The Catastrophe Constant and Fear Multiple

I was having dinner with my family last night, enjoying a quiet moment, when the TV that was left on in the next room hissed with static.  You know that feeling, wondering if you have picked up on a weak signal to a catastrophe.  Knowing that at anytime peace could be disturbed with senseless horror.  And we have been sensitized that now is the greatest time of risk.

Some people obsess about suitcase bombs, terrorism and viral disease.  There seems to be a more common belief, perhaps furthered by the current Administration, that the risk of catastrophe is greater than ever.  But if you look at catastrophe being damage done through technology, accidental or with purpose, I'm not sure this is true.

The Cold War made us fear how wide-spread the impact of a single incident could be.  Of course, such technology was only in the hands of a few governments.  Now we have super-empowered individuals and social networks.  Theoretically the odds of incidents, their frequency and scale, have increased. Regardless, society has evolved over time as well as technologies of saftey.

In the early days of the industrial revolution, I'd suggest that you had incidents of greater frequency but smaller scale.  Most of them accidental, steam engines exploding and mines collapsing, and at a time when medical and safety technology and practices were less developed.

The media has changed both the measurement, distance of awareness, memory and amplification of catastrophes as stories.  We fear things that don't threaten us directly, have our fears framed by others and it is fear itself that is the story.

I just want to offer up a small theory that I don't have time to test.  The net impact of technological catastrophes is a relative constant from the industrial to information eras, but fear in the information era compounds.

UPDATE: Thanks for letting me share this half-baked theory. Upon reflection, technological catastrophe compounds with second order effects, like global warming.  More baking to come.

Comments

[rob adams]

I'd suggest that the full-weight of "super-empowered" individuals (e.g., "UBL"'s with WMD technology within their "social-network") has yet to be full employed. Like the industrial revolution, it takes time for these eras to become globally pervasive (e.g., The Wild West, Africa, etc); Often in history, only when a technology (or a mode of technology: industrial/info/nano) is pervasive is its true potential and consequence seen.

We most certainly are gradually entering, in it's full, horrific entirety, a far more dangerous era than that of the industrial revolution. This era is about as consequential as the era ushered in by our development and widespread use of the technology known as fire.

Just as with fire and industrialization, awful things can and will be done with this new mode. Who survives, and how, should be more an issue of concern and debate.

[Vladimir Dzhuvinov]

Intriguing hypothesis. I too have my own moments of reflecting and pondering, trying to understand what's really going on in our world :)

Does today's media cause more fear? To me it depends no how we look at it.

Yes, our modern hi-tech media has a great ability to spread and amplify messages. News today can spread around the globe in no time, reaching millions. But then, looking at the essence of media we see that it is exactly what the word means - a conduit for our messages. Maybe I should add, a "neutral" conduit :)

Are we getting bombarded with more messages, including ones which carry fear, than a century ago? Probably yes!

Have we grown more fearful (willing to cause and be subjected to fear, to spread messages containing emotions of fear) for the past 100 years? I don't know.

Does the greater amount of messages carrying fear automatically cause more fear among people? I don't think so. A message carries information, but it has no inherent meaning. The meaning is given by the recipient, in his mind. Therefore sender and recipient are practically independent from each other.

[Don Park]

It is my observation that the degree to sensitivity to the trade of fear differs significantly between men and women, meaning it is mostly men that behaves like paranoid prairie-dogs, looking for sudden violent threats where women folk tend to be more concerned about slow agonizing threats.

[vinnie mirchandani]

there once was a horror movie with the tag line to the effect of what enters your head never leaves. We are exposed to more, and therefore scare more. And we react differently - both as individuals, and as individuals to different inputs

. I have flown on 9/11 every year since 2001 (except this one - did not have a reason to) but flights are still empty that day. Sure for some it is their way of expressing respect for the day, for many others it is fear.

Now, last night I went to see the movie The Departed. The parking lot was empty except for this couple sitting on the floor near my car. I was sure they were going to walk up to my car with my gun. Having walked out of a violent movie with a lot of close range deaths in the last few minutes, that was my primal, irrational fear...