Funny enough, yesterday I was in a mental state of fear/panic in the evening when Clarice texted in the family chat about Allison puking out all her dinner and crying uncontrollably. Thankfully, everything was sorted out, and today she was quite happy. Glad that she was able to be okay most of the way through, and the doctors cleared her of everything actually. Now we’re just waiting her flu to recover.
But State of Fear is a Michael Crichton book highlighting the environmental crisis (and there lack of) and discussions about the media and the state of fear the world is generally in. In today’s context, the ideas portrayed in this book are extremely helpful to start a discussion about fact checking, and understanding deeper instead of just talking points and headliners.
There are many assumptions we have about the state of world we’re in. When someone says there’s global warming, what do we really understand about it? Do we agree because it’s hot where we’re at? Or have we actually looked at the scientific data and published peer led reviews about it? Especially with AI, we hover at the superficial and clearer understanding is not properly developed. State of Fear gets its readers thinking about that, as the characters go through a range of scenarios and adventures, dealing with environmental extremists and other people at play.
In some sense, this is a narrative version of Coddling of the American Mind. In Coddling, the authors suggest that Safetyism has taken over, and there is no growth for young people. There are many points of research done showing that overprotection has not helped at all. The authors produced another book after this called The Anxious Generation, which I have yet to read. (I purchased it already though!)
In both books, having a discussion and encouraging dialogue is key. As humans, we have to realise assumptions don’t help, and preemptive assumptions and overly pessimistic takes on anything end up becoming hindrances for many encouraging opportunities of growth for both parties. In productivity and effectiveness, this is the quadrant of “What I don’t know that I don’t know” — a total blind spot we wouldn’t never have imagined, because we cannot be opposite ourselves. Instead, our rivals would be able to spot some of our unknown unknowns, as we might be able to build on theirs too.
I am keen to pick up some of the books Michael Crichton recommends for environmentalism and understanding, but he really gave so many references. I’ll probably spend some time working out the details of them in the months to come, for next year’s reading list.
Leave a Reply