I just ran into the findings recently reported in a LiveScience article:
…a new study finds teens spend more time weighing risk than adults and in fact often overestimate the odds of a bad outcome. But the desire for acceptance among peers wins out in the decision-making process of a young mind.
Cornell University researcher Valerie Reyna and Frank Farley of Temple University conducted a review of scientific studies on the topics.
Compared to adults, teens take about 170 milliseconds more weighing the pros and cons of engaging in high-risk behavior, the researchers conclude. Adults scarcely think about risk, perhaps because they think they recognize risk intuitively. Teens, on the other hand, take time to mull the risk vs. benefit equation.
My guess is that the difference is relative to experience. I suspect that if you measure the risk aptitude of someone who has been through a number of experiences directly related to that risk, then you will find they spend less time thinking about it than someone new and more “open” to persuasion. I see that as different from “scarcely thinking about risk”, but rather becoming a proficient (perhaps even intuitive) thinker. In other words, when comparing white-belts to black-belts in martial arts, does it help us to say white-belts think more and black-belts less? Are white-belts more susceptible to “pressure”, particularly in groups, about how to react to risks? Of course, but can someone find an inverse law that says how susceptible we are to influence relative to wisdom or some other form of experience? Maybe that’s the conclusion of the actual study. Hard to tell from the article alone.
Mobile phone giant Vodafone has been fined 76m euros ($100m; £51m) by a Greek privacy watchdog.
The Greek agency responsible for privacy said Vodafone had failed to protect its network from hackers who monitored 106 mobile accounts.
The accounts targeted included those of Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis as well as senior military officers and journalists.
[…]
Vodafone is planning an appeal after describing the punishment as “illegal, unfair and totally groundless”.
Many Greeks believe that the bugging of the prime minister, other politicians and senior military officers was carried out at the behest of the United States because it was concerned about security at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
“Failed to protect” is an interesting phrase. It hardly says they invited the hackers in, or were responsible for the wiretap. Instead it implies a lax or deficient response, which now begs the question of whether the Greek agency will tighten the privacy belt and outline new requirements?
I have seen the following presented as an anonymous Buddhist saying:
Not every poem’s good because it’s ancient,
Nor mayst thou blame it just because it’s new,
Fair critics test, and prove, and so pass judgment;
Fools praise or blame as they hear others do.
Interesting, and perhaps naive, challenge to Lincoln’s prophetic “You can please some of the people all of the time…”. The poem seems to suggest that you can actually achieve some kind of vaulted “fair critic” status and escape the tragedy of the fool. But what if the others are more qualified than you and you do not have the resources or expertise to reach conclusive judgment? Who decides fairness, or what constitutes sufficient “test and prove”?
I am not convinced of the Buddhist connection. For example, compare it to the actual teachings in the Dhammapada:
‘They blame him who sits silent
And him that has much to say;
They blame the one that’s of measured speech;
In the world there is none unblamed.’
Maybe it’s just me but that makes the first verse look more like a protestant attribution of righteousness. I mean should those blamed by the fair critic(s) feel more enlightened than those blamed by the fools? Where’s the middle path?
Although I really liked this detail found on a store window, I must confess that when I read or hear Leonard Cohen it always reminds me of his tawdry quip in The Energy of Slaves:
I did not know until you walked away
you had the perfect ass
Forgive me
for not falling in love
with your face or your conversation
Apparently he was seeking a different sort of evidence of life back in 1972. Now I think I will mix the two works and instead think of it as “you had the perfect ash…”
