- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
There is a common quote that says "We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them." That is insane. Of course, people fear things they know much about because they know much about them, and people fear other things because they know little. That statement covers both of those things, because it doesn't specify if what was implied was directly or inversely proportunal(though the man who stated this was most likely suggesting the latter), which is one of the fallacies of this quote, and therefore makes whomever is quoting it seem not only like a pompous jackass, but one that knows very little about the world, yet thinks he knows everything, or at least more than you.
Anyway, those things are true, but the core argument is thus: People who have average knowledge of the subject should be only mildly afraid, if at all, yet that isn't how it works in the real world.
I know about as much as the normal person about nuclear war and weapons, yet I fear it intensely, more than almost anything else. I am not ignorant of it, nor am I a nuclear technician. Why is it that I fear so strongly?
Conversely, many people have a phobia of snakes. I know far mor about them than the normal person, yet compared to others, who barely dabble in studying snakes, I know very little. Yet I do not fear snakes in the least.
How can the statement be true and be repeated so readily if it is so undeniably false?
What do you think?