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Bruce Schneier has written an article about Living in a Code Yellow World:
In 1989, handgun expert Jeff Cooper invented something called the Color Code to describe what he called the "combat mind-set." Here is his summary:
In White you are unprepared and unready to take lethal action. If you are attacked in White you will probably die unless your adversary is totally inept.
In Yellow you bring yourself to the understanding that your life may be in danger and that you may have to do something about it.
In Orange you have determined upon a specific adversary and are prepared to take action which may result in his death, but you are not in a lethal mode.
In Red you are in a lethal mode and will shoot if circumstances warrant.
Cooper talked about remaining in Code Yellow over time, but he didn't write about its psychological toll. It's significant. Our brains can't be on that alert level constantly. We need downtime. We need to relax. This is why we have friends around whom we can let our guard down and homes where we can close our doors to outsiders. We only want to visit Yellowland occasionally.
Since 9/11, the US has increasingly become Yellowland, a place where we assume danger is imminent. It's damaging to us individually and as a society.
He continues:
Those of us fortunate enough to live in a Code White society are much better served acting like we do. This is something we need to learn at all levels, from our personal interactions to our national policy. Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, many of our counterterrorism policies have helped convince people they're not safe, and that they need to be in a constant state of readiness. We need our leaders to lead us out of Yellowland, not to perpetuate it.
What are my fellow Soylentil's views on Bruce Schneier's assessment?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by BsAtHome on Friday September 25 2015, @08:32AM
Fear and Consumption
That is the mindset that is perpetuated in the US. This has been true long before someone flew a plane into a building.
The media is a direct complicit in the state of affairs. Sensationalism at its finest; everything can/could kill you, even if the chances are infinitesimal. Then use a commercial break to sell you the placebo remedy; Commercialism at its finest.
Red alert: A swarm of flies carrying bacteria found moving across the country!
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday September 25 2015, @11:00AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Friday September 25 2015, @01:46PM
I have stopped watching the news. We're all taught that people watch the news to be informed or they are ignorant. But really, 20 minutes of person I will never meet shot other person I'll never meet in place I'll probably never be isn't really informative, now is it?
Meanwhile, I notice that it's 2015 and somehow we're not all dead from killer bees or shark attack, or gangs of teens driven to depravity listening to Marilyn Manson.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by TheGratefulNet on Friday September 25 2015, @02:34PM
same here, I stopped watching news, reading newspapers, avoiding news sites even before 9/11. I saw that western media is bought and sold by their funders or advertisers, sometimes even their governments.
I will scan aggregator sites and read user comments. that's more informative and I know that people are representing themselves and their groups but NOT being paid by some corporation or force by a govt, so there is a bit more genuine feel and reality to it.
by avoiding the brainwashing that we now call 'news' I'm a lot less angry and depressed about the world. and by not watching the news, I also miss the stupid 'current events' such as the kim k's and whoever else is the media darling of the day. my life is a lot better without that mindless propaganda.
as for the US, I don't see the rest of the world being THAT much less paranoid. its all a matter of degrees and I'm not seeing any country or locale getting MORE free over time. if anything, the paranoia of the US is bleeding over into every other country, without exception. if you think that by living in canada (etc) you are avoiding it all, I'm pretty sure you're mistaken and just trying to justify your decision.
the fact is, governments are run by people who love power. and they all have realized that by keeping the people in fear they can keep more control over things. show me a single western country that has NOT embraced that concept?
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2015, @10:21PM
I stopped watching news, reading newspapers, avoiding news sites
My approach wasn't that radical that far back, but I did become far more selective.
It's become more and more clear that there is a filter for anything that doesn't push hegemony and corporatism.
In contrast, The Center for American Progress, as an example, typically aggregates the data and opinion from a bunch of places before they publish a story.
You can track back to get even more of the background.
N.B. There was 1 time I submitted one of their stories here (accepted) about mandated rooftop foliage in France and I got burned.
A Soylentil noted that it was still a proposal.
I should have observed the dearth of links on ThinkProgress.org's page and should have been more skeptical.
Anything that comes from Lamestream Media that has a bit of a smell to it can usually be fact-checked via Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting [google.com] or Media Matters for America. [google.com]
It doesn't take long to discover that some "news" outlets are simply NOT a reliable source of information (Fox so-called News == 60 percent Lies) [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [sott.net]
I will scan aggregator sites and read user comments
The paradigm of sites running Slash/Slashcode and its derivatives have seemed like a great idea to me since I first encountered the other site in the previous century.
(Too bad greed stuck its ugly fingers into that at the granddaddy site.)
-- gewg_
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 25 2015, @02:21PM
And raw milk cheese is terribly dangerous. [fda.gov] It's a miracle that the French, who eat it all the time, are not yet extinct! :-)
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday September 25 2015, @03:17PM
Well, if it's made from milk from factory-farmed cows it probably would be - typical bacterial loads are something like 1000x what is found in the milk of a healthy cow.
Of course even a healthy cow has a fair amount of bacteria in its milk, and if your immune system isn't accustomed to them then you may get sick. That's the real problem - people who have never consumed raw milk start ingesting unfamiliar bacteria and get sick. If they kept ingesting they would stop having problems as their immune system adapted, and their children might never get sick as their immune system is prenatally primed by their mother's.