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HappySqurriel on 22 March 2011
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r505Matt said:
HappySqurriel said:

Between swine flu, bird flu, SARS, and countless other paper-tigers built by the media is anyone surprised that the mainstream media continues to play on people's fears for ratings anymore?


Have you ever done any kind of research at all on pandemics? Or even just thought about it much? Pandemics are scary scary things. The problem isn't necessarily the current form of the pandemic, but rather the possibility of mutation over time that will make it even more resilient, invisible, and fatal.

The 1918 Spanish Flu is estimated to have killed 50-100 million people.The second wave was the truly deadly one.

"A large factor in the worldwide occurrence of this flu was increased travel. Modern transportation systems made it easier for soldiers, sailors, and civilian travelers to spread the disease."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

Pandemics can be quite serious, which is why governments and health organizations freak out and may go overboard for even 'lesser' diseases. Frankly, I'm all for that. It will keep more people healthy and alive. The only way to fight against a pandemic is with fast, serious action.

As for the radiation thing, yeah, people are freaking out. It is a little silly, but hey, if these people only need to buy something for some peace of mind, I say go for it.

There is a massive difference between taking reasonable precautions and buying into media driven fear. In the case of most of these paper-tiger pandemics those in charge of public policy are worried because these illnesses have the possibility to have 50% or 100% higher fatality rate compared to most influenza viruses; but (to the average person) this changes the probability of a healthy person dying from these illnesses from 0.01% to 0.02%.

One of these days we will have another influenza virus which is as deadly as the spanish flu was; unfortunately, after decades of "Crying Wolf" to gain ratings people are likely to think that it is just media hype.

 

By the way, the mainstream media's use of fear is hardly limited to meaningless illnesses ...

A kidnapping or murder will happen somewhere, and thousands of miles away people will be absolutely convinced that they will be the next target. You don't see children on playgrounds anymore because 1 in 1,000,000 children are kidnapped from a playground each year.

 

Essentially, people are living their lives in fear of events with insanely low probabilities of happening; while living lifestyles which will certainly shorten their lives by decades and leave them with slow and painful deaths.