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Why are people always so quick to overreact and assume the worst? In the past few years, we have had more "crisises" than I can count. Every single time, the media sensationalizes these mini-crisises as though they were doomsday scenarios. And every time, everyone around me (friends, family, etc.) drink the Kool-Aid. We've seen this for everything from SARS to the recent oil spill. Every time the event is supposed to affect lives years down the road, while the real effects are insignificant to none.
For example, many of us still remember the Bird Flu and SARS "pandemics". More recently, it was the H1N1 Swine Flu virus. For months the media reported about these diseases, shitting us with the same fucking line. "These diseases could evolve and KILL MILLIONS OF PEOPLE." What ended up happening? Billions of dollars worth of resources get wasted, untested and potentially dangerous vaccines are distributed, and in the end, your fucking bathtub ends up being more dangerous to you than these diseases.
The recent oil spill also illustrates my point. By now, over 70% of the spill is gone through natural deterioration and burning (NOAA, article is here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100805/ap_on_sc/us_gulf_spill_gone). Although the effects of the spill will still be felt years down the road, the media wanted to paint the spill as basically the end of BP and the death of the Gulf Coast for the next hundred years. Neither will occur.
What amazes me is not that the media sensationalizes marginal news, but that people keep believing this bullshit. I'd think that after awhile, people would learn to take things with a grain of salt.
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Its the medias job, they gots to get paid ya feel me?
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It's a nice distraction for our shitty lives.
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And this is why global warming is such a useful political weapon. Or, even look at the hurricanes. 5-10 years ago, a hurricane wasn't named unless it became a hurricane. Now, tropical disturbances are being closely watched, and they are immediately named once achieving the status of tropical depression. This is why the past few years have been so record breaking in named storms. The media.
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Swine Flu was a pandemic, no quote marks needed. A pandemic is defined by how fast and far it spreads, not how many people get it. But, people heard the word and assumed the WHO meant the world was ending.
You think billions were wasted? Less than 100 years ago, a flu strain wiped out 50 million people. A similar strain would spread faster and kill far more today. Of course people went too crazy about the swine flu - I wont argue there - but it's not as though the money was wasted. We have to guard against contagious diseases in a world that is becoming smaller and smaller.
As far as you thinking the spill in the gulf is nothing, it will negatively affect life in the gulf for decades just as spills in Alaska and around the world have done before it. If anything, we forgot about previous spills because the 'sensational media' moved on to the next sensation and stopped caring about the collapse of an ecosystem.
You just take the worst of what the sensationalizing media says, point out that it is wrong (easy to do) and assume then that there must be nothing to worry about. False.
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On August 05 2010 15:02 choboPEon wrote:
Swine Flu was a pandemic, no quote marks needed. A pandemic is defined by how fast and far it spreads, not how many people get it. But, people heard the word and assumed the WHO meant the world was ending.
You think billions were wasted? Less than 100 years ago, a flu strain wiped out 50 million people. A similar strain would spread faster and kill far more today. Of course people went too crazy about the swine flu - I wont argue there - but it's not as though the money was wasted. We have to guard against contagious diseases in a world that is becoming smaller and smaller.
As far as you thinking the spill in the gulf is nothing, it will affect life in the gulf for decades just as spills in Alaska and around the world have done before it.
You just take the worst of what the sensationalizing media says, point out that it is wrong (easy to do) and assume then that there must be nothing to worry about. False.
There's nothing wrong with sensationalizing. It's how the media functions in a capitalistic, free press society. I'm just surprised that people around me always believe the bull and assume the worst.
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The next step in this process is when people hear that people assume the worst and assume the worst about everyone assuming the worst.
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Okay...
Contagious diseases and oil spills are huge worries and have potentially huge negative consequences.
Assuming the NOAA is right about the spill, that leaves "only" 50+ million gallons of oil in the gulf, more than 5x that of the Exxon Valdez, which was catastrophic on several levels. The gulf is at a natural advantage (being warm), so they may get off easier but really, is it so great that we're getting off easier than a spill whose effects, decades later, are still being felt? The spill is bad.
People believe the bull and assume the worst, I agree with the sentiment, but your examples seem quite off.
