Response to Warnings

Response to Warnings

A List of Examples of Warnings

1. road signs

2. fog horns

3. vehicle sirens and horns

4. broadcast storm alerts

5. light houses

6. channel buoys

7. depth markers

8. engagement, wedding rings

9. fuel gauges

10. burglar alarms

11. train whistles

12. teeth baring

13. animal growls

14. rattlesnake rattles

15. canary in the mine

16. yellow traffic light

17. hand gestures

18. facial expressions

19. noxious smells

20. litmus test

21. blood meters

22. high, low marks

23. sores. rashes

24. a parent’s admonition

25. thunder, lightning

26. weather forcast

27. a policy statement

28. rules, laws

29. appearances of the sky

30. movie ratings

31. ratings of objects for consumers

32. baseball warning track

33. published recalls of defective items

“I didn’t know my son’s signals until after he died,” said a character in a movie. Then she tried to learn everything she could about teen suicide. Now she could decipher the signals she couldn’t read before the fact. (The film reviewed: “Silence of the Heart”.) None of the acts of potential suicides are recognized as the distress signals they are.

Two geologists working in the summit area of El Chichón in Mexico (March-April, 1981) felt earthquakes and heard loud noises. In September, they wrote a report warning of “high volcanic risk”. “The warning went unheeded, and the eruption seven months later claimed at least 2,000 human lives.” (Science News, 8/21/82)

In July, 1976, 26 children of Chowchilla, CA, were kidnapped and held hostage for 27 hours, affecting them with degrees of serious psychological distress for a long time after. One of them believed he had failed to heed a warning that might have prepared him for the kidnapping. His father had taken him to a movie a year earlier in which kids in a school bus had been briefly hijacked. The father asked him what he’d have done in such a circumstance. The son said he didn’t know, but after he was really kidnapped he blamed himself for his lack of awareness.

Animal premonitions are being studied to forecast quake events. The aim is to set up volunteer reporting networks of animal handlers keeping an eye on over 200 species. Researchers record any variation in hotline calls. A quake in Hollister, CA, was a first test. There was no significant jump in calls for that area. After the quake, “some 75 rueful observers called in to confess they’d noticed odd prequake activity and failed to report it. (Psychology Today, Feb., 1980)

Human premonitions were studied by a seismologist, looking at predictions of sensitives, professional geoscientists, amateur scientists, psychics, astrologers, and religious visionaries, compared to quake predictions made randomly by a computer. The “sensitives” showed a slight statistical advantage over the others, but no individuals or groups did significantly better than chance. The amateur scientists, astrologers and psychics did significantly less well.

Fran Koster (Why People Don’t Listen to Warnings: With Discussion of Implications for Futurists. University of Massachusetts. ERIC Microfiche ED 152674) found that responses to warnings differed according to the extent to which the event was unfamiliar, sudden, unexpected, and localized. She gives strategies for effective warnings for diminishing oil supplies, water shortages, nuclear explosions, petroleum related accidents, insecticide poisonings, the collapse of the social security system, etc. Key ingredients are the education of leaders to be good warners and increasing the efficacy of communication media

What is the duty of carriers of the herpes virus, or any other contagion, to give warnings to close partners?

Does a general, color-coded warning system meet the needs of people to know of a danger, or does such a system merely teach the public to discount and devalue any warnings that are to be given? Remember the tale of the boy who cried “WOLF!” too often?

What has been the result of warnings given for the coming pandemic of “bird flu”?

The coming of “global warming”?

The great quake on the West Coast?

The growing drought cycle?

The effects of cigarette smoking?

The onset of type 2 diabetes due to diet, body weight, and exercise deficiencies?

The next Katrina?

A terrorist attack in the U.S.?

What specific preparations are being made?

Who is preparing?

What is the nature of the warning?

Who is our best public warner?

Is whistle-blowing a form of warning?

Should we have a national assessment and a bureau or

office making public warnings with a highly credible public “warner-in-chief”?

Warning labels mandated by the FDA are everywhere and can mean life-or-death to some. But some producers and politicians have played politics with the FDA for commercial gain. Shame on them. Shame! Shame! Shame! How many people read the labels on food stuff and the fine print that comes with drugs, stock and bond offerings, toys, and gadgets of all kinds?

People who play dumb must work extremely hard to overcome the effects of their stupidity.

People who use their intelligence before the fact find it easier to live with the consequences of their acts.

“UNANTICIPATED CONSEQUENCES” mostly results in tragedy. Or, killing the messenger.

It appears that the jails are crammed full of those who could not anticipate consequences, which were overridden by egoism of passion, greed, self-gratification, a compassion deficit, anger, lust, and other corruptions of REASON, as well as preferences for speed, adventure, danger, chance, excitement, psycho-tropic substances, and other corruptions of SANITY.

“—and the goblins will get ya if ya don’t watch out!!”

POST SCRIPT

I have become aware of communication, physical and natural events that have implied warnings. Those are the toughest to take as warnings, no red flags, bells or sirens. Back some time ago, there were gas shortages and very high prices. Changes in weather patterns. The rising average temperatures, not just the usual forecast. Population pressure on food supplies. Rising hunger and malnutrition. The growing girth at the waistline and average body weights. The increase of certain diseases, such as adult-onset diabetes. Floods, drought, and other weather phenomena increasing in strength and frequency.
This is the time for choosing the right policy makers in government, and the formation of new agencies to administer warnings.