Dear Public Officials: Stop falling for the myth of an irrational panicked public
Ridiculously wrong elite panic: The only people panicking are the people in charge.
Officials often fail to warn the public properly, and actually impede citizens from actually responding in an emergency when the officials become more concerned with controlling people’s potential reactions than actually helping people and providing clear communication. Some people in charge have ridiculously patronizing and wrong ideas about how other people will react in an emergency. They believe in pseudoscience and outdated paranoid notions of “mobs” panicking on a hair-trigger, seemingly based on ridiculous tropes in monster movies they watched as kids, but that are fiction and unrepresentative of reality.1
It’s time for people in charge to educate themselves about the true problem: Elite Panic! This is the phenomenon described by James B. Meigs in an article from May 2020: “When authorities believe their own citizens will become dangerous, they begin to focus on controlling the public, rather than on addressing the disaster itself.”2 Or as described in the 2002 documentary Toxic Sludge is Good for You, the corporate culture is such that PR firms promote crisis management where the “first move is not to deal with the actual problem, but to manage the negative perception caused by that problem.”3
Lee Clarke points out in the article “panic: myth or reality?” that blaming panic is a way of blaming the victim when things go wrong because of structural or management failures, and that people recognize this and learn to mistrust those who deflect this way. The article ends with the statement: "Our leaders would do well to see us as partners in recovery rather than as a “constituency” to be handled."4
The West Nile Virus has been found yet again in mosquitos in Scranton, Pennsylvania - within the city limits.5 But nobody should be more concerned about panic. Officials should be broadcasting the various things people can do to avoid being bitten, and to quell the mosquito population, like using mosquito nets, Deet, and larvae dunk traps.6
PA Homepage - West Nile cases have risen in Lackawanna County. by: Emily Allegrucci, Posted: Aug 18, 2023 “We want them to be aware, we don’t want them to panic. it’s the delicate line that we walk. we want people to know that this is in the area, and that’s why we trap. we trap to find out if it is in the area so people are aware and they could take precautions,” added Genovese.
It’s not a delicate line at all. Just tell people the precautions. Why is anyone worried about panic over seeing mosquito monitoring? I want more mosquito monitoring. I’m aware there are mosquitos, and they’re awful. In fact I want the government to do MORE than monitor, I want to get rid of them. And not just because they carry a potentially very dangerous disease like West Nile Virus, though that should surely be a reason to get on top of this. But also mosquitos are also annoying, and the bites are painful and itchy. And the amount of mosquitos in our neighborhood has exploded in the last few years. Officials should inform the public like we’re adults, because we are adults. And we have a right to know what our government knows that could help us protect ourselves. Officials leaning on outdated myths and pseudoscience ideas when it comes to disaster response and public health information are potentially putting lives at risk.
Of course seeing other people, especially government officials, engaged in taking precautions may alert people to danger and they in turn adjust their behavior out of caution. People in the PR industry of course don’t like people being “reminded of danger” - as one twitter rando put it7 - because they are often working for corporations that lose profits when people proceed cautiously and avoid activities that are risky that happen to be lucrative for certain industries. For example, when people want to avoid running out of sick time because they’re working in crowded offices with constant covid outbreaks, they tend to start to prefer remote work, and then that’s a financial hit to commercial real estate business8 and fossil fuel.9 People avoid big concerts if they know they're likely to get sick engaging in such activities,10 and may make their own risk assessment and decide not to go on a cruise.11 So yes, people often adjust their behaviour based on observing others.
But just receiving information or seeing safety activity does not cause panic in the streets. That’s ridiculous. And I’m tired of having to repeat this over and over again.
But just recently at the CDC’s HICPAC meeting, one committee member suggested that healthcare workers might be confused by changing terminology in guidelines12 - as if healthcare workers are not swift enough to adapt to changes in terminology? Another committee member said, “it's one thing to think about it from the workers perspective which is a lot of what we heard at the last meeting but we also need to think about it from the employer's perspective the hospital owners the nursing home owners.”13 Oh, won’t somebody think of the poor employers!
