United States of Scared Sh*tless

I think about fear a lot. Fear is the prime motivator. We do (or don't do) things out of fear of failure, of embarrassment, of injury, of insignificance. We're scared of dying, and consequently we are scared of living. And there are whole industries geared toward monetizing our fear. I was thinking of two examples of this recently: Al Gore and Pat Robertson. These two men, while possibly sincere in their beliefs, have implemented business models that play to people's fears of one type of apocalypse or another. 

Al Gore is joining a green VC firm; clearly, he's betting that concerns over global climate change will impact consumer behaviors in a way that will make somebody some money. Heck, he's already gotten an Oscar and a Nobel out of the deal!* Pat Robertson has built an empire on your fear that if you make God mad, you will go to Hell. Send Pat money, and Pat will put in a good word for you. Apparently, based on his recent endorsement of liberal cross-dressing NYC freakbat Rudy Guliani, Pat wants some of that good ol' GOP terror fear action, too. Rudy might be weak on queers, but he's strong on 9-11! 9-11! 9-11! And those right-wing millennial types LOVE them some 9-11.

This election season, we're all going to get a nice big heaping helping of fear-mongering from both sides of the spectrum. Maybe if we take a minute, and a few deep breaths, we can make come rational decisions about our country's future that don't come from being afraid of Bin Ladin, or Carbon Monoxide, or Satan, or going broke in the real estate market.


* I'm not belittling the global warming threat here. I think it's real, and I think that even if it's not, we can't afford to make that bet. Besides, we'll get so much cool tech out of the bargain, and maybe we'll reduce our dependence on crazy countries with big oil reserves.