Then you are only lying to yourself.


Not to speak on the comparative dangers of our cultural enviroment as opposed to that of other nations. But with the actual concept of safety itself. I question if there is such a thing as a safe environment? I think a personal favorite quote of mine applies here:



"The universe is hostile, so impersonal. Devour to survive. So it is, so it's always been."



But wait I am getting ahead of myself. Forget the universe. We are talking about planet earth. So lets talk earth. If you don't believe that the earth is an innately hostile environment, try walking around naked in the woods for a few days. We learned a long time ago that that is defintely not a cool thing to do. But why?



Well firstly you have the elements. The air you need to breathe can kill you. Exposure to the wind even in non-freezing temperatures can kill you in hours. Then you have the actual air temperature itself. You aint runnin around naked in the woods of nothern Canada (any time of the year) not even for 20 minutes. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. The sun can kill you (but we all die without it.) Water can kill you (but we need it daily.) So forget the elements.



You also have parasites. Now these little buggers could be anything from a worm to an insect to a submolecular being you are not capable of detecting without a microscope. All of them will attack you unrelentlessly untill you or it are dead.


Then you have non parisitic predators. Snakes and arachnids and mountain lions and the lot. They don't dislike you. Nor do they need to kill you to live. You just scared them and perhaps that will be some small comfort as you lay awaiting your bhudda/jesus/allah/spaghetti monster/oblivion. Either way. 100% hostile. Again I could go on but I think you catch my drift.



My point is simple here. Safety is an illusion. It is a lie we tell ourselves to make us feel better about this giant spinning deathtrap that we live and die on and that 0% of us escape alive. I bet I know what your thinking. Kickin it in your grampa's back porch down in the boonies is safer then chillin in say ANYWHERE in Iraq for example. But the concept of safety here is still an illusion. What you are really calculating is the reduced danger or to put it another way your preparedness to face that hostile environment.



We are our own biggest predator and own worst enemy. The differences we have culturally, linguistically, spiritually and physically amount to a big fat nada in the grand scheme. We live, we die, the earth still turns and your soapbox theaters of politics and religion mean zip. Perhaps if one day we magically learned to STOP acting based on an irrational fear of death, pain, and discomfort and to think logically about our environment and how to coexist within it we could stop DE-evolving like the selfish parasitic morons that we have become. Then and only then you can come talk to me about safety as a real concept and I MIGHT consider it. Untill then you can count me out on that little bit of self-deception.