Brian Klaas pointed out in a Big Think video - “power changes your brain chemistry, power changes your psychology, are well-known effects.”14 And as I’ve said before: Recognizing this phenomenon is vital in determining strategies to overcome it.15
The truth is when people have clear and timely accurate information and what is needed to survive, people do not typically form dangerous mobs nor act stupid. People go about their business, even in a wreck of a catastrophe and even when they feel powerless, people do not despair, they just tend to flee dangerous situations.16 That’s not a bad thing. It doesn’t mean they’re acting irrationally. And nobody is running around like the panic scene in The Blob movie17 over being told to take precautions. And it should be noted that in the movie, the characters were correct to flee the dangerous blob! When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., most of the citizens of Pompeii fled the volcano area swiftly.18 It was the right thing to do, we don’t mock people evacuating dangerous situations or call them alarmists, because avoiding danger is natural.19
And there are so many stories about people helping each other in the wake of disasters.
There are also numerous stories about officials impeding the efforts of the citizenry. After the 1964 earthquake in Alaska when the authorities deputized a bunch of drunks to be on guard for looters and just flat out canceled a search for survivors.20 After Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, the governor called off the emergency response and threatened shoot-to-kill on sight of people out and about, effectively preventing citizens from venturing out to help their neighbors, and police even blocked people trying to evacuate.21 And the police are blocking roads in Hawaii,22 impeding residents from helping each other get supplies after the fires.
Hawaii officials rush to clean up toxic fire dust on Maui before it spreads | DW News - Aug 19, 2023 Reports from people whose house was burned and as they were escaping they also encountered roads blocked by the police. The police were not alerting the people but they were actually blocking their way when the fire was underway and also they've been blocking with road closures they've been making it difficult for people to bring supplies to the residents who were near the devastation area
Of course if someone in charge threatens people, traps people, does things that will jeopardize people’s safety, or arranges things that make it difficult for people to cope, then I suppose it's not panic that those people in charge are really worried about, but retaliation. But even that's not some inherent spontaneous proclivity. Angry villagers don’t storm the castle with pitchforks on a hair-trigger out of nowhere - people have to be worked up to the point of rebellion or sabotage.23 Seditious insurrections typically involve planning, such as the January 6th 2021 breach of the United States Capitol Building, where people were charged and convicted for planning it - literally for conspiracy.24 The Peasants’ Revolt in 1381 didn’t just happen either, it was reportedly “whipped up by the preaching of a radical priest” and “rebels coordinated their tactics by letter” between the towns of Essex and Kent.25
Regardless of one’s regard toward Stewart Rhodes, Yale Law graduate, jailed after instigating a crowd that included many small business owners,26 or John Ball, the English priest who was hanged after a failed revolt where he agitated peasants and artisans27 (the small business owners of the Middle Ages were called artisans) - one thing is clear - these events do not happen by oopsy surprise. There is not some delicate line, accidentally crossed, where disconnected individuals spontaneously erupt, and no invisible line where people in general are triggered to act counterproductively because someone pulled a fire alarm. Indeed, apparently without an appointed fire warden, many people won’t even react much at all even to fire alarms.28
If you want to get along and not have people freak out around you - don’t do exploitation and don’t abandon your neighbors in a pinch. And if you’re in a position of power, don’t undermine other people. Don’t assume people are too clueless to handle the truth and don’t talk down to the people you’re meant to represent. If you’re in a position of leadership and you’re worried about “tyranny from below” (so-called), then you’re doing democracy and equality wrong - that’s aristocratic thinking.29 Respect the people you’re meant to represent or serve in a leadership capacity. It’s really quite straight forward.
Our safety is more important than elite unease about the autonomy of their fellow citizens.
References:
Foreign Policy Magazine - The Only People Panicking Are the People in Charge. The public can handle disasters better than lying leaders can. By Malka Older - September 16, 2020, 6:16 PM It’s a staple trope of movies and TV shows. But there are more than 50 years of disaster studies demonstrating that people don’t do that in real life. As early as 1954, E.L. Quarantelli, who later founded the Disaster Research Center, had enough data to suggest that panic after a disaster was “uncommon.” Studies of disasters—from hurricanes to snowstorms isolating people in highway rest stops to the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11—show that the public does not panic, does not run screaming, and typically reacts in a reasonably rational way. In fact, studies show that people tend to react in highly social ways after a catastrophe; the first assistance to victims almost invariably comes from nonprofessionals, and affected people tend to come together and organize to improve their situation. My own anecdotal experience as a disaster responder supports this conclusion.
