The Paranoid Era

I believe the decade starting with 2010 will be known in the future as the Paranoid Decade (that is if we have a future). Perhaps it's the nature of modern TV news programs and other media to harp on events that may cause problems. Some are real, some are hoaxes and some are minor difficulties that are overblown. We are told daily that terrorists are coming to get us, that we're all going to die from eating too many hamburgers or from global warming, that our kids are the victims of bullies (like this something new) and that illegal immigrants are going to take our jobs after they rob us and collect welfare. This is besides an all-out atomic war or the earth being struck by a killer asteroid.

This paranoid fever has finally reached Scientific American. In an article about security on the internet, it states that computer viruses and mallware are pretty much unstoppable. The hackers that create them are making them more devious and malevolent. Besides stealing our identity and our money, they can be used to stops power company generators from working, turn guided missiles back on their launchers and blow-up refineries. The article states, "We truly cannot trust anything." Wow! If that's not a truly paranoid statement, I don't know what is.

We've been led to believe that lowering our bad cholesterol and raising our good cholesterol would save us from having a heart attack. Not necessarily so says an article in SA. Recent studies have shown that there are many other factors involved that your doctor is probably not telling you about.

Another article pointed out that the world population is still expanding exponentially, while the food supply is diminishing due to over fishing, higher demand, use of crops for biofuels and so forth.

On the economic front, an article claims that one of the factors that caused the economic collapse of 2008, was flawed mathematical formulas used by financial investment firms. The article states, "Financial investment firms had developed such complex ways of investing their client's money that they came to rely on arcane formulas to judge the risks they were taking on." It also states that banks and investment firms are leading the global economy into a future that is at great risk of repeating the past. Recession now, depression on its way.

Scary stuff huh? Worry, worry, worry.