Liberty, Safety & Somebody Else's Problem


Popular Mechanics puts forth a very interesting idea and I stretch it a bit
More later I promise, but I wanted to hammer this one out before I go face the world for a few hours.

These days I only buy four magazines at the grocery store: Macworld, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and the occasional Arizona Highways. For years those were the only magazines I bothered to read cover to cover, so they are the only print magazines I read now. Everything else is online.

There was a great piece in Popular Mechanics about traffic.

Vanderbilt describes driving along a narrow, twisting road in Spain, where he navigated hairpin turns with few guardrails or warning signs over steep drop-offs. The result: “I drove as if my life depended on it.” But when he reached a four-lane highway with gentle curves, good visibility and little traffic, “I just about fell asleep and ran off the road ... Lulled by safety, I’d acted more dangerously.”

There is a fair amount of scientific evidence that backs up Vanderbilt’s insights. Give people antilock brakes, airbags and other safety devices, and they “consume” the safety improvements by driving more aggressively. This phenomenon is called the Peltzman Effect, after economist Sam Peltzman, who first wrote about it in 1976. The decades-long effort to make highways straighter, wider and better-marked, with more guardrails and rumble strips, has eliminated one class of dangers only to foster another: the complacent driver with a cellphone in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, steering the vehicle with a knee while occasionally glancing at what’s ahead.

Meanwhile, modifying roads and intersections so drivers are less comfortable—by making driving, in some ways, more dangerous—forces people to slow down and pay attention, producing a change in behavior that, paradoxically, results in more safety. This is also true for pedestrians, who Vanderbilt says are more cautious away from crosswalks than within them because they don’t know if cars will actually stop.

And what does this have to do with liberty?

Just for the moment, assume that it applies to human behavior without cars and roads. If the system is set up to give people a feeling of safety, then they won't pay attention. Even as they are destroying their own freedoms.

That's another definition of what I call Somebody Else's Problem.

When something is "protected" by government decree, people don't watch it closely because it becomes Somebody Else's Problem (I borrowed the idea from the late Douglas Adams ).
— NeoWayland, True Believer Rant

There is the other direct result of Federal money showers. Responsibility for the "social problems" become the FedGovernment's concern. Instead of people taking a direct hand, they look at the situation and dismiss it as Somebody Else's Problem*. People know it's being taken care of and that they don't have to worry. After all, the Great and Benevolent State tells them so. Repeatedly. All they have to do is pay higher taxes and not ask too many questions.
— NeoWayland, Those who can't remember history…

It's an intriguing idea.

If a politico gets nominated and elected despite what the voter does, then why should the voter pay attention?

If the government tells the citizens that their money is safe, then why worry?

If the "default setting" for a government program is to keep expanding, then what should a citizen do?

Somebody Else's Problem. Screwing up your life because people don't have to pay attention.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Wed - March 18, 2009 at 07:14 AM  Tag


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