LED signs, meta analysis. Uncomfortable thoughts.
I wont repeat the details of the Great Boston LED Fiasco. You all know them already. But i will talk about some things that are now churning around in my head after a not-so-restful night of sleep last night.
While driving home from Silks last night, i was listening to Steve Lovelli, a talk show on WBZ. Steve is generally reasonably sane about things, but in this case he was playing right in repeating the whole "hoax" lie, and a steady stream of callers were calling in and basically demanding perpetrators heads on platters. The repeated theme of the evening, for me, was how most people were totally willing to twist even the most obviously benign scenarios into "that would be exactly what a terrorist would do, to fool us into thinking it was safe." I heard several callers , one of whom was retired law enforcememnt, seriously suggest that the event could be a terrorist group like Al Qaeda, who both had infiltrated both the Cartoon Network, and set up a terror cell in charlestown, and this could just be a "Probe" in order to see how city officials react, in order to plan future attacks. He was very adamant that this was possible, and we must be "vigilant" and "take no chances". To me, this is just as silly as "God planted all the fossils to test our faith!"
But people would go right along, and buy right in to it. And, more importantly, judging from voice tone, and demeanor, these callers appeared to *enjoy* thinking about the world that way. How have we gotten to this state? And more importantly: Why do we stay there? The only thing i can come up with, is that somehow, as bizarre as it sounds, people *find comfort* in being afraid.
So thats my uncomfortable thought for the day.
Thesis: On the whole, humans find comfort in the state of being afraid. Discuss.
While driving home from Silks last night, i was listening to Steve Lovelli, a talk show on WBZ. Steve is generally reasonably sane about things, but in this case he was playing right in repeating the whole "hoax" lie, and a steady stream of callers were calling in and basically demanding perpetrators heads on platters. The repeated theme of the evening, for me, was how most people were totally willing to twist even the most obviously benign scenarios into "that would be exactly what a terrorist would do, to fool us into thinking it was safe." I heard several callers , one of whom was retired law enforcememnt, seriously suggest that the event could be a terrorist group like Al Qaeda, who both had infiltrated both the Cartoon Network, and set up a terror cell in charlestown, and this could just be a "Probe" in order to see how city officials react, in order to plan future attacks. He was very adamant that this was possible, and we must be "vigilant" and "take no chances". To me, this is just as silly as "God planted all the fossils to test our faith!"
But people would go right along, and buy right in to it. And, more importantly, judging from voice tone, and demeanor, these callers appeared to *enjoy* thinking about the world that way. How have we gotten to this state? And more importantly: Why do we stay there? The only thing i can come up with, is that somehow, as bizarre as it sounds, people *find comfort* in being afraid.
So thats my uncomfortable thought for the day.
Thesis: On the whole, humans find comfort in the state of being afraid. Discuss.