Fear distorts our actual assessment of risk.
I personally would not have had a revival of "99 Luftballons," a song by the 1980s New Wave band Nena, on my bingo card for February 2023. And yet, views of the song on YouTube are on the uptick. |
Credit that to a Chinese spy balloon that drifted across the United States, inciting what the former Harvard instructor David Ropeik describes in his guest essay as "Balloon Freakout." |
"We are instinctively wired to worry more about new risks and about risks with a lot of uncertainty," he writes. |
When Gen. Glen D. VanHerck called the other floating objects that had been shot out of the sky "unknown" it triggered a powerful response from our lizard brains. "We also worry more about risks that remind us of things we've already learned to fear, particularly those we fear most, like nuclear war," Ropeik writes. |
Which brings me back to Nena. English-speaking audiences might miss a lot of the relevance of the song if they know only the English version, "99 Red Balloons," so I suggest checking out the original German lyrics. |
In brief: 99 balloons, mistaken as U.F.O.s, spark an attack by fighter planes and then a nuclear war. |
The nuances of the song were clearly lost on many people. Consider this tweet from that noted musicologist Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. |
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Or this tone-deaf performance of the song by the Royal Air Force Regimental Band in front of an F-35 fighter jet. |
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Nena is going on tour this year, so perhaps it'll prompt a closer examination of what they meant with that tune. But I doubt it. |
U.F.O. jokes and catchy bass lines aside, in his column this week, Bret Stephens hones in on the seriousness of the balloon incident vis-à-vis the steady escalating conflict between the United States and China. |
"We tend to think that our adversaries might act against us the way we would act against them: by using the most advanced technologies at our disposal," he writes. "But part of Chinese military doctrine is based on the idea of shashoujian, or the assassin's mace — an inferior power using weapons that can surprise and defeat a superior one." |
That might fit for the Chinese spy balloon. But what of those three other objects on the receiving end of sidewinder missiles? |
"Sometimes a phenomenon goes from being the subject of crank theories and sub rosa conversations to being more mainstream, but without actually being fully explained or figured out," he writes. "Or sometimes a controversy takes center stage for a little while, a great deal seems to hang upon the answer, and then it isn't resolved and seems to get forgotten." |
Ropeik sees in the incomplete reveal of the Balloon Freakout a powerful learning opportunity. "We end up overfearing some things that arouse psychological fear factors, and we also sometimes dangerously underfear others based on the psychological factors they invoke." |
In other words, when your lizard brain goes into a fear spiral over things beyond your control or understanding — mystery balloons or U.F.O.s or the aims of the People's Liberation Army — step away from the news feed. Make a cup of tea. Throw on some New Wave tunes. And take a deep breath. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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