Sapere Aude
Tag: safety_fetish
Kids do get preyed upon, but not in the way that it’s depicted in the media, and none of the cell-phone-tracking, spyware-installing fear-based parenting does squat to protect them. If you want to keep your kids safe, you need to know what you’re keeping them safe from.
far too evidence-based for such an emotional topic. watch this go nowhere
There are lots of threats to you in the world. There’s the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can’t sit there and worry about everything. Get a life
bloomberg displays numerical literacy. i hope it catches on.
In a scene reminiscent of the Cartoon Network bomb scare that paralyzed the Boston area in January, police shut down a strip mall yesterday in this small western suburb after employees at a Bank of America branch mistook a botched fax for a bomb threat. The branch overreacted to the strange fax, which turned out to be an in-house marketing document sent by the bank’s corporate office.
what is BoA doing sending stupid faxes like that? the solution: radically cut down the number of branches and switch people to online banking
I tell people that if it’s in the news, don’t worry about it. The very definition of “news” is “something that hardly ever happens.” It’s when something isn’t in the news, when it’s so common that it’s no longer news — car crashes, domestic violence — that you should start worrying.
There are many crybabies these days who cry “terrorism” when criticized. It’s a sickening new trend that needs to crawl back under the rock from which it came. I think boing boing should point out these losers whenever they play the “terrorism card,” making light of their cowardice. The URL included reports the Vatican called an Italian comedian a terrorist for criticizing the Pope.
Children in the old days were allowed and encouraged to experiment with mildly risky but extremely rewarding activities. Today’s children, on the other hand, are mollycoddled to the point of turning them into unhappy ignoramuses.
We are far from being the rational creatures that we like to think we are. When asked to imagine that a laundered sweater had been worn by someone who had contracted HIV through a blood transfusion, most people said they wouldn’t wear it.
Want your Bic lighter mailed back to you? That’ll be $45, please. Oh, and just in case the entire security process wasn’t humiliating enough, a video camera embedded in the kiosk records the entire transaction for your “safety.”
Matt was working as a contractor for a branch of the government. He made the mistake of being interested in the hobby of paper target shooting at about the same time as the VA Tech shootings and talking to someone about this hobby at work. Keep in mind he wasn’t even talking about those shootings, in fact he was discussing how he wanted a gun which would make it difficult to kill someone. He was promptly fired and not allowed back to work because people were scared of him. To top it all off, he was later visited by police detectives for making a comic about his experience, because it was a “borderline terroristic threat.”
when drones get worked up in a frenzy. the safety fetish claims a new victim
a new way to visualize, and become instantly aware of terrorism and security incidents across the world
wow, tacky! i would like a “false alarm” %.
Gregor J. Rothfuss 