Problem: Millions of New Yorkers were traumatized by the events of 9/11 and now get nervous when they see low-flying jetliners headed toward their city center.
Solution A: Reengineer human nature to change people’s visceral reaction to the unexpected sight of low-flying jetliners headed toward midtown Manhattan.
Solution B: Avoid allowing jetliners to make unannounced flights around midtown Manhattan unless you’ve got a really good reason for doing so.
Well, Solution A would have prevented the initial problem. But who cares, right? It also remedies countless other problems, and helps far more people more deeply than Solution B.
But if that is, as it seems to be, “unthinkable” - then of course it is easily dismissed as no solution at all. Hardly surprising, since even trying to discuss it is dogpile fuel against A Terrible Person. Why don’t I just “walk” using my taxes to pay for weapons, and “talk” empathy on the internet like a normal person?
ETA: Incidentally, for the peanut gallery of people who dropped in only to complain that other people are having a discussion - multiple people can discuss a topic at the same time, you know? Nobody else having opinions is preventing you from discussing yours. It is not a contest.
When I was a kid; in the suburbs of D.C.; for about 5 hours every night (6 to closing) the planes coming into National** would be descending and then turn LOUDLY over my neighborhood; before following the Potomac to the airport.
We could easily make out the logos on the planes, and after sunset it was possible to count the windows ~ they just seemed to be floating w/in arms reach… Even my coaches at school would have to stop talking/yelling for 20 seconds while each plane passed so they could be heard.
My current home is in a triangle made up by two highways and another major thoroughfare. The traffic (&/or accidents) every morning and evening would cause the local news choppers (TV and radio) to hover over my neighborhood for hours (about five minutes at a time, and then another station 5-10 minutes later)…
After 9/11 though, I’m now in the “No-Fly Zone”… Maybe once a day I’ll see or hear a police chopper, which grabs my attention . . . and a few times a week some military choppers will be following the highway to or from Andrews AFB**… The sound of a low plane though, like those from my childhood, would have me in a panic.
**I know they’re officially “Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport” and “Joint Base Andrews”, but when I was a kid, they were just “National to go see Gramps” & “Andrews for the air show” … 
Solution B doesn’t allow people who didn’t experience the trauma to act like some combination of a Vulcan and General Patton, though.
For any solution to be considered viable it must be possible first. Next, one must have a practical method to employ the solution. I personally think the idea of engineering human nature to operate counter to millions of years of evolutional development is likely not possible but I’m open to the idea.
If we give you the first and say that it is possible to change human nature, what would you propose as a practical solution? How do you suppose it would be done? Do we send everyone everywhere to some sort of treatment facility?
this turned into a very strange thread
Is that also true for Bear Force One?
welcome to Boing Boing!
Bear Force One causes panics, but in more of a “Let’s get over to where the party is!” kind of stampede.
Well, I was not starting from the presumption that there is any immutable consistent nature to humans. I see humans as simply having tendencies. Humans appear to be very attached to human-ness being a distinct quality. Ever hear of a human discussing “iguana nature” or “squid nature”? Does a dolphin have the Buddha Nature?
So you are saying that you are speaking for the participants here, against me as an isolated individual? No thanks! I am not interested in being “othered”. Sure, how we define and condition human is relevant. But getting into the minutiae of it here is just as far off topic as digressing into the engineering of airplanes. As I understand it, the topic is about panic. And not unlike a topic on racism or sexism, I think that people can both accept that panic happens, while still not accepting its occurrence is beneficial, without that being a huge controversy.
I’m in! Sounds like the bees knees!
The assumptive survival strategy is not unique to humans or even mammals. It is the primary survival strategy for most complex life on this planet.
Nice attempt misdirection and redirection of the subject. However, my choice of words in no way invalidates the questions and points raised in objection to your view. I had used ‘we’ not as a representative of those who disagree but rather as a member of that group.
As I’ve argued, the panic response is both normal, healthy, and has proven to be the most effective survival strategy evolution has provided us. Attempting to form a rational response to immediate danger is a good way to get eaten by the lion. Of course this will end badly in some situations but over millions of years evolution has selected the panic response through hard attrition simply because it is in fact the most successful strategy.
I don’t know about that. If 200 years ago you had said flying is better than walking so we need to all learn to fly, I might have argued that feet work very well but I’m open to the possibility of flying. I may have then asked the reasonable question; “How do we fly?”. Arguing that such a question is off topic when you had posited that we should fly seems disingenuous. I may as well say that rather than living in fear of crime and attack we should all develop psychic abilities so we can read everyone’s mind and end all hate and crime. If no one can ask the question ‘how?’ I would be shocked. Since they can and should ask such questions, I know better than to suggest we become psychic rather than locking our doors out of fear of attack and theft.
Before you were ascribing this to some essential nature, now you are saying that it is a strategy. Calling it a strategy implies that there is an element of deliberation involved. So I might conclude that such practices are not then assumptive, or that people are anthropomorphising evolution as a whole.
Wouldn’t it be presumptive to suppose that how you address and frame us as participants in the discussion might not be relevant to the content? Is such framing truly separate and incidental?
Sound strategy would be subjective to the parties concerned, and their goals. Is how long I live always the most important factor, simply because it is a pre-programmed reflex? A person might decide that it is more empowering to decide how and when their life ends, rather than letting it happen automatically. Or they might prioritize that how they live when they are alive is more important than survival at any cost. Your argument for the best strategy is predicated upon positing a game with the same goals for all players, and dismissing anything else out of hand.
Sure, we could just as well be having a completely different conversation… This is only serving to re-frame and distort a simple remarks I made earlier. Such as that risk-assessment, panic, and even the personal remarks lobbed at me here all depend upon the people involved feeling attached to specific outcomes. Is that not the case? Could fear not be described as the condition of a person feeling attached to the existence of their self, others, or to a specific situation? So an individual may not be responsible for or have control over their environment or circumstances, but they can directly deal with their responses to these.
@M_Dub So, if my story is tiresome why haven’t you said anything beyond popping in to complain with gifs? Why not speak up yourself, instead of trying to silence other people? Honestly!
No no no, they call it “panic” as a form of obeisance to the Goatfoot God.
Io! Io!
If you meet the Buddha on the road and he’s in dolphin form, you know that the Buddha screwed up big-time on that incarnation.
Conversely, if the Buddha-nature is taking the form of a lion, possibly it’s you who chose badly.
What with all the cats and dogs living together.
