More Dangerous And Better

Damn it, why do the sheep known as the unwashed masses insist on a safer world? What is life without risk and danger? I think the world needs is not to be safer, but to be more dangerous. Maybe then we can have some real safety.

Of course. But remember that a lot of the great unwashed find danger disturbing. Since they have been told by, well, by someone, it would seem, that they are entitled never to have anything disagreeable happen around them, they would rather be safe. Why would they want those nasty rough-edged dangerous freedoms anyway. Much nicer to sit right down here in front of the television...

Not more danger, more risk. There's a difference. Danger is about personal peril. Risk is about opportunity.

People generally find meeting new challenges exciting. Meeting new challenges involves risk. If you're not willing to risk screwing up, losing, going broke, getting injured, dying, etc... then you're denying yourself the chance to experience success, excitement, bliss, ecstacy, thrill, happiness, etc...

Let me go out on a limb: The problem is that nearly everyone prefers mediated experiences to real ones. People are much more likely to watch an I-Max movie about climbing Everest than they are to actually climb it.

I know...I know. Don't even say it. It's much more practical and less expensive to watch the movie. But that's exactly why watching the movie doesn't amount to anything like a real experience. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Simple.

Part of the experience of climbing Everest is the months of planning, the fear that you may get hurt, the prohibitive cost, selecting equipment, trusting your climbing companions and guides...often with your life, being tired, cold, wet, hungry...

Reaching the summit is only sweet because you have overcome all of those obstacles. Without experiencing the risk, the summit isn't really worth anything at all.

Watching a 90 minute film about someone else climbing Everest is just so much mindless entertainment. It's also very safe.

I'd rather see society allocate such risk-taking to perfecting the FlyingCar first.

Reading a 450 page book about the climb will convey some value from the climber's experience. And, strangely, reading a similar but fictional book has value too. Daring grounds our culture, but risk need not be spread evenly for us all to benefit. -- WardCunningham

Read FriedrichNietzsche's AlsoSprachZaratustra for a better rendition of this idea.

The essay InTheBeginningWasTheCommandLine by NealStephenson has some things to say on this topic. What I get out of his work is that we are only averse to perceived risk rather than real risk. More to the point, we don't live in a LessDangerousButWorse? world today, but a world where the danger is still there, but hidden. We hide all the risks behind hermetically sealed containers, professionals who assure you that everything is working fine, and the like. Then, when everything blows up, it's a big surprise.

He points to the WindowsVsLinux phenomenon as a perfect example of this. Windows is the "safe" stuff; that is, it is hermetically sealed so that it looks safe; the user convinces himself that some magic from Redmond makes everything okay. Linux is the "dangerous" stuff; that is, you see all the moving parts in the source code and cannot convince yourself that some magic from Helsinki makes everything okay.

Windows (and a lot of the world) works on the principle of HermeticallySealedStuffIsMagic. This hides the danger, causing people to lose their grip of control for the appearance of safety rather than the reality of it. --RobMandeville

I agree, More Risky And Better would have probably been a better title. I was naming the page in reaction to safer is better. Anyway, I think the situation is worse than you speak of when if comes to politics. What is happening is that many people are hysteric about making the world safer, and so politicians (people make fun of lawyers, but sometimes I wonder if maybe PolititiansAreWorse?) grandstand about that and leverage people's fears in to more power. And the world just became a more dangerous place.

Actually maybe your take wasn't so bad. People are trading the danger they see for a much worse danger that they refuse to see by demanding a safer world.

Maybe people just want the ability, to the extent possible, to choose which risks to accept and which they don't. More risk can't be better for everyone. Of course, less risk isn't better for everyone either, nor are people necessarily good at evaluating risk. It is also possible that one person's daring adventure is another person's routine day. But hardly anyone likes not having control of their situation, and people forced to accept risks (real or not) that they don't want are naturally going to try to get those risks reduced or eliminated, even if that involves dealing with lawyers and politicians.

passion has no need of friction.