It is rather easy for someone to get emotionally charged and point fingers if something goes south. Our auto-piloted brained works much the same whether we are priests, lovers, CEO’s or scientists. Although we are well aware of this automated discrepancy, we are terrified of the thought of losing control. We do understand how helpless we become. Much like cats we lose it at the sight of a laser pointer. All logic falls under the instinct’s mercy.
Reason is not really promoted from evolution. You see, in the Savannas of Africa about half a million years or so, our ancestors that wanted to appear smart-ass scientists and study the bushes that echoed weird sounds, didn’t live as much as those who just run for their life. Our environment raised us to be cowards — not heroes or investigators. Our danger sensor is lit up quit easy even today. Simply put it, better safe than sorry.
Whenever a terrorist attack happens our terror autopilot lights up. Immediately we forget that we are more or less deducting questionable evidence from vested media interests. We don’t even consider basic statistical facts. There are more than 7 billion people on the planet. Since 2006, around 100.000 died from alleged “terrorist attacks”. Smoking alone kills 1.5 million people just from cancer. Car accidents, domestic violence, extreme sports and poisoning cause much more death and misery than a random explosion we witness on TV. Nonetheless, we are threatened from someone that yells “Allahu Akbar” rather than an impending national disaster or the way we chose to live.
There are 1.6 billion muslims on the planet. Even though a great number supports extreme attacks against the west, just 106.000 people are what we call in the west “terrorists”. This is about 0.006% of all muslims. In America one has more chance dying from neglecting to check the air on their tires rather than dying from a terrorist attack. One has more chance dying in their own bathtub. But fuck statistics right? I mean, we are mothefucking-savvana-home-grown-boys. We ain’t doing statistics yo.
This ignoramus attitude has been following our species for hundreds of thousands of years. Disease and natural disasters existed on a daily basis and killed most of us — way more than animals or fellow humans even did but somehow we always managed to club the neighbor.
We are brainwashed from mother nature in such an extent, that a primal piece of our brain called reptilian cortex (instincts) renders that others two [limpic (emotions) and neocortex (logic)] useless. We are possessed from an automated-terror- autopilot and there is little one can do about it unless they have a strong will.
This is how and why a cat chasing a laser is much the same as an angry tv viewer salivating in front of a tv set. The viewer barely knows how to evaluate effectively the quality of information he receives as much a a cat understands photon dispersion in a vacuum.
We are afraid of animated things that look and act like as rather than inanimate dead objects. A laser pointer looks as real to a cat as much as much the wave of information that shower us in the news with all the effects, music, commentary — the works.
It is perfectly respected and understood that not everybody can analyze life in great detail and for an extended period of time. It is unnatural. Newscasts and marketers though know this very well. Even Kim Yong Il understood this concept. He believed that he could never have all nuclear missiles hit USA. He knew that the vast majority will be shot down. The reason he made so many though was exactly because he just wanted one to go through.
Same thing happens with the advertisers and the media terror merchants. You might believe you have your bullshit-shield up quite admirably. Nonetheless, due to the sheer volume of bullshit everywhere around you, something at some point will get through without you even realizing it. Rinse and repeat for a couple of decades one can understand how true terror proliferates.
This is why is so easy to take sides and point fingers at each other. Even though we know that some things are statistically impossible to comprehend (or compute) we still insist due to this basic hijacking of the brain. The mind simply sums up. We hear explosions, terrorists, children, death, and immediately we imagine a muslim man thirsty for blood. Before we know it, we are talking about how all muslims suck, planning our next move — when in fact we have little control over the situation, we are almost under no danger and those responsible are feeding us false information. Couple this with the other side feeling exactly the same about us and you can understand how global hate arises.
A handful of working brains have brought us up to this point day and to this advanced age. The rest of us are mostly stuck in the jungle state where the toys of the smart boys dictate our lives. We have little to no control yet we are so confident we are the masters of our destinies. We should at least be humble of our position and not be so sure about taking the lives of people whom we have never met and probably would have never hurt us.
