Friday, January 04, 2013

Normalcy bias

via Wikipedia.
The normalcy bias, or normality bias, refers to a mental state people enter when facing a disaster. It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster never has occurred then it never will occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.[1]
Don't be a victim of this affliction.

Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean that it can't.  I received this comment and instead of getting angry, I'm amused.  Check this out.
 Most of the public wants more gun control, Solomon, so I guess by your (bullshit, btw) Obamacare rationale, Obama should give it to them...and the idea that a DHS purchase of .40 has anything to do with the current national gun-control frenzy is preposterous, take off your tinfoil hat and climb out of your backyard shelter, your blog is no longer a military blog its a doomsday preppers militia paranoid political fantasy 
First.  No people don't want more control.  This is an article in Bloomberg written by Stephen Carter.  Go there to read it all but a tidbit...
 After the horrific murders three weeks ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,Connecticutgun-control advocates confidently predicted that a wave of revulsion would sweep the nation. We would, in the popular argot, “hit the reset button,” beginning a fresh debate on new terms.t hasn’t happened that way. Consider a recent roundupof opinion surveys. In the USA Today-Gallup Poll taken just a week after the shooting, when one would expect the largest emotional effect, support for “more strict” gun control in the abstract was at 58 percent, compared with 43 percent about a year earlier. On specifics, 74 percent opposed a ban on private ownership of handguns, and 51 percent opposed a ban on private ownership of assault weapons. (There’smore support for posting armed guards in schools than for limiting access to assault weapons.)Sure, advocates can try to twist these polls into policy preferences. In truth, although the data reflect what might prove to be temporary majorities for such measures as banning magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, one searches in vain for a mandate in support of policies many gun-control advocates prefer. The urgency seems to have gone out of the argument. Even the news media seem to have grown bored by the whole thing.
So no.  Despite an attempt at emotional manipulation, gun control is NOT the will of the people.

The next accusation was that this is no longer a military blog.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  America's gun culture is part and parcel of its martial traditions.  Advances in military arms is mixed with trends in civilian and law enforcement advances in the state of the art.  Much to my disapproval you have the military doing 3 gun.  That started in the civilian world.  Race gunners have changed the way that the military trains and employs small arms.

That came from sports shooters.  European and Asian armies are following suit.  And they're all following sports shooters in the civilian world.  Outside of Special Ops, civilian sports shooters are in many cases ahead of the conventional military.

Last he talks about tinfoil hat.  I make no apologies.  Talk to Numo and other readers in Southern Europe.

I pay attention to what they tell me.

We have a greater debt burden, unemployment that is approaching the same levels and no end in sight to the burden of this debt.

Additionally we have an administration that is ignoring the problem and the only piggy bank anyone can agree on is the US military.

In other words I can easily see the same rioting that is happening in Greece occurring in major cities here in the US if the fiscal crisis is misplayed by either side.  If Iran goes silly and shuts down the straits then Europe and the US will be in a hurt locker.  If the Syrian conflict spills over into Turkey or Israel then again, the Middle East is ablaze.  In Asia, if Vietnam forces the issue and China is belligerent then we can see a naval battle that destabilizes the region.  Same with the Philippines or Japan or S. Korea or Taiwan.  That leaves out the natural disasters that can turn our world upside down.

In other words military affairs is expanding.  If being a "prepper" is being aware of dangers then so be it.  If wearing a tinfoil hat is looking around and seeing a dangerous world then I'm guilty.

But one thing I will never be accused of is NORMALCY BIAS.

ONE LAST THING:  There just isn't much news coming on the defense front that is of interest.  I can almost feel ever defense company holding its breath waiting to see how the fiscal cliff discussions play out.  What should have been solved on the 1st of this month has now been pushed back by a couple so there is nothing going on but uncertainty.  As a matter of fact the only thing that everyone is sure of is that defense will be cut, its just a matter of how much and whether the services will be able to slice enough personnel to pay for weapons or whether the Administration will FORCE them to keep people and delay needed modernization.  If you haven't been paying attention then be advised.  Former Senator and Army Veteran Hagel is a defense critic and his appointment indicates a tough time for the DoD.  He's the budget cutter that Panetta was suppose to be.  What you're likely to see is a repeat of Rumsfeld before the terrorist attacks but without the push for transformation.  Remember Rumsfeld wanted a SMALL high tech military.  Imagine the same but without the high tech.  Cuts but no increase in capability...not even on a power point.  

