2015.01.25 01:00 - Fear Needs no Rational Cause

The Guardian for this meeting was Wol.

 

Wol Euler: buongiorno, qt
Qt Core: Buongiorno Wol
Wol Euler: how's life?
Qt Core: (just dismounted my bicycle, we have a gorgeous winter sunny/windy day, had to go to a place to see an almost 1`80 degree view of the mountains
Wol Euler: oh nice
Qt Core: something like this, but i got a wider angle and a more clear sky too: http://www.panoramio.com/photo_explo...esc&user=39767
Qt Core: luckily my new winter biking attire worls pretty well :-)
Qt Core: *k
Wol Euler: what a great view.
Qt Core: how did your day started ? Jet lag >
Qt Core: ?
Wol Euler: the jet lag is finished, thank god, now I'm just struggling a little with a possible cold
Qt Core: i;m just praying my sister don't pass her to me ;-)
Wol Euler: there#s something going around the schools and kindergartens here, Boss's son has it.
Wol Euler: heh
Wol Euler: little kids are cute, but they are basically buckets of germs
Wol Euler: .
Qt Core: they have to to build a strong immune systems, and parents overprotecting them are doing a lousy job
Wol Euler: agreed
Qt Core: i always remember the scene of a kid ready to go to antarctica and his mother in a skimpy miniskirt
Qt Core: and no, it wasn't for her leg that i memorized that scene
Wol Euler: strange idea

--BELL--

Wol Euler: was that a film?
Qt Core: no, just outside a nearby shop
Qt Core: we italian are terrorized by "colpo di freddo/colpo di vento" lit. cold hit/wind hit ;-)
Wol Euler: oh I see :)
Wol Euler: I missed the context
Wol Euler: yes, parents do their kids no favours that way

Wol Euler: I think there is a general increase in fear about the world, in the way people treat their kids
Wol Euler: we used to walk to school every day, in all weather, and there is real weather in canada in winter.
Wol Euler: nobody ever got lost. there may have been kids hit by cars while crossinng a road, but I cannot think of a case
Qt Core: not to mention we walked there alone!
Wol Euler: right
Wol Euler: it*s changed in one generation. People who as children were allowed to roam free will not let their kids go 100m alone

Qt Core: (last week i read about parents having legal issues for letting their 9 yo kid walk home for the first time from the mile away school or bus stop (in a quiet neighbourhood )
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: right, that is the obverse side of the coin. Even sane parents who would let their kids run free as they themselves did are threatened by the fearful ones

Qt Core: i think that in my last year of pre-school i went there alone (5 yo) but some 50 meters away
Qt Core: "obviously" it was in the USA... and then at 18 a kick in the a** and you should survive
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: perhaps a better understanding of geography would help? Maybe they see news reports on ebola and bloody civil wars in Africa and think that is happening in the next town.
Qt Core: well, they have they own issues with lead poisoning, pardon shootings right and left
Wol Euler: true. But if you look at the statistics on cause of death in the US last year, you are more than twice as likely to commit suicide with a handgun as to be murdered by somebody using one.

--BELL--

Wol Euler: no idea why that appeared twice, I didn'T type it twice
Qt Core: i saw it just once
Wol Euler: good :)
Wol Euler: file under "fear needs no rational cause", I guess
Qt Core: rational fear... is that even possible or it just become worry ?
Wol Euler: true
Wol Euler: but there is a difference between fearing being hit by the bus that you see racing towards you as you stand in the middle of the road, and fearing that one of your neighbours might secretly be about to go mad and choose *you* of all the people in the world to kill.
Qt Core: then there aremeteorites
Wol Euler: right!
Wol Euler: schools really need to start teaching statistics and estimation
Qt Core: don't know, than you learn that everything could happen ;-)
Wol Euler: if done right, you actually learn that it won't happen
Wol Euler: and that you fear the wrong things.
Wol Euler: take the Tsunami in Japan for example. 1000 people died. Well that is a shock and a tragedy, of course it is.
Qt Core: yes, if done right (on both sides)

--BELL--

Wol Euler: But the normal death rate in Japan says that 1000 people die every seven hours in Japan from all causes
Wol Euler: so the tsunami is not what you should worry about.
Qt Core: but on an emotional level it is hard to learn that you don't get ready for that as it costs too much
Qt Core: in relation to the probabilities
Wol Euler nods.
Qt Core: i need to start the day
Wol Euler: bye qt, enjoy the day
Qt Core: bye Wol have fun