Risky Business

it won't happen to me

Our brains are mostly FAT and thrive on carbs and sugar. My Polish grandmother had no qualms about eating cow brains and other weird stuff. I think they called them sweetbreads (referred to lots of parts I think) back in the day. This is a little too “marbled” for my taste :) Here’s a recipe for the intrepid.

What we Carry Around

Weighing about 3 pounds in the average adult, the brain is about 60% fat. The remaining 40% is a combination of water, protein, carbohydrates, and salts. It contains blood vessels and nerves, including neurons and glial cells. An average human brain corresponds to about two percent of our body weight (if you are 150 pounds, that is). Survival in the early days for humans was a slog. Our brains consume about ten percent of our calories. When things get sketchy, our brains will consume calories to the detriment of other body parts. In times of struggle, we humans had to adapt to such a high-energy organ and work very hard to “feed the monster”.

While there are things we “just do” like breathe without intimate control from our brains, it meddles in a whole lot of what makes us human. The large energy requirements for our brains and all they can do doesn’t necessarily serve you well in a famine. Somehow, what we ended up with, balanced on our necks, has worked out.

So how did I settle on this topic today? Many years ago, I read a book by one of my favorite authors Michael Lewis. The book in question was “The Big Short”. Lewis is a master storyteller and a number of his books have transferred well to the big screen including “Moneyball”, “The Blind Side” and “The Big Short”. There is a weighty portion of the book that describes a shortcoming of financial markets. Mostly due to the structure and ancient biases of our brains, humans are very poor at assessing risk.

So why is that a topic worth considering and how might I make it fun, relevant, and memorable? For me, one of the ultimate escapist TV shows is Doomsday Preppers. Here is a link to many of the episodes available on YouTube.com. The breadth of the foolishness is beyond reason. Some are fearful the magnetic field of the earth is going to reverse and they want to be “ready”. Others expect an impending solar flare that will trigger an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) akin to nuclear weapons which will incapacitate all electronics. Others think a mega volcano will cover large parts of North America in lava. Freeze-dried spaghetti and meatballs or MREs are part of a good preparedness plan. Some expect a government takeover of liberals or conservatives depending upon the extent of your aneurism. Again, having sophisticated water purification systems in your basement will be the KEY to your survival.

For those unwilling to commit to a full episode, enjoy the trailer. This is hilarious and profoundly sad simultaneously.

After watching some episodes for entertainment my conclusions are the following are all warning signs of this runaway behavior:

• You embrace conspiracy theories

• You think the end times are upon us

• You think the other political party is on the verge of a takeover

• You have gone down the rabbit hole of some real topic and taken it far beyond a reasonable conclusion. If you live on the Southeast coast, you should be aware of hurricane preparedness. You should not build a submarine.

If this topic is new to you, here is a subreddit that captures the subculture. What I cannot know when I glance at this glimpse of madness is whether the people posting or behaving this way are serious or just seeking their fifteen minutes of fame. I fear they are serious. I assume this is just an incredible inability to assess risk.

Are there other examples of this curious obsession? A while back I observed some extreme conspiracy theory purveyors on television. My take is not to judge whether what they are talking about is reasonable necessarily. It seems if I did that you might conclude I am biased. My approach when it comes to what I consider possible crazy talk is to observe who is advertising on the shows and what exactly are they selling. The following products, if they are being sold on a radio or television show you hear (or even is the preferred advertising in your Newsfeed) you may already be knee-deep in the conspiracy world and its complementary state of not being able to assess risk reasonably. Writing about these topics with Grammarly cleaning up my writing has led Google AdWords to proffer opportunities for freeze-dried beef stroganoff by the tub. So far I have avoided the investment of a lifetime in gold coins. I have also avoided opportunities to ingest jellyfish parts since they appear immortal.

• Most people don’t have the means to process precious metals and even if they do what exactly is the plan to use them? Why are people buying gold and storing it in their houses in preparation for the world unraveling? Over my life, I have had colleagues who talk about having gold and silver in times of peril. Why exactly? So my takeaway is if you are watching, listening, or reading media that is selling precious metals in a full-court press, you might pause to think about whether it’s time for a different channel or source.