Commentary: Elite Panic vs. the Resilient Populace by James B. Meigs, MAY 2020 For the police, fear of public chaos outweighed, at least temporarily, concern for possible victims. Before dispatching those casually deputized citizens to keep order in the streets, the Anchorage police chief suspended the search for survivors in damaged buildings. “Arguably, the city was protecting its ruins from looters more conscientiously than it was looking for people trapped in them,” Mooallem writes. Disaster researchers call this phenomenon “elite panic.” When authorities believe their own citizens will become dangerous, they begin to focus on controlling the public, rather than on addressing the disaster itself. They clamp down on information, restrict freedom of movement, and devote unnecessary energy to enforcing laws they assume are about to be broken. These strategies don’t just waste resources, one study notes; they also “undermine the public’s capacity for resilient behaviors.” In other words, nervous officials can actively impede the ordinary people trying to help themselves and their neighbors. As in war, the first casualty in disasters is often the truth. One symptom of elite panic is the belief that too much information, or the wrong kind of information, will send citizens reeling.
Toxic Sludge is Good for You 2002 In today’s corporate culture major PR firms promote crisis management as a necessary business expense. Whenever something bad happens to a corporation, often its first move is not to deal with the actual problem, but to manage the negative perception caused by that problem.
fall 2002 contexts - panic: myth or reality? Images of group panic and collective chaos are ubiquitous in Hollywood movies, mainstream media and the rhetoric of politicians. But, contrary to these popular portrayals, group panic is relatively rare. In disasters people are often models of civility and cooperation. The myth of panic endures because it provides an easy explanation for complex things. For example, attributing the deaths at The Who concert to panic detracts attention from an engineering failure (the building could not accommodate so many people waiting at once), a management failure (not forecasting the demand for entry into the concert) and an organizational failure (once the disaster began it could not be stopped). Or consider a soccer “stampede” in Ghana in 2001 in which 130 people were killed. Calling that event a panic would deflect attention away from the police who fired tear gas into a crowd of about 30,000 and from the fact that the exits were locked. The idea of panic works to blame the victims of a disaster, deflecting attention from the larger contexts of people’s behavior.
PA Homepage - West Nile cases have risen in Lackawanna County. by: Emily Allegrucci, Posted: Aug 18, 2023 “We want them to be aware, we don’t want them to panic. it’s the delicate line that we walk. we want people to know that this is in the area, and that’s why we trap. we trap to find out if it is in the area so people are aware and they could take precautions,” added Genovese.
And Voila, An Anti-Mask Twitter Rando by Chloe Humbert on Medium, Apr 7 2023 I came across a particularly aggressive anti-mask account on twitter in early 2021. He made a ridiculous capitalist fever dream argument to justify duping people into unmasking and getting sick, and maybe dying, for business interests. It seemed so blatantly ridiculous. Tweet from @reubenR80027912 dated 1019 am May 7, 2021 says Main Street is Very simple. Do 3 things PSA campaigns that you won’t die if vaxxed. Remind people kids aren’t a risk. Remove masks everywhere so people don’t constantly live in fear. Voila. Roaring economy. Spending is about freedom from fear. Quote-tweet from same account on February 22, 2021 says There’s something to the Mad Men pilot and covid. Telling people they’re more likely to die in a car accident than covid doesn’t matter. Nor do vax stats. Happiness is freedom from fear, a billboard that screams whatever you’re doing is ok @ DKThomp
Wall Street Journal - Interest-Only Loans Helped Commercial Property Boom. Now They’re Coming Due. Landlords face a $1.5 trillion bill for commercial mortgages over the next three years. By Konrad Putzier, June 6, 2023 Nearly $1.5 trillion in commercial mortgages are coming due over the next three years, according to data provider Trepp. Many of the commercial landlords on the hook for the loans are vulnerable to default in part because of the way their loans are structured. Unlike most home loans, which get paid down each year, many commercial mortgages are known as interest-only loans. Borrowers make only interest payments during the life of the loan, with the entire principal due at the end. Interest-only loans as a share of new commercial mortgage-backed securities issuance increased to 88% in 2021, up from 51% in 2013, according to Trepp. Typically, owners pay off this debt by getting a new loan or selling the building. Now, steeper borrowing costs and lenders’ growing reluctance to refinance these loans are raising the likelihood that many of them won’t be paid back. Many banks, fearful of losses and under pressure from regulators and shareholders to shore up their balance sheets, have mostly stopped issuing new loans for office buildings, brokers say. Office and some mall owners are facing falling demand for their buildings because of remote work and e-commerce.
