We do live in a dangerous world. Pretty much everybody loses their life somehow. It's amazing to me that so many of my peers survived childhood.
It is pretty stupid to try to jump a car on your bicycle without a landing ramp. Or play catch with lit M80s. And those weren't our dumbest ideas.
When I was a kid every 8-year-old pushed a lawn mower around once a week. And rode in the back of a pickup truck. Today I don't let my kids ride in the back of pickup trucks, and I'm nervous about the lawn mower. Or rather, I'm nervous about trusting my kid not to be careless with the mower.
But when I see the metal detector at the door of my kid's school I wince. Some dangers and some fears need to be met head on. For some people, those include riding in the back of pickup trucks. For some it is the school's metal detector. If only we could make those choices for ourselves and our children without forcing our fears onto our neighbors.
>Today I don't let my kids ride in the back of pickup trucks, and I'm nervous about the lawn mower.
That's because you already infected with fear. It's not your Children's fault that you don't trust them with a lawn mower..it's you and probably your society that is the problem.
>Some dangers and some fears need to be met head on.
Yes like wear a helmet on a Motorbike, but you need to dig much deeper, that a society needs a metal detector in schools.
And again the World IS much safer today...but remember the more you have the more you fear loosing it...it's the perfect setup to give up your freedom because you think you "win" some safety.
Perhaps you missed my point. Lawn mowers didn't get more dangerous. The level of danger hasn't gotten worse in that one respect. The level of trust might have changed. The acceptance of risk might have changed. I don't think that keeping my kid away from the lawn mower in order to protect them makes their life overall better or even safer.
Lawn mowers are dangerous. But that doesn't mean they should be banned. As you wrote, that's life. The solution isn't to think they aren't dangerous. The solution is to recognize the danger, then act appropriately. We just all have different ideas of what's appropriate.
Lawn mowers are safer today than they were 30 years ago. Still potentially dangerous. You point out to the kid: never let your feet go under there. Never reach your hand in here. Maybe throw an apple in to illustrate the effect. They get the message.
All that said, 8 might be a little young. I think I was around 10 when I started cutting the grass, but I don't really remember.
But i watched a documentary about the US, where Children's under 12 are not allow to play outside without supervision, they get picket up by the police and the parents got big problems.
Here, they run around the hole day in the forests with Swiss or Scout-knifes and lighters and some sausages in the backpack. It's just terrible to think that your children's are safe because they sit hole day in their rooms and play games.
I don't get it how we got here. We were allowed to play outside (East Europe) near the house when we were six. Gradually increasing the comfort perimeter as we grew up. Twelve? I could have roamed the entire city if I had enough time to get back for lunch.
Maybe listen to too much Media/News etc, when you hear just bad things happening, you think it's just a matter of time until that happens to me or my family.
So you close your mind (because everyone else is bad, and every Adult that speaks with my children is a pedo) then you buy a gun (even if the chance is much higher that exactly with that gun something bad happens) and your Children's needs to be under constant observation and they need to learn that one should trust no one, you life in constant fear and because of that you vote for trumps.
>if I had enough time to get back for lunch.
Exactly that was my biggest fear, to late for lunch meant grumpy Mum and Dad..and no roaming for the next two days.
Very few and I'd say, without checking, that it's probably much more common to lose a finger or a toe. That's a better analogy in this case too; it's unlikely that a mishap caused by the absence of encryption or the presence of a back-door will kill you. You might have to live with their consequences for a very long time though.
Arguing whether the World has suddenly become more dangerous is counter-productive in that aspect. In the end, we keep becoming wiser, technology evolves, and the World changes because of it. It doesn't matter if things actually got more dangerous or if we just got more afraid of them; it's the outcome of our actions that we need to focus on.
There is something to be said in comparing encryption to what usually amounts to spinning blades connected to some kind of engine; abusing any of those technologies can result in outcomes that are undesirable from society's point of view, and potentially from the users' point of view as well. Because, you know, fingers and toes.
The main problem is that just as if you outlawed the sale of lawn-mowers without specific features, there's nothing stopping people from using their existing lawn-mowers (or even building their own ones)anyway, the current encryption technologies won't go away. There's nothing stopping anyone from saving existing tools, or the source-code of existing tools, and keep using then. The only difference would be that such encryption, and the protection it brings with it, would now be restricted to the very criminals that the outlawing of the tools meant to stop in the first place.
Arguing whether the World has suddenly become more dangerous is counter-productive in that aspect. In the end, we keep becoming wiser, technology evolves, and the World changes because of it. It doesn't matter if things actually got more dangerous or if we just got more afraid of them; it's the outcome of our actions that we need to focus on.
Edit: As for the outcome, keeping encryption from everyone but criminals is outright ridiculous. It might get to some of the businesses selling specialized solutions catering to the people law enforcement is after, but in the end it will just result in the baddies simply moving away from those platforms and onto other platforms that are out of reach of EU law-enforcement. That leaves us with everyone else having a big target painted on them because this time we know there's a backdoor in their product.
I think what you are alluding to is the key, life has gotten so good that people get into extreme loss aversion. In my opinion the key to a decent life is to take calculated risks and if that goes wrong, then oh well that was unlucky.
There are a lot of risky things we do all day anyway, like driving any car or walking close to road. Those things are still incredibly safe.
By the numbers, this is the safest the world has ever been. The fact that you literally don't know anyone who has had smallpox attests to that.
Perception of risk is not actual risk. Yes, everyone dies, but that's more of a biological fact than a statement about how safe this world is. If you're really worried about you and your family, watch what you eat and hit the gym a bit, because statistically it's going to be a heart attack that gets you.
It is pretty stupid to try to jump a car on your bicycle without a landing ramp. Or play catch with lit M80s. And those weren't our dumbest ideas.
When I was a kid every 8-year-old pushed a lawn mower around once a week. And rode in the back of a pickup truck. Today I don't let my kids ride in the back of pickup trucks, and I'm nervous about the lawn mower. Or rather, I'm nervous about trusting my kid not to be careless with the mower.
But when I see the metal detector at the door of my kid's school I wince. Some dangers and some fears need to be met head on. For some people, those include riding in the back of pickup trucks. For some it is the school's metal detector. If only we could make those choices for ourselves and our children without forcing our fears onto our neighbors.
Edit: clarity