Get Some Common Sense -OR- At Least Be Self Aware of Your Thought Process

Just a great article over at Discover Magazine I wanted to share.  All about human perception and reactions to risk assessment. But really it's interesting.


Now personally I would call someone who would disregard global warming based solely on the fact it's snowing outside, where they are, a moron.   Not saying its real or fake (It's real. Moron.) but you need more information to base your oppinion on then an unrelated local weather report.  That's just common sense to me.

Basically its all about the idea that people will step in front of a moving bus thoughtlessly, killing themselves, because they were afraid they'd get hit by a meteor if they didn't move off the sidewalk, an event that had no realistically probability of actually happening.  Where as walking into traffic suddenly and without looking should have a very obvious and immediate risk value attributed to it.

Here's an excerpt that I really thought horrifically ironic:

"During the year following the September 11 attacks, millions of Americans opted out of air travel and slipped behind the wheel instead. While they crisscrossed the country, listening to breathless news coverage of anthrax attacks, extremists, and Homeland Security, they faced a much more concrete risk. All those extra cars on the road increased traffic fatalities by nearly 1,600. Airlines, on the other hand, recorded no fatalities."

Spooky huh? But that's the most sensationalistic bit in the article, mostly its more immediate stuff that we could effect positive change over by exploring this aspect of human nature.



I also endorse the intent behind the organ donor thing.  If everyone was a mandatory organ donor there would be no downsides, not in contrast to the countless lives that would be saved over time.  If it's actually just a matter of human nature that "most" people simply can not get over the fact that it's an unsettling and a little frightening a thought that someone is going to harvest your organs when you're dead then lets just take the option off the table.   Stop asking. If it's just a matter of perception then fuck you, you're dead, little Jimmy gets your still healthy liver and the chance to grow up.  In a hundred years when everyone who thinks of it as a being an "issue" to debate and get uptight over is dead and all that's left are the people who spent their entire lives with it being a normal everyday life saving medical practice, well, then the worlds actually been made a better place. That'd be great for a change.

But don't worry, Discovery, I'm sure, says it in a way that's much less scary and easier to swallow.  Though I wold argue, metaphorically, that someone who refuses the cure for cancer because there's no spoon full of sugar to help choke it down also made available to them probably deserves to die from cancer.  Luckily there are more patient minds them mine who think about this stuff as well, that at least gives me some small hope for humanity.

What You Don't Know Can Kill You by Jason Daley - Discovery Magazine