CMD - How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On Covid By Walker Bragman and Alex Kotch | December 22nd, 2021 Lockdown measures drove down cases in the U.S. and likely saved millions of lives globally. But the decline of in-person shopping and work, combined with factory shutdowns in places like China, disrupted the economy. A 2020 report from the corporate consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found the hardest-hit industries would take years to recover. One sector in particular that took a big hit was the fossil fuel industry. Oil demand fell sharply in 2020, placing the global economy on uncertain footing. Before long, business-aligned groups — particularly those connected to fossil fuels — began targeting the public health measures threatening their bottom lines. Chief among them were groups tied to billionaire Charles Koch, owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately held fossil fuel company in the world. The war on public health measures began on March 20, 2020, when Americans For Prosperity (AFP), the right-wing nonprofit founded by Charles and David Koch, issued a press release calling on states to remain open.
UCLA Health - Masks off at concerts: Is it COVID-19 safe? Music fest promoters drop vaccination and masking requirements, April 12, 2022 By Sandy Cohen “Certainly the risk of transmission increases when you’re crowded together more,” she says. “And I imagine during these concerts, people are screaming and singing, so that also could increase the risk. Any type of vocalization may produce aerosols that can transmit the virus more easily.” Avoiding COVID-19. Since social distancing is highly unlikely at a sold-out music festival, concert-goers’ best means of protection are through vaccination and mask use. Dr. De St. Maurice recommends choosing a well-fitting mask with high filtration capacity, such as N95 or KN95.
Teams Human Stay Healthy During Your Live Battlefield Tour. Cruise ships in a pandemic... it's not IF a passenger tests positive, it's when. CHLOE HUMBERT MAR 24, 2023 The image is of a magazine page clipping of an article. Page 40 AARP THE MAGAZINE - there is a yellow highlighter circle around when a passenger tests positive and in the margin below is handwritten when, not if - the full article text reads STAY HEALTHY WHILE AT SEA IN THE WAKE of the pandemic, cruise ships have upgraded their health and safety systems, from hand sanitizers throughout the ship to medical-grade air filters in the ventilation systems to robots that shoot ultraviolet rays to kill bacteria. But you'll no longer need to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination to board many ships, though unvaccinated travelers are still encouraged to provide a negative COVID test result. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which shut down cruising in North America from March 2020 to June 2021, ended its intense monitoring of the industry in July 2022, saying that cruise passengers "can make their own risk assessment when choosing to cruise, much like they do in other settings."
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) - HICPAC Meeting – Aug. 22, 2023 Autotranscript: or those people who've learned it it would be unlearning something for and maybe be like well why and it would be hard to explain when we're not changing the content why we're changing the name I think it would confuse some people and that's my counterpoint thanks
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) - HICPAC Meeting – Aug. 22, 2023 Autotranscript: it's one thing to think about it from the workers perspective which is a lot of what we heard at the last 33:38 meeting but we also need to think about it from the 33:45 employer's perspective the hospital owners the nursing home owners
Big Think - The world’s biggest problem? Powerful psychopaths. | Brian Klaas, Jul 12, 2023 I also think, by the way, that some of these things around power that I talk about in the book, like power changes your brain chemistry, power changes your psychology, are well-known effects. Why don't we train people to tell them this is about to happen to you? Why don't we tell a prime minister or a president who's just been thrust into the job, "Look, we understand that you've just won this campaign. You need to take a step back and understand that your mind is about to change, and it's about to change because we know it's about to change, based on all sorts of empirical evidence, from neuroscience and psychology and all sorts of other sources. And therefore here's how you can maybe counteract this or mitigate those effects."
Elite Panic. Big shots have different goals than the rest of us. Politicians should be representatives, businesses shouldn’t lead, even billionaires can’t seem to buy common sense, and tech won’t save us. By CHLOE HUMBERT JUL 13, 2023 The people in high places and big positions will never panic over the right things - they do elite panic. Left to their own devices, people in charge panic over the wrong things & try to fix things other than the actual crisis because they’re often more concerned with their own position within the status quo, and are more concerned about the upheaval of the status quo, than the damage that upheaval is causing. Ordinary people tend to respond with the appropriate alarm and an impulse to do a practical emergency response to protect oneself and one’s community, but are often at odds with the status quo in doing so, and are often stymied by the very people who should be providing support and leadership. Recognizing this phenomenon is vital in determining strategies to overcome it.
