What scares me

With all of the recent natural disasters, and the implications to the airline industry, I've had several conversations in the past few weeks regarding what I consider irrational fears:  death from flying, earthquakes, and volcanoes.  Statistics showing that more people die of traffic accidents, lightning strikes, and even bad potato salad are unable to dissuade people of these fears.

The discussion inevitably leads to the question:  "What are you afraid of?"  Snakes, if they are physically capable of touching me.  Other than snakes, I'm not really scared of anything....but the following items freak me out!

1)  Asteroids.  I know NASA has the NEO program to look for, identify, and chart the path and trajectory of Near Earth Objects and that they have identified no imminent threat.  That's great.  They've identified nothing that will hit Earth in my lifetime.  Is anyone looking to see if something will hit the moon?  A 10km asteroid colliding with Earth would destroy all human life.  A 10km asteroid that hits the moon, and nudges it enough that Earth's gravitational pull is irresistible would be worse.  The moon colliding with Earth would destroy the planet, not just the life on it.  Same question for colliding with Mars or Venus.  What would be the fallout of those collisions?  At least Obama has decided that we should focus on landing on an asteroid, instead of Mars or the moon.  That is somewhat comforting.

2)  Social Media.  Seems a bit hypocritical that someone who is active on Facebook, LinkedIn and has a blog would fear social media, but I have a reason for it.  Social media is allowing us to connect in ways we've never connected before.  Which means we connect with the goat herder in Kandahar who shares our interest in weaving wool baskets, but we don't know the name of our neighbor.  We use Skype to talk to people across the world, and use our HOA to complain about the weeds in our neighbors yard.  We also speak anonymously, and the venom and vitriol anonymity permits has made people angry, spiteful, and hateful.  I fear social media will destroy the fabric of humanity...anathema to its goal.

3)  The lowest common denominator.  In the quest for equality, we have grown closer to "sameness".    Smart people are mixed with struggling people, and then the teachers teach to the stragglers.  Rich people are taxed at rates that try to equalize income with people who have neither the capacity nor the work ethic to earn extreme wealth.  We lower standards so under-represented classes can gain access to jobs and academic institutions for which their natural abilities do not qualify.  We've decided the way to make people "equal", is to homogenize.  Homogeneity is what you get through inbreeding, not by treating people equally.

4)  Global Public Debt.  Not so much the size of the debt, or the fact that governments seem to perpetually spend more than they earn, but who owns it.  China has the capacity, through its strong debt ownership position, to destroy the US economy.  More than anything else, watching China take over the world is what scares me.  Talk about homogeneity.  China is the current manifestation of Star Trek's Borg.

Of course, like earthquakes, volcanos, and flying, I have no control over any of the above, so I just don't worry about it.  I only worry about the things I can control.