[extropy-chat] Re: The Force of Human Freedom

[J. Andrew Rogers]

Samantha Atkins wrote:
> It is rather difficult to evaluate general cultural conditions while 
> not sampling many cultural elements.  Do you disagree that there is a 
> high level of fear operational in our culture a this time?


Any reactionary fear from 11Sept2001 has greatly dissipated, almost to
background level for most people in most places.  What has changed is
that most people are far more aware of yet another risk to life and
limb, but most seem to treat it in the same way they treat airline
disasters.  There have been at least a half dozen different things that
have gotten the public all riled up in a tizzy of fear over the last two
decades, and the whole terrorism bit is just one of the more recent and
substantive ones.  I will grant that in a big picture sense, the threat
from Islamic radicals is a much nastier and more difficult problem than
most of the other issues that trigger reactions of fear, so some fear is
warranted.

One significant difference between the nature of the threat of Islamic
radicalism versus most other threats that come along into the public's
consciousness is that the jihadi threat suggests significant changes to
the default calculus of dealing with the usual risks.  For example, the
impact of Islamic radicalism is far less random than most of the other
"big threats" that cross the minds of the average person.

For many of the other threat memes there is no intention to kill any
specific persons, and so the primary solution is to simply get out of
the way.  Most really big disasters are like this.  Not so with Islamic
extremism.  It is the difference between getting hit by a stray bullet
and getting hit by a bullet intentionally aimed at you.  Two very
different strategies are required to protect one's self from both
scenarios, and most people have never considered the latter one.

cheers,

j. andrew rogers