Will CBS' "Jericho" raise survival awareness?

M

MG_Saldivar

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CBS is premiering a new show entitled Jericho this coming week.

Rather than discuss the show's entertainment or artistic value, I'm hoping folks will offer their views on how, or if, this show might raise awareness of survival issues among viewers.

I'm in my early 30's, and I can vaguely remember past disaster movies/mini-series like THE DAY AFTER and TESTAMENT doing a bit to raise awareness of disaster preparedness, but it seemed that most people go back to being unconcerned about preparing to survive without essential services as soon as an 'event,' whether fictional or real live, recedes into the past...

Your thoughts?
 
Maybe! Humans are a funny animal. We have very short memories and our level of denial is up there with the empire state building. We see something like the towers coming down, then NO is destroyed and we think to ourselves, "hey, that's them, not me. That'll never happen here." Then when it does happen here, nobodies prepared, or so it seems and as soon as the original hooplah is over, we're back to, " that will never happen here again" and we go back to our unprepared selves and what's totally amazing to me is that people are suffering from stress related illnesses because of fear and they still don't do anything about helping themselves.
 
I think human genetic programing causes us to "forget" pain quickly. Call it a genetic coping mechanism if you will. My God, sixty-one short years ago we were fighting the most horrific war in recorded history, yet today that horror and pain is but a faint memory. This explains my humans can endure unimaginable horrors yet move on and live productive lives.

Or my theory may be complete horse excrement. :)
 
Agreed. I feel the same way about how people cope. We do tend to forget things, they are only synapses firing and lose force over time. This is similar to how loss of loved ones pass and the remaining member of the relationship is able to move and remarry.

cliff
 
It's true what everyone has been saying.

People tend to worry about strange things. We see it right here in this very forum.

In fact, it often seems that the everyday person worries more about things less statistically likely, and worries less about more likely things.

For example, my own mother. Terrified of West Nile--panics at the sight of a mosquito. She doesn't seem to be concerned about flu--which kills more people her age in a DAY than West Nile has EVER killed. She's also nuts about bird flu and mad cow: again, she's more likely to die from an infection, but doesn't always wear gloves when she gardens.

Similarly, lots of people we've all met rail against handguns based on how dangerous they are and likely to kill you. They don't seem to have an issue with automobiles, which are many times more likely to kill their owners as well as someone else.

Our own Thomas Linton here discovered that the number one thing likely to kill you in the wilderness is... a mundane heart attack.

Why? Why do people obsess about statistically unlikely things, but don't pay enough attention to the real threats?

In Thomas Kida's book Don't Believe Everything You Think, he discusses how people's brains are geared torward remembering anecdotes (the stranger, the better) as opposed to raw numbers and data. No surprise.

I think this is related. People hear--and remember--the bizarre death or strange misfortune or horrible tragedy... but lose focus on the thousands of common deaths. It's preferring the anecdote over the statistic.

So what does this mean for a show like Jericho? I suspect it means that people will become more engaged with wilderness and survival skills based on how much it's stressed on the show (think Lost or Survivor and how those swelled interest).

But, in line with the middle of my post... they're going to worry more about protecting themselves from an all-out nuclear attack: which is statistically (even with world politics being what they are today) quite unlikely.
 
Prepare for the worse and hope for the best. If they prepare at all, it's better than the alternative. One thing that I think will come from this is that small towns and communities might see this as a wakeup call. Realizing that they may just be alone, like the town of Jericho, if something does indeed happen and that could be a blessing in coming times.
 
I doubt it, even though anything is possible in this world.

After the blackout of August 2003, I thought for sure everyone would begin carrying small flashlights with them. At least the Photon II or Freedom Micro or something like it.

Nothing doing.

Someone did a survey a year or so later of one of the areas most affected by the blackout. People were asked, subway riders included, if they now carried flashlights. The overwhelming response was, "Nah. Why bother? It won't happen again. And if it does...[shrug] I didn't have a light then, either, and I survived."

That gives you an idea of the kind of "it won't happen to me but if it does so what" mindset we have in this county.
 
Watchful said:
...For example, my own mother. Terrified of West Nile--panics at the sight of a mosquito. She doesn't seem to be concerned about flu--which kills more people her age in a DAY than West Nile has EVER killed. She's also nuts about bird flu and mad cow: again, she's more likely to die from an infection, but doesn't always wear gloves when she gardens...
Click to expand...

Hehehe...here's an article I posted a year ago over at my iPrepare site by a doctor that puts it all in a nutshell...

Scare Yourself Silly, but the Real Terrors Are at Your Feet
 
Here is one, IMHO, as good if not better.

http://www.iprepare.org/GH_ShowArticle.asp?HID=54

I experienced a disaster some years ago. I lived on what was essentially an island in the Gulf off of Florida. I experienced first hand a direct hit by a hurricane. About a month later, a second hurricane hit. Both times I was prepared, more so by the second one, and much more so thereafter. No, the hurricanes weren't the disaster. The reactions of my wife (now exwife) and family was the disaster. My thoughtful preparations for survival in situ, or evacuation, my strengthening of my religious beliefs, etc., became translated, in their opinions, to my being a fruitcake. Oh, they didn't complain when they had food and toilet paper, pure water to drink, a radio and lights when no one else did for weeks on end. To me the ones who weren't/aren't prepared are the fruitcakes. There is some comfort in following the herd (baaaaaa!), but I take comfort in knowing that preparations I've made yesterday and today might make a difference to my family's survival and comfort in the future. It is cheap insurance at worst.

Codger
 
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