1) Swine flu pandemic
2) Bird flu pandemic
3) Global warming
4) Global cooling
5) Devastating hurricane seasons that don't happen
6) Y2K
7) http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/135974/Mobile-use-is-linked-to-brain-tumours
Seems the media just loves to scare us; and it also seems we love to scare ourselves!
I remember the cyclamate ban; back in 1969 that turned out to be bogus, as well as the scare over saccharin and other things. Why do we worry so much about these things? Why is our society so obsessed with death?
We worry about the above things (and more); but yet so many of us will smoke, drink, eat unhealthily, or do recreational drugs to the point where we kill ourselves. Seems more sensible to me to worry about the things in your life that you CAN control; rather than the things you can't.
BTW, it also seems to me that you'd practically have to have a cell phone by your ear for at least 3/4 of a day for this to occur (I would guess). And, does using a Bluetooth device negate this; or are they just as bad?
Maybe the answer is that the more "progress" we make; the worse it is for us. We rush around so much these days, trying to get "the good things" in life; that we stress ourselves to the point of stroke and heart attack. Maybe an agrarian society wasn't such a bad thing. Or better yet, maybe as a people we need to become more moderate and balanced - guess it couldn't hurt.
73 de Larry W2LJ
The explanation is simple: there are too many people being paid to research this stuff whose grants won't be renewed if the conclusion of their research is "There's nothing to worry about."
ReplyDeleteCynical, moi?
And it is Halloween. Boo!
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised you listed Y2K, especially considering you're in IT. It was a big issue when you looked at all the networked financial, medical, and logistics systems. It didn't matter much to the desktop user running Win98, but it threatened our infrastructure with death by a thousand cuts. This was one time media coverage was warranted. It got CIOs to actually budget money and resources to fix the problem.
ReplyDeleteDoes that mean your not getting any flu shots?
ReplyDeleteScare stories drive news ratings - when we keep watching them, reading them, and talking about them - they'll continue to market ad revenue around those types of stories.
ReplyDeleteNope .... no flu shot for me.
ReplyDeleteAnd Goody, I only included Y2K because of the media hysteria. It was a valid concern that was taken care of by the appropriate parties; and fortunately, serious repercussions were mitigated. But in the days leading up to that years end, if you listened to the media, power grids were going to fail, banks were due to become non-functional, mail was going to stop and in essence, calamity and chaos were to reign.
In reality, it passed more with a whisper than a Big Bang.