Continuing Thoughts from the Previous Post
In the comments of Trends for the Future, CDL asks, Seriously, why wouldn't I make my kid wear a helmet when he was off riding bikes with his friends? So maybe the bike helmet or the seat belt aren't the best individual examples. But it's not really that any of the particular steps being taken are bad--really they're generally good ideas, which is why we are doing them; they do keep us safer. It's just that the overall attitude that has changed (our paradigm has shifted?), our basic perspective is now that the world is a terribly dangerous and threatening place that we must insulate ourselves from in every way possible. We have a besieged mentality.
On the news this morning they were doing a story about how people will let utility workers into their homes without questioning their authenicity. They set someone up with an official looking outfit and official looking (but forged) ID badge, and thought that it was awful that people didn't greet him with a locked door and call his superiors to make sure he was legitimate. Is that what we're really supposed to do, keep our doors locked and never open them to anyone we don't recognize? Sure every so often a nefarious person will attempt a robbery by disguising themselves as someone trusted, but you can never be 100% safe. No matter what safeguards we put in place someone will find a way around them. So do we trust no one? Assume everyone is a threat? Lock ourselves away and only have contact with the outside world through virtual encounters on Second Life?
(Oh, wait, online encounters are supposed to be even more dangerous and potentially depraved than real ones. I mean, check out this guy.)
posted by Degolar @ 12:56 PM
1 Comments:
There was a discussion in one of my MLS classes that helped me understand this "besieged mentality" or at least one aspect of it. Watch your local news. There is usually some story, with lots of scary promos, about some horrible event. When they finally get to the story, it is about an incident that took place hundreds of miles away. Slow news day here, let's use some of the exciting news and video from Idaho which is now instantly avialable. After listening to enough of these though, you tend to think there are lots of bad, scary, horrible things happening right in your neighborhood all the time.
As for the trust issue, that's why I liked the movie Crash so much. It made you think about all your perceptions.
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