6 comments :

  1. Concentration camps, pogroms, civil wars, GULAG's, struggles for civil rights, ethnic cleansing, cultural revolutions, mass rapes, the rewriting of history and truths, and all other human horrors only happen in history books. Didn't you know that? ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. exactly! that's what kills me about most people and their grasp of history. they have none! they don't realize that as far as nations go we're still a baby. most countries have gone through at least two revolutions or uprisings...we've only experienced one. most countries have suffered fighting just short of civil war and we haven't.

      long story short compared to most "mature" countries the USA hasn't been through jack shit. we're at best a muscle bound teenager that has yet to experience the full onset of puberty.

      anyone with a brain is at the very least on guard for a financial collapse. at the very least.

      Delete
    2. It is even more frightening when you discuss this issue with somebody who has a doctorate in history specialising in Jewish persecution in Modern Europe. You can forgive teenage undergraduates for thinking "history" happened in the past is not happening now. I am going to use my favourite quote again,

      " That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there. " - George Orwell and he was a socialist.


      The Western Left see events like the Balkan Wars or the Arab Spring as the actions of lesser peoples. That is very arrogant. Demeaning to our fellow man. It may be a cliche but we truly are only a few meals from anarchy. The safety of many collapses when the electric goes off line. There are cruel and evil persons out there and you are deluded if you think you can reason away their innate behaviour. That is another contradiction in the Left's world view. Violence is beneath them and the course of action used by the less developed and intellectually capable. But the Left believe they can reason with such persons if the need arises. What a tremendous flaw in logic.

      Delete
  2. The normalcy bias, along with Liberal apathy, exist because strong men with scary guns have protected our nation allowing the infirm to occupy themselves with other concerns (like reality TV).

    The more government tries to suspend natural consequences (law) the more likely collapse will be. We are a nation that has been bankrupted by children who want someone else to indure the consequences of their actions.

    These days are over, one way or another. The signs of this are everywhere and yet folks cannot be bothered to step outside their comfort zone to A: alter our course OR B: prepare. The ones who do get "it" are not going to be disarmed, no matter what mob rule has to say about it.


    RA

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. exactly right! but whats worse is the fact that these same people that can name reality tv stars but couldn't bother to put aside some food or learn how to defend themselves ARE MAD because people like us can and are!

      they shouldn't hate us, they should try and catch up! i mean we won't slow down so they can catch up but we'd be happy to give tips and tricks so they don't make some of the mistakes we made along the journey.

      but they're too good and would rather call names. we might be wrong but if you look at the budget trends. if you look at the demographics and the aging of the population without skills sets being replaced...if you look at the flight of industry out of our country...then a collapse seems inevitable.

      Delete
  3. In my opinion, they don't try to catch up because it they would have to accept reality and responsibility. It's much easier to make-believe that the status quo is sustainable and gov, media, and academia are furthering that delusion. Not onlt that, but these institutions require the people to be in the dark for their own survival.

    Imagine what would happen if the USD in your bank account was worth nothing tomorrow. That is what folks should be thinking about right now while there are still opportunities to trade fiat paper for tangible goods.

    The American populace consists of people who have been bred to be consumers. We don't even create what we consume anymore--we just "service" it. It's not that people don't necessary want to be different, but that they can't be.

    And then you have the "47%". These folks come from families that haven't worked in three generations (in some cases). All they know how to do is lay on their backs and collect a check from gov or "work" entitlement jobs in gov.

    If you look at consumer prices, and I try not to obsess over it, you will see the beginnings of resource scarity (supply/demand). We gun owners are dealing with severe scarity now. M855 will now set you back $1.50/round--which is too much for most of us to shoot recreationally. The entire supply channel of military style guns has been emptied.

    Now apply the lessons of resource scarity to food, security, medicine, energy, or shelter. Mix in a government that is pre-occupied with gun control instead of fixing the economic mess they created. And add a demoralized culture that no longer shares a consistent values system (Christianity).

    Folks need to think!


    RA

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.