Is today's society disproportionately risk-averse?

[Lencoboy]

I was thinking this first thing this morning as there were slight inklings of snow on the ground in my area, which has now mostly thawed away as the general outdoor temperature has risen as the day has worn on. I was also having a conversation with my dad over lunchtime about when we used to on trips to places like South Wales and the north of England with my brother's old covers band back in the mid-late 90s to do gigs (mostly in WMCs), often in adverse winter weather conditions (treacherous snow, ice, fog, heavy rain/thunderstorms, sub-zero temperatures in general, you name them) in a tatty old wreck of a Mercedes-Benz van that was no longer fit for purpose even back then, then arriving at certain venues that equally weren't fit for purpose, especially having to lug the gear up steep and narrow stairs/steps (sometimes outdoors where there were severe slip and trip hazards) then back down/out again at the end of the night occasionally having to run the gauntlet of brawling drunken punters, and some venues even being mould-infested health hazards with dreadful toilet facilities too, notwithstanding all the passive smoking that I had to put up with back then.

Looking back, all of the above would resemble full-on nightmare scenarios for me now, but somehow we all survived and have certainly lived to tell such tales, but going to do such gigs in such circumstances would probably no doubt be totally unthinkable now, especially as we seem to have a habit of cancelling things at the slightest inkling of anything untoward happening, such as snowfalls and even heavy rainstorms, unlike years ago many people still travelled to places if possible, whatever the weather, and didn't seem to make such a big fuss.

Another thing is that we are meant to be attending a 60th birthday party bash for this guy my dad has known for years a week on Saturday (28th Jan), and my dad is a bit hesitant about going ATM because of the Omicron XBB 1.5 currently in circulation, even though it's still not proven to be any more deadly than previous Omicrons.

[WiredIncorrectly]

You raise interesting questions Lenco that always make me think.

To be fair to your Dad, nobody wants to catch COVID because it can be deliberating for many and requires at least a week before you start to feel better.

I sometimes question whether my household should lockdown, but on the flip side there's little point. This is going to around for a while so we might aswell attempt to live life in the safest way possible. I realize "Safest way possible" seems like risk aversion, but I mean in regards to COVID. Your Dad is older than us, so he might also be worried about catching it and ending up in hospital.

But yes, risk aversion has been growing slowly since I can remember in the early 2000's when terrorism was a hot topic. Prior to that, people took far more risks in general imho.

Every generation of children is wrapped in another layer of cotton wool. This does the kid no favors and often spawns negative behaviors and traits. If I shift to the other tangent, knife crime and robbery has doubled in London!

There is definitely some butterfly effect going on that's a result of past decisions.

[MyNameIsTerry]

We knew how to take risks back in those days...

...

[WiredIncorrectly]

We knew how to take risks back in those days...

...

T, it's a risk every time I eat one of these ...

[MyNameIsTerry]

T, it's a risk every time I eat one of these ...

For you or everyone around you mate?

[WiredIncorrectly]

For you or everyone around you mate?

Both!

[Lencoboy]

You raise interesting questions Lenco that always make me think.

To be fair to your Dad, nobody wants to catch COVID because it can be deliberating for many and requires at least a week before you start to feel better.

I sometimes question whether my household should lockdown, but on the flip side there's little point. This is going to around for a while so we might aswell attempt to live life in the safest way possible. I realize "Safest way possible" seems like risk aversion, but I mean in regards to COVID. Your Dad is older than us, so he might also be worried about catching it and ending up in hospital.

But yes, risk aversion has been growing slowly since I can remember in the early 2000's when terrorism was a hot topic. Prior to that, people took far more risks in general imho.

Every generation of children is wrapped in another layer of cotton wool. This does the kid no favors and often spawns negative behaviors and traits. If I shift to the other tangent, knife crime and robbery has doubled in London!

There is definitely some butterfly effect going on that's a result of past decisions.

