Dangerous

"The world is a more dangerous place these days."

As a parent I hear this all the time.  It's why we don't have latch-key kids anymore.  It is why kids have to strap brain-buckets on before they walk out the front door.  Why they aren't allowed to play at the cemetery...or even the PARK (seriously, the enclosed, plastic, padded, neighborhood park) without adult supervision.  Because the world is a more dangerous place these days!

I do not agree with this at all.  More dangerous compared to what?

Let us use coffee as an example.  It's not like coffee has gotten any hotter over the last 20 years.  Coffee is brewed in the world today at the same temperature coffee has been brewed since it was invented.  It's just that now it comes with a warning label.  Now it is CAUTION! DANGER!  This coffee is SO hot you will think you just sipped on the sun!  For the love of god, man!  Be careful!  But coffee isn't really any hotter than it used to be.  And the world is exactly the same amount of dangerous the world has always been.

You are still more likely to be murdered or molested by a family member or a loved one than by some pervy, sicko stranger on a street corner.  I submit that danger is a mutable thing, like mass.  It can neither be created nor destroyed, only changed.  Like, you probably don't have to worry about foreign invaders looting and pilaging your village.  Being burned at the stake for witchcraft?  Almost unheard of lately...almost (look, I know there's shit going down in other parts of the world but shut up, you know what I'm talking about). 

So, instead of dangerous pilaging and witch hunts, we have the dangerous internet and internet predators.  Same amount of danger, now mutated to accomodate our high-speed, technological world.  However, if you are fucking stupid enough to invite some internet stranger into your home or agree to meet them in a remote location...that's just Darwinism, isn't it?  I have no sympathy for you.

But what about all the guns?!  Guns are EVERYWHERE!  Pshaw.  Guns schmuns.  You could kill somebody with a pillow if you really wanted to.

What about drugs?!  There's a war on drugs!  Drugs are bad, m'kuy.  Oh sure, villainize drugs why don't you.  My group counselor dude said nothing good ever came from drugs.  With that one statement he unwittingly negated the existence of all theology, medicine and art.  Jackass.

What about AIDS?  AIDS is new to the world.  What about the Bubonic Plague?  Weird diseases kill masses of people from time to time.  Not a new danger.

We are way too focused on safety.  Historically, being safe hasn't really gotten a lot of new ground covered, y'know?  Like, what if Magellan's mom had said, "Sweetheart, listen to Mommy.  I will not allow you to take that boat out where I can't see you.  The world is flat, baby.  You could fall off and hurt yourself." 

Danger is where it's at.