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Plural of crisises is "crises"
going to read it now lol
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We would be idiots not to prepare for the worst with these sorts of global-scale events.
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Its in human nature to assume the worst! That way they wont get disappointed only pleasantly surprised when something doesn't turn out as bad as assumed 
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You are very optimistic. I personally think that the media (in the US) is terrible since it doesn't cover much of the problems the world actually faces. For example, the critical conditions of the war(s) in Africa.
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Dude that oil spill is like the worst disaster since ever :p
Tjernobyl was nothing compared to this
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The media needs the attention. It's a necessary evil of a free society?
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On August 05 2010 14:52 Try wrote:Why are people always so quick to overreact and assume the worst? In the past few years, we have had more "crisises" than I can count. Every single time, the media sensationalizes these mini-crisises as though they were doomsday scenarios. And every time, everyone around me (friends, family, etc.) drink the Kool-Aid. We've seen this for everything from SARS to the recent oil spill. Every time the event is supposed to affect lives years down the road, while the real effects are insignificant to none. For example, many of us still remember the Bird Flu and SARS "pandemics". More recently, it was the H1N1 Swine Flu virus. For months the media reported about these diseases, shitting us with the same fucking line. "These diseases could evolve and KILL MILLIONS OF PEOPLE." What ended up happening? Billions of dollars worth of resources get wasted, untested and potentially dangerous vaccines are distributed, and in the end, your fucking bathtub ends up being more dangerous to you than these diseases. The recent oil spill also illustrates my point. By now, over 70% of the spill is gone through natural deterioration and burning (NOAA, article is here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100805/ap_on_sc/us_gulf_spill_gone). Although the effects of the spill will still be felt years down the road, the media wanted to paint the spill as basically the end of BP and the death of the Gulf Coast for the next hundred years. Neither will occur. What amazes me is not that the media sensationalizes marginal news, but that people keep believing this bullshit. I'd think that after awhile, people would learn to take things with a grain of salt.
And if they did evolve and kill millions of people? You going to be the one that says " BUT IT COULD HAVE BEEN MONEY WASTED11!!!!" As for oil spill, get a longer attention span.
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On August 05 2010 17:10 DwmC_Foefen wrote:
Dude that oil spill is like the worst disaster since ever :p
Tjernobyl was nothing compared to this
:O
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Overreaction and assuming shit are some of my pet peeves even irl. People take shit way too serious and let their emotions take over.
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I clicked into this thinking it was about building too many sunks when u see a couple marines and a medic walking towards your base.
Anyways, this topic rather interesting to me. It seems when something like swine flu, or the oil spill occur, we (as people not in positions in power) have to trust those that are ie. WHO and BP to react quickly and just deal with the problem.
However, the media machines whirr up and infect the general population with fear. This in turn leads to the less-informed or un-trusting (of WHO and BP) to overreact, gripped by fear.
Case in point. I live in Canada. I was heading down over the border to pick up some items at a post office. My mom tells me to beware of swine flu, as people have died in the States (Florida or something) due to swine flu. This of course is just rather silly, crossing an imaginary line drawn in the sand does not suddenly increase my susceptibility to swine flu, but my mom was dead serious. She was actually legitimately concerned that the swine flu incidence rate is much higher in the States vs Canada.
These people who might not know exactly how such things work tend to exhibit such "over"reactions to such news, but it seems completely normal, as we fear that which we are not familiar with.
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The oil spill is a MASSIVE environmental disaster and is also wrecking the economy of the deep south.
Swine flu was crazy dangerous, money well spent. If it had become comunicable between humans and that money hadn't been spent people would have called the gov't on their criminal level of negligence, and rightly so.
People are hypersensitive about tropical storms since Katrina, a few years down the road I'll bet they'll be less hyped if there isn't another major disaster.
Climate change is still a big deal, the problem is only becoming more dire as people get distracted by the global economic crisis and forget about it..
Just because a crisis never affects you doesn't make it not a crisis!
Although the media does waste lots of time on stories that aren't important.. can't argue with that. For example, a majority of americans think violent crime is getting worse: we need tougher laws to prevent crime and give police more power. Actually, the violent crime rate has been dropping for years.. (source: US Bureau of Justice. Some cool statistics here.)
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EPT
