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Why "risk" is a four-letter word

Life expectancy has grown significantly in the past century.

Last time I checked, I think most Kiwis can expect to live well into their 70's and beyond, whereas back in the early 1900s I suspect we were doing well to make it through our 60's.

Although much of this extended life can be attributed to better healthcare and advances in medical technology, there are a fist-full of other factors that also probably help a lot.

Take this example of an April Fool's joke from the 1939 edition of Popular Science magazine for example.

Mercuric chloride? Sodium sulphocyanide?

No doubt the toxic concoction described in that article would have not done your health any good at all but, more amazing than the prank is the fact that such substances were obviously very freely available.

Ah... the good old days :-)

As I have written previously in this column, when I was a lad you could buy almost anything over the counter.

Bottle of fuming nitric acid? Yep, the chemist shop would sell you this in a *glass* bottle!

A little potassium nitrate for your own home-made black-powder? Simple... you could buy it by the pound at the local garden centre.

Need a radioactive source? Just grab a luminous watch which used such materials to generate its all-night glowing hands and numerals.

Yes, those were the days before those in power decided that we couldn't possibly be responsible for our own safety.

Now I wonder if the proliferation of really stupid people recently is simply a result of bureaucrats and politicians interfering in the process of natural selection by making all these dangerous and toxic products unavailable to us.

Now that we live in nerf-world, the real thickos out there survive to breeding age (and beyond), thus being able to reproduce and pass on their dullardry to a new generation -- in the process diluting the human gene pool.

Okay, so I'm kidding -- but only just.

We are however, removing the need for young people (and old) to recognise, quantify, mitigate and cope with risk. That is a very dangerous situation for everyone.

Risk is a fact of life. No matter what you do you will always be exposed to risk. Risk of injury, risk of disappointment, risk of loss, risk of life. It seems that instead of investing in teaching our kids how to deal with this risk, we have instead focused on trying to remove it from their lives by way of restrictions, bans, rules, regulations and controls.

Personally, I think this is not the right way to address the issue of risk.

Instead of simply hiding the risks and cosseting people in a fake no-risk world, we need to provide them with the knowledge, awareness and skills needed to cope with risk.

Unfortunately, I suspect this will never happen.

What a shame.

No more "serpentine" matches I guess.

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