Young/Old

There is a tragic aspect to communication between the old and the young.
Recent research (reported in the New York Times) has brought out an interesting thing about the behavior of adolescents: the latter actually have a higher appreciation of risk than 'necessary',they will overestimate the changes of getting pregnant having unprotected sex or the risks of occasional drinking. They will then transgress anyway because, being young, the potential rewards of engaging in the behavior seems all the more glamorous and appealing, a more realistic assessment of risk will set in and voilà, one has someone with a bad habit. Because what the old know is that things will invariably catch up with one, one way or another. "Stay in school, you dumb ass". "That girl's not for you". And so forth. So we have that other pillar of misunderstanding, the nagging adult.

The researchers on teen behavior conclude that, under the circumstances, one would do best with behavior modification: one simply does not leave teen-agers alone, with each other or with dangerous substances. I would add a dose of humour to the situation, because absolute interdiction always looks stupid and will either create a desire to cheat, or a 'closed' individual. The parent in turn, having been young, isn't sure abstinence will turn out all that better. Let the kids make their own mistakes.

This whole little play between inexperience and hard-earned wisdom takes on interesting hues when one applies it to societal decision-making. Ours is becoming a young planet, with immense numbers of younger people, particularly in the non-industrialized world, - let's call it the warm world, for fun, because they are developing very quickly - while the OECD world club is amassing large numbers of older people. What are the two haggling about? in part, risk-taking behavior. The developing world takes it excessively seriously, one might say, that we are in the grips of a planet-warming cycle and they want to continue developing on the model that served us in the past: in a fossil energy-intensive manner. Try working your way through that one. The developed world is looking for an other model-, not necessarily because we feel guilty,- but because we are ready to move on: computers everywhere, the hydrogen economy, going to the moon and Mars. Progress looks lean and mean coming from us, but remember our decision-makers and electorate are older, the whole language-space of our politics is near-retirement age.

The mutation we are going through on the ecological front is major: we are looking for ways to colonize other worlds, but the knowledge explosion guiding us means we are starting to look a living on earth as a form of colonizing it. I happen to live on that part of earth which needs mittens in winter because the environment is actually mortally dangerous for me as a biological creature. More so than other places, which is one of the deep reasons why going south in winter feels sooo good. Where I can sleep outside, if need be.

This is how we are becoming dangerous: we are old and don't need much anymore.
The great surprise in the beginnings of ecological research was the outstanding numbers and varieties of life-forms in even the humblest patch of land. We are about to survive on the Moon: who needs all that. Years ago, advanced thinkers used to wonder if mankind was not going to eventually disappear from the planet to be replaced by some other dominant life-form. That notion looks quaint these days.