The Nature and Conditions of Panic Author(s): E. L. Quarantelli Source: American Journal of Sociology , Nov., 1954, Vol. 60, No. 3 (Nov., 1954), pp. 267- 275 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2772684 Persons in panic feel powerless to bring the threat itself under control but they do not despair of getting out of danger by fleeing.
NBC News: Pompeii family's final hours reconstructed. By Rossella Lorenzi, Dec. 11, 2008 75 to 92 percent of the residents escaped the town at the first signs of the crisis
Teams Human - Alarm is appropriate, the volcano is erupting - CHLOE HUMBERT, JUL 6, 2022 What led that minority to stay behind? Normalcy bias? Propaganda? I wonder if perhaps elites convinced some essential workers that they needed to stay behind and keep the economy going. Perhaps some felt they had no other good option and just hoped for the best. We will never know the exact stories. But we’re seeing ours play out. Somehow those people were convinced staying behind was okay. What we don’t ask in retrospect, notice, is why did people flee? We know why and we understand they were right to do so. We also don’t ridicule them for having been scared into leaving Pompeii - possibly with fear mongering? There are people with reasons to lie to us and to manipulate people, and they don’t care about our well-being. They simply want to keep the economic status quo, or are working on behalf of people who prioritize that. Butts in seats downtown for the economy or commercial real estate.
Commentary: Elite Panic vs. the Resilient Populace by James B. Meigs, MAY 2020 Almost as soon as the shaking stopped, city officials began worrying about how the populace would respond. With every shop window broken, would looters ransack the local merchants? Would citizens panic at the sight of the dead or wounded? Police quickly deputized a group of volunteers—some of them freshly emerged from those Fourth Avenue bars—as ad hoc officers. The men put on armbands with the word police emblazoned in lipstick—a few were even issued firearms—and off they went to protect the city from the inevitable post-disaster crime wave. The Anchorage officials weren’t being unusually paranoid. At the time, most experts believed any major disaster would cause “a mass outbreak of hysterical neurosis among the civilian population,” as social scientist Richard M. Titmuss had put it some years earlier. Shocked by carnage and desperate for food and shelter, people would “behave like frightened and unsatisfied children.” Only firm control by powerful authorities could keep the lid on such dangerous situations. Countless counterexamples, such as the quietly determined way Londoners responded to German air attacks in World War II, did little to change this perception. Fear of public panic remains common today. Disaster literature bulges with examples—from Hurricane Katrina, to the 2011 Japan tsunami, to the current coronavirus pandemic—in which officials suppressed information, or passed along misinformation, out of concern over an unruly populace.
Foreign Policy Magazine - The Only People Panicking Are the People in Charge. The public can handle disasters better than lying leaders can. By Malka Older - September 16, 2020, 6:16 PM Kathleen Tierney of the University of Colorado looked at elite panic in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, such as when then-Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco first called off the emergency response and then threatened shoot-to-kill orders in response to the problem of looting, which as later reporting showed was highly exaggerated. Similarly, police from a neighboring parish blocked evacuees from New Orleans from entering, firing shotguns over their heads, because of their fears of the “criminal element” based on those same exaggerated reports of looting and mayhem. The impacts of this, as Tierney notes, include the direct damage to people who were frightened or unable to scavenge for food. Tierney asks: “How much resident-to-resident helping behavior was prevented or suppressed because people were afraid to venture out to help their neighbors out of fear of being killed or arrested?”
