You often hear people talk about the ' good old days ' - particularly, in the aftermath of some atrocity somewhere, that gets covered round the clock in the news. That does seem to be happening almost weekly if not daily, these days; school shootings, child abductions, terrorist attacks, home invasions, or something like that is in the news every day. So it is no wonder that it feels as if the world is going off the deep end, and a lot of people are increasingly looking back with nostalgia at times past, that seemed to be so much simpler and better. If you happen to be around any discussion about the latest act of pointless atrocity on the news, in the company of people above a certain age, you are sure to hear statements like, ‘When I was a kid, after school or on the weekends I used to just go and play with my friends, and my mom did not even know where I was till it was dinner time’. If you yourself are above a certain age it just might be you saying that. And there is indeed prima facie truth in that statement - many of us really did grow up just like that a few decades ago. But, is the implication behind that statement true? Was it really better and safer in the past? Is the world really getting more dangerous these days? It certainly feels like that.

But, then I try hard to think of it rationally, and look at the facts, and I have to say to myself, ‘Actually not – It is no more dangerous now, than when I was a kid’. Just as many bad things used to happen then as now, if not more. Dig into the recent history of how things were 10, 20, 30 years ago or even longer before – you will find just as many random killings, abductions, rapes, and all other atrocities as are happening today, and actually more. In fact violent crime rate in the US has declined sharply since the 1990’s. A few more decades further back, and you have all those wars and genocides happening around the world, where killing and getting horribly killed was the name of the game. The truth is that if you happen to be currently living in the US or any number of other stable countries around the world, you are living in perhaps the safest and the best of times in history.

So, then why does it feel like the most dangerous of times? It is mainly because of this insanity of 24/7 news and instant information from everywhere around the world. Couple of decades ago, with no internet sites or television channels that market ‘news’ like live entertainment, people used to get their news in small daily doses in the morning paper or the evening news. More importantly, you were not as likely to hear much about ordinary people getting in harm’s way in faraway places, in a town half-way across the country or around the world. So, things did not seem as bad. But these days, with the TV and internet news outlets trying to keep viewership strong even when there is no real news to report that is relevant to most people, you still hear about everything from a bear getting out of hand on some hiking trail in a place you will never visit, to someone accidentally shooting himself in the foot in some village you have never heard of. And of course it is only bad news that usually gets our attention. So they certainly won’t be reporting on the millions of good things and acts of kindness that are also occurring everywhere every day.

In the United States, it is compounded by another very relevant factor that nobody seems to take into account – the sheer size of the country and a relatively homogenous culture across. Of course in a country of this size with 300 million people, there will be some crime and bad things happening even in the best of times. As a fraction of the population, that rate is certainly quite small. But the trouble is, if it happens anywhere in the nation, for anyone of us living here it feels directly relevant to us, even though it might be somewhere thousands of miles from where we live. Contrast this with say a country in Europe: Even if the crime rate there may be the same as here, if a crime happens in another country, people would not identify with it as much – ‘Well, it is in a foreign country, it does not affect me’. But that foreign country is probably at the same geographical distance as my neighboring state is from me in America.

We can put this in mathematical terms. In a country of 10 million, a 0.01% homicide rate a year translates to 1000 people dead in a year. In a country of 300 million that is 30,000. Now the national news reporting is not directly proportional to the 0.01% rate but more likely to be influenced by the actual numbers 30,000 versus 1000, so it can appear that things are perhaps upto 30 times worse in the country with the larger population. Even though not all crimes make it to the national news, there is enough to keep us continuously reminded of terrible things happening everywhere. In America, much of our heightened anxiety about how things are getting worse is a consequence of that magnifying effect brought about continuous news coverage in a large and relatively homogeneous country.

Those are the facts, but does that make me feel any safer? Not really. Our minds always dwell on the extremes and when it comes to the safety and security of those we care about, we cannot be rational. Appreciation of rates and statistics appeals to the thinking rational part of our brain that certainly came about late in our evolution. Fear on the other hand hits us directly at the most primal part of the brain and it almost always wins. We might justify it by saying ‘Hey, better be safe than sorry’ and dismiss it casually, noting that besides having less peace of mind there is no harm in having a more negative perspective than the reality warrants. In fact, if you were to ask certain folks out there, they would not have it any other way – you know people vested in certain businesses, lobbies and special interests –people who know that there is good money to be made from fear and insecurity. But if we give rational thought, backed by facts, a chance, perhaps once in a while we can learn to appreciate these good ‘contemporary’ days .