I mean, sure, the song is dippy, but so what? It's fun.
Stossel presented an awful lot of evidence that we worry too much about stupid things that are very unlikely to happen, and too little about things that really are going to happen. Like eating too high a percentage of omega-6 fats will clog your arteries (although he wasn't that specific about the kind of fat - what he showed was foods like burgers and fries that are typically packed with omega-6s).
The thing I keep hearing people worry about is the trade deficit, which we've run every year except during depressions and recessions since this country was founded. Stossel didn't talk about that, but he did a section on our savings rate. The economist he had on said that the government doesn't include our investments in that measure: if you include that we're saving more than ever.
--Bicycle helmet laws cause overconfidence in both riders and car drivers and cause many people to stop riding because they don't want to go buy one. And those people, then, don't replace biking with other exercise, they replace it with driving to the burger joint or ordering pizza in and watching the tube.
Here's part of his blurb for the show:
Terrorism: How big is the risk? We look at what Veronique De Rugy of the American Enterprise Institute calls "terror porn": billions of dollars wasted in the name of safety, and what I call the FIC, or the "Fear Industrial Complex": politicians, lawyers, activists and media, who have an incentive to keep you scared. They profit by spreading fear.
Read that whole thing. It's a heckuva good run-down of everything that was said.
By the way: he did his own study of the wig thing. His results were inconclusive, though humorous.
He had a psychologist give some advice on how to overcome worrying. What the heck did he say?
Well, it was a b**** to find - I finally broke down and used ABC News' search box - but here it is:
Hallowell has a simple three-step plan that he says will help 95 percent of people overcome their worries.
Step 1: Never worry alone. Talk to somebody about your worries.
Step 2: Get the facts, because usually toxic worry is based on wrong information or lack of information.
Step 3: Make a plan. Take an active, constructive step. For example, Fortino might bring a distracting movie on the plane when she's anxious.
Making a plan will help you feel more in control, Hallowell says, although don't expect to "solve" your worry problem.
"Worry is not a problem you solve, it's a problem you manage. It's like blood pressure. You're bringing it into the normal zone," he said.
Stossel specializes in tipping sacred cows and prodding special interest groups. He's really got 'em up in arms in his discussion board with this one. (Well, not the cows, so much, but you know what I mean.)
I don't know anybody who wears a bike helmet, and everybody I know has been vaccinated. We're all normal.
Seems to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment