This reminds me of when a friend told me that some people online were saying we should call hurricanes "crisis storms" or something like that to connect it to climate change. As someone who grew up off the Gulf of Mexico, this idea bothered me so much. Climate change has made hurricanes worse but it didn't create them. They have always been a problem in the southeast region and always will be. Living there means accepting that risk.
I agree that we do no favors in addressing climate change by misrepresenting what can/could be done. We need to address the climate crisis and accpet that we only have so much control over nature.
First off, the idea of renaming hurricanes "crisis storms" is equally hilarious and scary. I think we've already seen some things akin to this with the naming of every winter storm, polar vortex, and what not. It's ridiculous, and I'd argue in the long run, counterintuitive. Instead of making people sit up and pay attention, they quickly lose interest after the first one or two don't deliver the punch that was hyped.
There's so much obscurification and misrepresentation these days in so many areas, and you're absolutely correct that it does us no favors. Simple, clear, concise, and nuanced communication, in a language people can understand, is essential. That's a big reason I compose my pieces in the way I do. Someone very close to me once critiqued my writing as too simple. I told her, "Look, I could write a sentence saying what I wanted to say that you wouldn't be able to understand, but what would be the point of that other than to make me feel important, and smarter than you?"
The last thing I'll say, and thank you by the way for inspiring so many thoughts, is this reminds me of something I used to think about all the time a few years back. It occurred to me that the vast, vast majority of safety regulations have as their goal the total eradication of death. It's like the powers that be, whoever they are, would consider their lives a success if there was just one day where no one died. It's absurdist. Of course, there's a level of safety we should implement. I'm not suggesting we let our kids go play in traffic, but there reaches a point where the restrictions, precautions, and limitations aren't commiserate with the risk. People are going to die. That's what we do. We need to accept this, mourn them, and move on.
I laugh every time I see a podcast with one of those fools who wants to live forever by eating 100 calories a day, or whatever. I think if that's living, I'd rather die fat and happy. If you "live" for 120 years, but can't enjoy the experience of being human, then what's the point?
The point about this assumption of no death is something I've thought about a lot in how people assess risk. My background is in public health and the idea that there will always be risk was emphasized throughout our training (though how well the agencies have communicated this leaves much to be desired). We talked a lot about screenings. There's always a balance to finding true positives and treating those cases to how many false negatives you find. For most diseases, screening too early results in more harm and death because you provide risky treatments to people who don't need it. This is a concept that I've found so difficult to explain to the average person outside of public health. Many people assume that more screening is always better and that corruption must be why guidelines don't recommend starting screenings for various cancers until middle age.
Well said. LA exists in an ecosystem in which forest and brush fires are a natural and fundamental presence. It's not so much that Angelenos forgot that fact. It's that they weren't properly taught it in the first place.
This reminds me of when a friend told me that some people online were saying we should call hurricanes "crisis storms" or something like that to connect it to climate change. As someone who grew up off the Gulf of Mexico, this idea bothered me so much. Climate change has made hurricanes worse but it didn't create them. They have always been a problem in the southeast region and always will be. Living there means accepting that risk.
I agree that we do no favors in addressing climate change by misrepresenting what can/could be done. We need to address the climate crisis and accpet that we only have so much control over nature.
I love so much of what you're saying here.
First off, the idea of renaming hurricanes "crisis storms" is equally hilarious and scary. I think we've already seen some things akin to this with the naming of every winter storm, polar vortex, and what not. It's ridiculous, and I'd argue in the long run, counterintuitive. Instead of making people sit up and pay attention, they quickly lose interest after the first one or two don't deliver the punch that was hyped.
There's so much obscurification and misrepresentation these days in so many areas, and you're absolutely correct that it does us no favors. Simple, clear, concise, and nuanced communication, in a language people can understand, is essential. That's a big reason I compose my pieces in the way I do. Someone very close to me once critiqued my writing as too simple. I told her, "Look, I could write a sentence saying what I wanted to say that you wouldn't be able to understand, but what would be the point of that other than to make me feel important, and smarter than you?"
The last thing I'll say, and thank you by the way for inspiring so many thoughts, is this reminds me of something I used to think about all the time a few years back. It occurred to me that the vast, vast majority of safety regulations have as their goal the total eradication of death. It's like the powers that be, whoever they are, would consider their lives a success if there was just one day where no one died. It's absurdist. Of course, there's a level of safety we should implement. I'm not suggesting we let our kids go play in traffic, but there reaches a point where the restrictions, precautions, and limitations aren't commiserate with the risk. People are going to die. That's what we do. We need to accept this, mourn them, and move on.
I laugh every time I see a podcast with one of those fools who wants to live forever by eating 100 calories a day, or whatever. I think if that's living, I'd rather die fat and happy. If you "live" for 120 years, but can't enjoy the experience of being human, then what's the point?
The point about this assumption of no death is something I've thought about a lot in how people assess risk. My background is in public health and the idea that there will always be risk was emphasized throughout our training (though how well the agencies have communicated this leaves much to be desired). We talked a lot about screenings. There's always a balance to finding true positives and treating those cases to how many false negatives you find. For most diseases, screening too early results in more harm and death because you provide risky treatments to people who don't need it. This is a concept that I've found so difficult to explain to the average person outside of public health. Many people assume that more screening is always better and that corruption must be why guidelines don't recommend starting screenings for various cancers until middle age.
Well said. LA exists in an ecosystem in which forest and brush fires are a natural and fundamental presence. It's not so much that Angelenos forgot that fact. It's that they weren't properly taught it in the first place.