(I have been asked to list the dates {month, day, year} for previous posts I refer to in my blog to help readers find them without having to scroll the now lengthy list of blog posts on this site.)
First, let me reiterate my key comments from the last four posts: nothing is perfect so risk is always a part of our lives. Some risks we consciously choose, and many are imposed on us. It is there that we need to do our own research and decide if it is real risk we can control or if it is perceived risk generated by mass media to merely get our attention and generate fear. The greater numbers of risks we live with are not the ones we usually know much about, and there are a lot of vested interests in keeping you ignorant of these risks or in minimizing the extent of the risks to keep you complacent.
That complacency is shattered when a seemingly innocuous risk occurs, and we too often resort to litigation to soothe our feeling of being victimized by some outside agent. Sometimes these litigation cases lead to jury trials, which if successful end up with large payouts for the those affected. All too often, these litigation cases get defeated or are settled out of court with some form of compensation and signings of non-disclosure agreements (you cannot talk about the case or any settlement payouts) such that there is little public knowledge of any harm that occurred. Hence, coupled with mass media emphasis, you tend to worry about risks that are rare, such as terrorism, airplane disasters, and homicides, and not about risks imposed on you every day. Some of these risks you can control and others you need to be aware of so that you can push for more realistic safety measures, or simply to force elimination of these problems altogether. ‘Big money’ has a big political advantage but we have consumer numbers, and our money spending decisions make ‘Big money’ listen when we act together.
Two of the biggest risks you face every day come from how you choose your food and healthcare (let’s call it as it is, ‘Sickcare’). For starters, Big Oil, Big Industrial Agriculture and Big Pharma are intricately related. Their poorly controlled technologies are central to most modern illnesses and diseases. Note how many illnesses are a consequence of technological impacts. This is a selection of general list of hazards you face every day: Chemicals in processed foods; chemicals from industrial agriculturally farmed foods; Chemicals in and used feed-lot raised animals; Smoking and secondhand smoke; chemicals from combustion of fossils fuels; chemicals from industrial pollution; tropospheric ozone; pesticide drift; dust and particulate matter; pesticide and herbicide runoff; nitrates and fertilizer runoff; mercury, arsenic, and heavy metals in groundwater and surface water; natural toxins; pesticide and herbicide residues in food; asbestos (still a problem in old buildings); lead in older paint, pipes, and electronics; toxicants in plastics and many consumer products; toxicants in cosmetics and household cleaning agents; occupational exposure (oral, dermal, and by inhalation); and then add to that all the unknowns in medicinal drugs and vaccines.
But, I hear, shouldn’t our politicians be working to keep us safe? Voters believe that politicians are meant to have a plan to any problems and hazards we face. But, if politicians do make policy that doesn’t work perfectly, they are criticized. With any policy, we improve by tweaking things as we go along to figure out the best solution. Most people however, want instant results that work, not tweaking, so politicians are discouraged from making bold innovative decisions. Add to that financial influences from ‘Big money’ to influence decision-making in favor of Big money, which results in the masking of risks.
In dealing with policy concerning technology, politicians rely on science and engineering experts to guide them. To review, science is a way of viewing the world and it is one that is always being updated, because that is just what science is about. It is a constant progression of research and discovery. Hypotheses help us build theories that explain things in our world, and as we discover more and more valid data, these theories change to reflect new ideas and concepts that were unknown before. What we have now is a science that has been hijacked by politicians and corporations that want to capitalize on ideas in which they make a profit. It doesn’t help them when ideas they are making money on are show to be invalid – this is often referred to as scientism (see previous posts Beliefs, Knowledge, Definitions {1/14/18}; Skepticism {1/28/18}; Scientism: A Barrier to Progress – The Scourge of Censorship {8/29/20}).
Psychopaths fixated on making profits are in charge of most of your food and the sickcare industry (and most modern living) and they don’t want you looking too closely at what they do. So, we are all subjected by the corporate controlled mass media to a continuous ‘Dog and Pony Show’ (Urban Dict: An elaborate act of bullshit, generally used to distract attention away from the sheer uselessness of the actual project or act). It may sound cynical, but these are just observations I have about the system. Note how often businesses bitch and moan about policies that mean them spending money on safety, protections or cleanups. Yet, to be fair, some of the policies from regulatory agencies are overly bureaucratic and inflexible. The problem in the USA for instance is that it has an innocent until proven guilty approach to risks – that is the industry will do something potentially risky and wait until harm has been exposed with much outrage before they remove the problem, instead of using the precautionary principle – see more about this in my previous posts, Health and the Chemistry of Living 1 & 2 {3/10 & 3/18/19}; 5G technology – part 2, Health Concerns {7/11/19}.
What kinds of risks are you exposed to everyday that you can minimize or eliminate? Some things you are stuck with for the time being (such as air pollution) until government policies are enacted to minimize these things, but you can do many easy personal actions to minimize risk for you and your family.
More in next risk post, but first an update on Vaccines part 6, since I am on this theme of risk.
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