Hawaii officials rush to clean up toxic fire dust on Maui before it spreads | DW News - Aug 19, 2023 Reports from people whose house was burned and as they were escaping they also encountered roads blocked by the police. The police were not alerting the people but they were actually blocking their way when the fire was underway and also they've been blocking with road closures they've been making it difficult for people to bring supplies to the residents who were near the devastation area
SIMPLE SABOTAGE FIELD MANUAL Strategic Services Field Manual No. 3 Office of Strategic Services Washington, D.C. 17 January 1944 Simple Sabotage Field Manual Strategic Services (provisional) (12) General Devices for Lowering Morale and Creating Confusion (a) Give lengthy and incomprehensible explanations when questioned. (b) Report imaginary spies or danger to the Gestapo or police (c) Act stupid (d) Be as irritable and quarrelsome as possible without getting yourself into trouble. (e) Misunderstand all sorts of regulations concerning such matters as rationing, transportation, traffic regulations (f) Complain against ersatz materials (g) In public treat axis nationals or quislings coldly (h) stop all conversation when axis nationals or quislings enter a cafe (i) Cry and sob hysterically at every occasion, especially when confronted by government clerks (j) Boycott all movies, entertainments, concerts, newspapers which are in any way connected with the quisling authorities (k) Do not cooperate in salvage schemes.
Office of Public Affairs U.S. Department of Justice Press Release Monday, January 23, 2023 Four Oath Keepers Found Guilty of Seditious Conspiracy Related to U.S. Capitol Breach The defendants conspired through a variety of manners and means, including: organizing into teams that were prepared and willing to use force and to transport firearms and ammunition into Washington, D.C.; recruiting members and affiliates to participate in the conspiracy; organizing trainings to teach and learn paramilitary combat tactics; bringing and contributing paramilitary gear, weapons, and supplies – including knives, camouflaged combat uniforms, tactical vests with plates, helmets, eye protection, and radio equipment – to the Capitol grounds; breaching and attempting to take control of the Capitol grounds and building on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to prevent, hinder and delay the certification of the electoral college vote; using force against law enforcement officers while inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; continuing to plot, after Jan. 6, 2021, to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power; and using websites, social media, text messaging and encrypted messaging applications to communicate with co-conspirators and others.
Conflict and Upheaval – The Peasants’ Revolt, 1381 Overview of key information - southamcollege.com Since the Black Death, poor people had become increasingly angry that they were still serfs, usually farming the land and serving their king. Whipped up by the preaching of radical priest John Ball, they were demanding that all men should be free and equal; for less harsh laws; and a fairer distribution of wealth. Soon both Essex and Kent were in revolt. The rebels coordinated their tactics by letter. They marched to London, where they destroyed the houses of government ministers. They also had a clear set of political demands.
Inc. - Why Did So Many Small-Business Owners Storm the Capitol? Here's What One of the Most Outspoken Had to SayEntrepreneurs stood out among the insurrectionists. Are they paying the price? Jan 6, 2022 University of Chicago professor of political science Robert Pape has spent the past year gathering information about the insurrectionists and their co-ideologues. According to Pape, 26 percent of the rioters charged were business owners; an additional 28 percent were white-collar workers. "There are relatively more business owners in the insurrectionist pool than in America," Pape notes. The composition of those charged with a crime -- with 716 individuals studied by Pape thus far -- undermines what "we're used to thinking about far-right violence and extremism." This was a heavily white-collar riot -- a businessperson's riot -- which is in some ways unsurprising because the protest that set it off was fomented, as President Joe Biden just reminded us, by the businessman/president who lost his bid for reelection. Where right-wing extremists generally are young, less likely to be employed, and very often members of a gang or a militia group, that doesn't describe the only demographic that rioted at the Capitol.
Peasants’ Revolt | History, Facts, Causes, & Significance | Britannica Its immediate cause was the imposition of the unpopular poll tax of 1380, which brought to a head the economic discontent that had been growing since the middle of the century. The rebellion drew support from several sources and included well-to-do artisans and villeins as well as the destitute. Probably the main grievance of the agricultural labourers and urban working classes was the Statute of Labourers (1351), which attempted to fix maximum wages during the labour shortage following the Black Death.
Human behaviour during a fire alarm | iHASCO (youtube video) Members of the public being secretly filmed, a fire alarm is activated. What do they do What would you do? This excellent piece of film shows the importance of a fire warden and fire awareness
The Original Intent of the Constitution | Myths of American History what you have here one needs to realize is an elite definition of liberty it is not democracy at all it is individual freedom from tyranny or from any form of external control or interference but by the political thought of the day such tyranny or control could come from above or from below from mob rule that broke the social contract john randolph of virginia i think summed this up best in his famous quote “i am an aristocrat i love liberty i hate equality” now while the revolution has fought successfully for liberty and against tyranny from above liberty to these men is now threatened by tyranny from below