Fear of starvation due to random events out of our control leads to the invention of farming. Fear of being homeless leads to a work ethic. Fear of being alone leads us to form bonds with others. Fear is probably the only universal motivator.

Maybe it's that "You're going to lead an uneventful life" bit that people just can't bear to face.

I agree, its why Huxley had the idea of V.P.S Treatment in Brave New World.

http://www.huxley.net/bnw/seventeen.html

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