This is how we get arrogant and manage to kill each other over information fed by vague sources. Our brains are as palpable as they have ever been. We are effectively recycling our fears and hopes right back to us. No wonder we find ourselves facing the same problems over and over again.
The west has waged an oil crusade a few decades ago so they could satisfy our thirst for development — that ranges from powering our cars to making plastic for our cereal boxes. Things got complicated and countries started retaliating. They were poor compared to us so the only way the could fight back was through guerilla warfare (what we call “terrorism”). As if this was not enough we wanted more. We needed more cheap workers so we started importing those whom we didn’t kill with our expensive armory. Many people from these countries saw their families in pieces before their very eyes. Now, they are here and they want us to feel the same pain.
Really, that’s about it. We are at war because we forgot who started killing each other and for what reason because our autopilots are on high terror alert. Wars are not fought only in battlegrounds. When a war breaks, it is fought everywhere including our playgrounds, concert halls and especially, our minds and hearts.
Is the cat that silly for chasing photons on a wall? Are we smarter for chasing the same photons on a screen over and over again believing all the information we are receiving? Your cat slides from the balcony while it chases the laser pointer. Silly cat, right? You slide a gun on your shoulder while you chase your version of photons in front of the TV. You are not silly though. You are a hero.
Awesome post. We are basically irrational beings who pretend to be rational and sometimes even fool ourselves into believing it but it is only ever a thin veneer.
have nothing to add to that. pretty much sums it up
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
Great post. Is the number of Muslims correct? Kind of low?
oups. meant billion instead of million. typo.
thank you man.
"Rinse and repeat for a couple of decades one can understand how true terror proliferates." I agree, your post is very interesting, thanks for taking the time to write it :) I feel it is a very fearmongering mass entertainment, surrounding us, manipulating our friends, our family, our youth. We don't watch TV here at home, for more than 10 years; but we still navigate a lot to work and there's a lot of misinformation, lifestyle propaganda and "trends"on every aspect, specially on subliminal levels... it's amazing how distorted and adaptable the world truly is (the truth is out there, but you must always question and be able to understand wider)
Indeed. Even if one tries to escape, there is way too much misinformation around.
Though it is true that terrorism kills so few in comparison to coconuts falling on peoples heads and unfilled tires and the like, the actual effect that terrorism has on social cohesion is enormous, and a rational man should fear it for that reason. By this I don't mean the primal fear of being blown up in some bombing, but rather a fear of the effect that such a bombing has on the populace. Our societies were not constructed in the presence of such violence, and there is nothing normal about someone blowing themselves up. I'm not accusing you of attempting to normalize it, all I'm saying is that there are rational reasons to be fearful of terrorism. If terrorism is just going to be part of our society for now on, than that's one hell of a society.
That's the thing. It is not really terrorism but rather war. We are used watching out bombs and heroes drop them on tv and get shit-scared when it lands in a place near we live.
Good article!
“If man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat.”
― Mark Twain
lol
great article as always!
thank you
rs and upvote for you....
thank you
u r welcome....
nice good post
thank you emma
Nice article, thank you for posting it! We have the potential to be masters of our destiny and engineers of our environment, but we have been tamed (or brainwashed, if you will) by mass media, school, religion, society, our parents... The process is reversible but strong will and critical thinking are required. Sadly, most of us don't think at all.
Indeed, it is quite hard to escape from this conundrum.
my new post, pls upvote and rs...thanks
https://steemit.com/jesus/@lautenglye/process-god
You, sir, are a top class blogger. Brilliant formatting and content to boot. Very interesting and informative stuff. You're made for this platform. :)
oh wow. thank you for you kind words! :D
It is not always that easy to determine what are "noises" and what are "signals" in all the information we received every day. But it is not an excuse not to try to find the signals. Kahneman found in his research that humans do not have a "gut feeling" for statistics. The fact that the terrorist is only a small part of the total Muslim community, does not come naturally to our attention. We need to put in an effort to understand it. Thanks for the article.
Upvoted and resteemed! Your work is some of the best work on Steemit and the content you produce is what new users need to see!
Thank you man. Glad you like it.