I can understand my dad's current concerns about Covid, but I guess in reality there's plenty of other ever-present risk scenarios that we don't immediately think about; e.g, 'we might end up a car crash on the way to or on the way back from said party', 'the venue where the party is being held could catch fire and we could end up getting burned to death', 'the venue's ceiling could cave in and crush us to death', 'we could slip on the wet floor in the toilet there and bash our brains out', blah blah blah.

But like you, I do believe we've become increasingly paranoid as a society in general since the early 2000s, and in many ways I believe the knife crime thing in particular has become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy on occasions since then, such as the more the media and the authorities harp on about it (sometimes in highly sensationalist graphic detail), it can lead to a vicious cycle of not only certain people increasingly feeling scared to leave their homes in case they get randomly attacked for no reason by strangers (which is for the most part thankfully rare), but also certain people feeling compelled to go around 'tooled up' for their own personal protection and then sometimes ending up being assaulted with their own weapons by others, plus many of the genuine hardcases feeling that they have carte blanche to 'act out' all the more, particularly due to the extra publicity inadvertently being afforded to them (fifteen minutes of fame, and all that).

Going even further back to the late 80s and very early 90s, I vaguely recall there being a big panic about certain dog breeds (namely Rottweilers and Staffs Bull Terriers), which led to the Dangerous Dogs Act in 1991, though it was later revealed that said panic was often more about the nature and attitudes of some of the owners of said breeds of dog rather that the actual dog breeds themselves. Ditto for child abduction ('stranger danger') whose risks and incidents haven't actually increased since the 70s, but the fear has certainly intensified since I was a kid, as many of today's kids often aren't allowed out like we were back in my day, even in many areas with very low crime rates.

It does seem that our 'culture of fear' is self-inflicted in many ways, and I believe it's going to be detrimental to the generations to come.

[NoraB]

I was thinking this first thing this morning as there were slight inklings of snow on the ground in my area, which has now mostly thawed away as the general outdoor temperature has risen as the day has worn on. I was also having a conversation with my dad over lunchtime about when we used to on trips to places like South Wales and the north of England with my brother's old covers band back in the mid-late 90s to do gigs (mostly in WMCs), often in adverse winter weather conditions (treacherous snow, ice, fog, heavy rain/thunderstorms, sub-zero temperatures in general, you name them) in a tatty old wreck of a Mercedes-Benz van that was no longer fit for purpose even back then, then arriving at certain venues that equally weren't fit for purpose, especially having to lug the gear up steep and narrow stairs/steps (sometimes outdoors where there were severe slip and trip hazards) then back down/out again at the end of the night occasionally having to run the gauntlet of brawling drunken punters, and some venues even being mould-infested health hazards with dreadful toilet facilities too, notwithstanding all the passive smoking that I had to put up with back then.

But, Lenco, your Bro (and his band) were playing grotty working men's clubs, not the Albert Hall.

[Lencoboy]

But, Lenco, your Bro (and his band) were playing grotty working men's clubs, not the Albert Hall.

And while some of those venues, the vehicle we used to travel to those places and back, and sometimes the adverse weather conditions we travelled in back then, would no doubt cause many of today's H&S brigades to have hissy fits, we still managed to survive.

Plus not all those WMCs (and likewise venues) were outright hellholes; we actually did some fairly decent ones too, that I actually have quite fond memories of.

I think that period (the mid 90s through the early 2000s) was just a far more innocent, carefree and far less restricted time in general, but I suppose (for better or worse) we just happen to live in more enlightened times now with far greater awareness of certain things that we probably wouldn't otherwise had given as much as a second thought back then.

My dad also reckons that as far as travelling during periods of adverse weather conditions is concerned, we're generally much wiser these days, though he believes at places like schools, day centres, etc, the staff are terrified of getting sued if anyone in their care has accidents (e.g, slipping on snow, ice, etc), and simply don't want all the hassle of going through all the rigmaroles often involving endless paperwork and the like, and the school, day centre, or whatever, don't want to end up being 'named and shamed' in the local press, etc, especially as certain Joe Publics can be extremely viciously opinionated and reactionary, even if they don't know the full facts.