Bolivia Road of Death
It twists and turns for 64 km from the Bolivian town of La Paz to Corioco. The locals call it the road of death. That’s not a joke: that’s simply a statement of fact. This mountain road claims over 200 lives a year.
It’s become a tourist attraction of sorts due to the danger factor. Why?
Our comfortable, safe society has distorted our sense of risk, and impaired our ability to percieve genuine threats for what they really are. Victims of the road of death are often truck drivers, who must traverse its twists and turns to earn a living.
THere’s no reason for British, American or Japanese tourists to meet an untimely fate on such a terrible, treacherous road, but that’s what happens.
The perception of danger in our society is completely awry. It shows itself in so many ways. Take, for example, the following examples of understimation of risk:
- The miscalculation of financial risk that led to the global financial crisis (GFC);
- The rise of “extreme” sports such as freebase climbing (there’s no shame in rock climbing with a harness) and base jumping (there’s no shame in parachuting from a plane rather than a high-rise office block);
- Lack of popular support for action against hostile, implacable enemies who possess nuclear weapons and who have repeatedly expressed willingness to use them against Western targets;
- The almost complete disappearance of basic hygiene practices such as covering your mouth when you cough, and not sharing food and drinks with others (I never share drink bottles for example, but have been in many social situations where I have been placed under considerable pressure to do so);
- the rise of the anti-vaccination movement.
Instead, people worry about risks that don’t exist, or are vague, poorly defined threats such as
global warming, which even if true, will result in slow changes to Earth’s climate in the distant future, and will provide plenty of time for adaptation. It’s not an immediate existential threat, like a nuclear weapon in the hands of a foe, or being on a windy Bolivian mountain road with a truck coming at you and nowhere to pull over.