when something does, eventually, "go wrong", it makes all the fear of gang attack seem trivial.
(I survived an ascending aortic dissection in Aug 09.)
Re:Let’s Build a Future Without Cars
by sliverstorm on Saturday April 21, 2012 @03:21PM
(#3872718)
Naturally, but that doesn't change the fact that distant threats are less fearsome than immediate ones, and that abstract threats are also less fearsome.
To be clear, when I say "abstract threats" I mean things we cannot properly think about. We know what it feels like to get punched, and we have some idea what it feels like to be stabbed, but we have no idea how to assign fear to something like chemotherapy until it happens to us. We know it is Bad(tm), but not the same way we know getting cut with a knife is bad.
Bah, that isn't the fear of the unknown vs. the fear of the known. It is immediate, physical fear (in thirty seconds those gang members are going to mug me) vs. eventual, abstract fear (in twenty years, something might go wrong inside me).