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Disrespecting Authorities That Cry Wolf
Having the trifecta of a conservative temperament, theology, and political outlook, I am the kind of guy who generally respects authorities. This is getting harder to do. One of the recurrent problems is authorities who “cry wolf.” I received the following warning over my iPhone, accompanied by an emergency audio signal vaguely reminiscent of a Star Trek red alert:
Emergency Alert
National Weather Service: A FLASH FLOOD WARNING is in effect for this area until 3:45 PM MST. This is a dangerous and life-threatening situation. Do not attempt to travel unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order.
I’m in Tucson, Arizona. I’ve lived here, more or less continuously, for almost 50 years now. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a rainstorm that presented a dangerous and life-threatening situation. Not, at least, if you exercise a lick of common sense, like staying out of washes.
I received two of these messages over the weekend, too, but being among the oldest of Gen X, I pressed a button on my phone that deleted the message before I could transcribe it and couldn’t get it back. (Isn’t that helpful, too?)
I’ve noticed this strange trend for quite a long time now, but it seems to be getting worse. Many people seem paranoid, panicked, phobic. Risks seem to be wildly overstated. It sometimes seems as if the whole world is composed of the type of hysterical teenaged girl who gave us the witch trials once upon a time.
The examples are legion, and are not confined to one side of the political spectrum:
- Dying of Covid
- Getting shot by the cops
- Mass extinction, apparently, because the temperature may be warming up a bit
- A variety of catastrophes if the Taliban takes over Afghanistan (again)
- Russian troops invading the US if not stopped at the Ukrainian border, or something like that
And oh, by the way, it’s a life-threatening emergency every time it rains in Tucson.
This is getting a bit old.
Published in General
Here ya go:
https://www.weather.gov/arx/usflood
Well, New Mexico has three this year. You Arizonans are going to have to try harder.
Last several years in AZ: 9, 5, 4, 3, 11, 0, 2, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2. Looks like a tsunami of deaths wiping heart disease and cancer right off the map.
What it really looks like is CYA. Did you here about the scientists who were sued or charged with crimes in Italy after a volcanic eruption for not warning people enough? It’s the lawyers who are the problems.
Hey, now!
Resisting the urge to reference today’s meme post. Itchy fingers. Itchy fingers. Oh, what the heck.
Sorry, man, that’s the problem with area munitions. Collateral damage.
Took ya long enough.
Welcome to the party, pal!
Why do you think that one would necessarily or obviously follow from the other?
So far I have died from the ozone hole, acid rain, the new ice age, over population, Y2K, and for the last 25 years I have been told I only have 12 years until global warming (rebranded as climate change) will kill me. So yeah, I guess I am getting immune to this kind of stuff.
Indeed. The fact that conservatives, of all people, are now the anti-authoritarians should really provide politicians with the impetus to have a good long look in the mirror.
I think they resent the abuse of authority.
They’re like kids in a cop car, playing with the siren.
Or maybe they’re learning the lesson of Italy: just sound the alarm EVERY DAY, and then you can never be accused of not sounding it when you should have.
It’s a life-threatening emergency when the sun shines and it’s 112 degrees. When there is lightning. What doesn’t bite you will stab and sting you in the Sonoran Desert.
As far as cops are concerned obey the commands and live. You can sue them after the arrest.
I don’t like the terms “obey” and “command” in this context. I also don’t like the idea that staying alive is entirely contingent on doing this.
There is no right to resist arrest. It is a separate crime. If you start pulling a gun out of your waistband the officer does not have to wait for you to take the first shot.
Yup, I get that. Not everyone you’re expecting to “obey commands” is pulling out a gun. Or is armed at all.
The population is becoming less educated with respect to analyzing risks, and media increasingly emphasize the worst case scenarios. And the media don’t even understand what the risk components are, let alone how to evaluate them.
In your weather case, you do have a bunch of California’s moving in, and most Californians have zero experience with any weather, so they may need blunt messages.
Time to pull out They Live?
Don’t forget the plague that was the repeal of net-neutrality! That killed me twice, and then gave me toenail fungus.
That may explain part of it, but I lived in the Phoenix area for 30 years (before finally getting out), and I saw a lot of life-long residents who seemed to be surprised by the “monsoon” every single year.
It rains so seldom in the Phoenix area – not even a “mild” rain – that it’s easy for even life-long residents to forget things like how slippery the roads can be when months of accumulated car oil mist etc, gets wet.
Of course, I might have had the same problem if I’d moved to Arizona from California. But I grew up in Oregon first, so none of that surprised me.
This reminds me of an oldie but a goodie
Yer lucky.
Killer bees got Me.
Just once?
Slacker.
Piker. I died twice. Once during the Alar scare and again during the ’87 market crash.
After all that Red Dye #2 we ingested in the ’70s, it’s a miracle any of us are still alive.
Well there’s yer problem right there.
1: Push notificatio0ns are now broadly available.
2: Hazards exist
3: If a hazard exists and you aren’t warned, someone somewhere must be liable for your injury.
4: Expect to see a lot more push notifications over more and more insignificant “hazards” in the future.
Take a look at the owners manual for any recent model year automobile. About a third* of the content is now repeated warnings scattered on almost every page about how failure to use the feature properly, or taking your eyes off the road to use a feature, will result in your death in a fiery crash.
*an exaggeration, but not by much. All the warnings used to be printed once in a group at the beginning of the manual. Now they are repeated ad nauseum through the book.
A weather app on my phone gives me this warning nearly every time it rains here in the Phoenix area:
“Lighting detected in your area. Shelter indoors for at least 30 minutes.”
I swear, these people must cover themselves in bubble wrap and wear safety helmets every time they walk out the door.
I just get the “Lightning detected in your area” without the command to shelter.
My wife’s got some app on her iPad that announces these things. And they announce them loudly at about 2:00 am, waking me from a deep sleep.