The Blind,
The Naïve, and The Willfully Ignorant
There is a
potentially fatal flaw in the reasoning skills of most people. It’s called the
Normalcy Bias. When something is too far outside of what is considered “normal”
it is ignored. That’s a great automatic filter if what is being ignored is
trivial or just flat wrong, but it can be deadly when there is an actual
threat. The perfect example would be those who live on the slopes of an active
volcano. From a distance, it’s easy to think those people are nuts. From their
perspective though, the mountain just rumbles from time to time, but has never
hurt anyone in their lifetime. Their normalcy bias prevents them from leaving
even when the volcano erupts until it is too late.
The Blind: For
some, this normalcy bias creates a sort of blindness. An example of that is the
car driver who doesn’t see the motorcyclist. Even good car drivers who are
usually very safe and alert will run over a motorcyclist in a second if they
only look for other cars, because in their mind, no car on the road equals safe
and safe equals go. So when they pull out into the oncoming traffic of the
motorcyclist they always say they didn’t see him. The motorcycle was there. It
was clearly visible. Their normalcy bias simply didn’t allow them to see it
because they were looking for a car.
The Naïve: Some people just don’t know any better to start with.
It’s one thing to try to always think the best of others. That is a noble
sentiment. Expecting that common criminals will not harm you just because you
yourself mean them no harm though is naïve. In fact, the exact opposite is
true. Predators almost always go after the defenseless weaker looking target
first. Whether the naïve think they are being high-minded or brave won’t matter
a bit to their attacker.
The willfully ignorant: Some are stuck
in denial out of fear of what they don’t want to accept. Some reject the truth
in favor of their own hubris. They never learned that pride comes before a
fall. Of course, some are just plain dumb as a stump too, but so many people
consciously chose not to acknowledge danger even when they are presented with
solid evidence. They are like the ostrich who sticks his head in the sand
pretending the danger isn’t there. Willful ignorance doesn’t make a problem
disappear. It just makes you totally unprepared to deal with it when it can no
longer be ignored.
It is a sad,
but there are people out there who just never will be convinced, understand the
importance of, or care enough to act on important information even when it
means their very survival. You can’t expect everyone to see things your way,
but when that person is a close friend or family member and the issue is of
vital importance, it’s just heart breaking to think of a loved one paying the
price down the road for their refusal to heed today’s warnings.
That
happened to me recently when a friend who generally avoids politics like the plague
sent me a link to a website that monitors the US debt in real time and shows
how much each person owes. Their email simply said “this is scary”. I replied
advising them of just what those runaway near uncountable numbers mean and how
important it is that they prepare themselves. I explained what happened during the
Great Depression and told them to buy food and to be prepared to defend
themselves. My friend glibly retorted that they were “not worried about food
and bullets” and were “pretty much anti-gun”. They said, “When the end times
come, they come, and it just means that looking to the next life, the one that
lasts, is even more important.” I just shuddered when I thought about the
prospects of his two little children paying the price for his ability to ignore
the realities of this life to live in the next before he gets there.
Why did he
bother emailing me about it in the first place? He has done this kind of thing
before. Someone asks him a question he isn’t sure about or shows him something that
alarms him and he asks me what I think, because he knows I pay attention to
important things. Then his eyes glaze over when I try to explain, or like this
time, he just totally ignores the warning like the level of seriousness tripped
some kind of circuit breaker for his ability to cope.
Please
folks. Be aware of more than what is normal. Question why. Think critically and
prepare yourselves for what is coming. Jesus did go to prepare a place for us
and he is coming back again to take us there, but an awful lot of nastiness is
going to hit a gigantic fan before we shuffle off this mortal coil. People who
are your friends and family are trying to help you see what is coming. Please prepare.
