2009-05-28

Neophobia and the Irrational Fear of 'Radiation'

I've added some text to "General Neophobia in Everyday Life: Humankind's Fear of Progress and Change" by Vexen Crabtree (2009):

We saw that in zombie films and other hollwood products often used the idea of 'radiation', sometimes in a very simplistic manner, to sow the seeds of fear and horror. There exists as part of the fear of the invisible and the unknown, a fear of 'radiation'. This is despite the fact that the colours of the spectrum and radio signals are both forms of radiation, along with infra-red light (all are merely different frequencies on the electro-magnetic spectrum). This general fear of immaterial waves plays a part in the unfounded fears of mobile phones. Dr Frank Barnaby, a specialist on military technology and nuclear physics, points out that this fear is also a weapon in the hands of terrorists:

'The true impact of a dirty bomb would be the enormous social, psychological and economic disruption [...]. It would cause considerable fear, panic and social disruption, exactly the effects terrorists wish to achieve. The public fear of radiation is very great indeed, some say irrationally so.'

The effect is that, in the dirty bomb, terrorists have a particularly dangerous weapon only if the media continue to mislead people into believing it is particularly dangerous.”
From "Flat Earth News" by Nick Davies (2008)

Nick Davies, a journalist and media analyst, warns that as long as the media publish sensationalist articles and news that is not checked for scientific accuracy, such fears will continue to be spread in a self-perpetuating cycle.

2009-05-03

Life is Mostly Procrastination

All those things that you pursue to make yourself happy... such as good food, nice music, adorable pets... all those things are just placeholders.

The things in life that make you happy are generally not the things that give your life worth.

In other words: Watch out for all those addictive little pleasures that take up lots of time, but will be completely forgotten as soon as you die!