• Emergency food planning seems to have hit the mainstream. How do I know that? My local Costco is now selling ludicrous tubs of freeze-dried beef stroganoff for the end times or some sort of impending storm. What is my opinion? Even in the most extreme conditions, it seems that FEMA or even more likely Walmart arrives with trucks full of support. Again, I think if your favorite media is advertising emergency food, you should pause to think about the underlying content. Another tipoff of course is the names of the companies selling this nonsense. Here is one of my favorites “MyPatriotSupply”.

• The website linked is amazing and even includes some 30-year shelf-life coffee. Yummy, nothing like fresh coffee. Faced with the option of purchasing such things, I try to apply the test my wife would apply before loading this onto your sled at Costco. I am confident she would never impulse buy a five-gallon paint tub full of freeze-dried beef stew, much less civilian versions of MREs (meals ready to eat). I am amazed when I see these products. If I ever notice someone with it in their cart or sled, I will make a mental note of what the heck else they are buying.

• By the way, my Michael Lewis reference to ”The Big Short” centers on being a contrarian and buying low-cost bonds as insurance against “unlikely events”. I think we are undoubtedly in one of those burgeoning risk markets today. I doubt there is adequate or properly priced insurance for all of the myriad and rising cost impacts of climate change like wildfires, sea rise, flooding, and higher energy hurricanes (the science is pretty simple as warmer water stores more energy). This is not difficult, it is physics 101.

• Each time these “unlikely events” happen, regulators, conclude it was a failure of imagination or markets. That applies to 9/11, the housing bubble, the impact of a new virus, etcetera. They never blame the way we are wired to think and our inability to gauge risk.

I Can Make It / I Will Survive

Despite the marvels of our brains, we are simply not very good at assessing risk. One of the silly and somewhat low-cost overreactions to risk occurred about twenty years ago. If you purchase a late model car with a trunk, they all now, by government mandate, contain a glow-in-the-dark pull string to release the trunk if you are locked inside. There have UNDOUBTEDLY been a handful of high-profile tragedies. Even the loss of one life is a tragedy but the solution of installing 18 million cable pulls per year is an unlikely solution. Nevertheless, just because you may have watched a few Hollywood thrillers where someone invariably gets put in a trunk, this is a very rare situation. It is inconceivable to me that it is a sensible mandated investment to put this in every car. The inability to assess risk is the driver of this sort of thing.

Just put it in the park. The risk ain’t worth the reward.

I am going to finish with a few questions for each of you. Have you ever been in a car whether driving or a passenger when you cross the tracks once the bell is already ringing for an approaching train? When you approach a four-way intersection and the light turns yellow and you are still 200+ feet away, do you drive through? Now consider the risk versus reward of this strategy. It is difficult for me to see how it can be sensible unless something you just haven’t given enough thought to address is just taking over. What is the risk and what is the reward?

The least likely to use feature in a car. Here’s the regulation

This next nugget of sensibility and insight is courtesy of my youngest son Nick. After he first said it, I think of it WHENEVER I SEE A RECKLESS DRIVER CUTTING ACROSS LANES, ETCETERA. Nick and I were driving somewhere and a person was driving at a crazy speed or cutting across lanes. Nick just said, “I hope they ran to their car”. When I thought about it and he explained what he was thinking it is hilarious. Most people are driving somewhere and the ride might take ten minutes. Driving like a bat out of hell might actually “save” you a minute. Perhaps, jogging to your car when you are ready to leave is a better strategy than speeding through yellow lights and passing on the shoulder. It certainly is a lot less risky for you and the people you share this world with.

The Poll and Music

Music was easy today and I love the song anyhow.

What’s Next

Next time we are going to talk about “EMF”. Addiction is a POWERFUL force and we are powerless until we engage it and face it head-on. I am the first to admit I am addicted to my mobile phone in some oblique fashion. How do I know? When I CONSCIOUSLY set it down away from me, it requires mindfulness to block it from my thoughts. Why does it matter? Imagine if we knew (or feared) there was something wrong with using it, could we stop? Ask the myriad people around you who battled addiction in some form during their lives.