How did we evolve into this ambivalence? We spent 200,000 to 300,000 years trying to avoid risk only to find ourselves seeking it.
Apparently, civilized people are remnants of pre-civilized people. By that I mean you, I, and all other humans are connected to the minds, as well as to the bodies of those 100-plus billion humans who preceded us. How else explain risk-taking when risk is avoidable, you know, like climbing the 14 highest peaks? Why do “civilized” humans take risks when they could live in relative safety? It’s not as though they have to hunt mastodons with handmade wooden spears tipped with flaked flint.
I suppose evolutionary psychologists could link our risk-taking to our hunter-gatherer days or maybe to our reptilian heritage in the brain stem. For most of Earth’s eight billion living humans, the need for risking life just to eat has diminished considerably. Except in rare times of hurricanes, earthquakes, wars, and Buttigieg port backups, food is plentiful. I hunt, for example, at the local Giant Eagle grocery store, and I rarely return home without the exact food I set out to catch: “Honey, the store was out of sourdough, so I bought the Tuscany loaf.” I even fish there. Believe me, I have a most risk-free outing every time I go “hunting” and “fishing” there, and only during those rare shortages do I tell the tale of “the one that got away.” I’ve even caught food and drink on Amazon, but never in the Amazon.
So, how do I account for modern risk-taking, for modern risk-takers? Rodeo cowboys riding freehand on bucking broncos and bulldogging steers, cliff divers, and mountain climbers—not to mention those who pose on slippery precipices just to take a selfie.
Two Women United in Risk and Death
Is it fame we seek? Eternal life? Is risk-taking our way to become immortalized, say like Sir Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay? Then the risk is very big because those who try to repeat the success of others but fail are rarely remembered, are rarely immortalized. Who remembers the Silver Medalist save a coach or family member?
Take as examples of voluntary risk-takers the two women who recently died during their attempt to climb Mount Shishapangma in Tibet. * They had set out to climb the 14 tallest peaks, and Shishapangma was their last challenge. Avalanches ended both lives. Risky business, mountain climbing, far more risky than going to the local Giant Eagle in search of food—unless one considers negotiating traffic peopled with drivers drunk, high, or distracted by texting.
Gina Rzucidlo and Anna Gutu and their Nepalese sherpas died on the mountain, and chances are you never heard of them, lost in the many names of failed risk-takers. The rival climbers wanted to be the first to scale those peaks. I know those peaks are dangerous places because I’ve been vicariously up several of them myself, thanks to National Geographic, TV, and leisure time—risk free, unless one counts the inactive time on the couch a risk for heart disease and atrophied muscles.
I’ll go back to my question: How did we get here, to a point of taking unnecessary risks? How did we get to a point of simultaneously reducing risk and seeking it? Does risk-taking lie deep in our brain? Is it a product of the limbic system? Or the reptilian stem?
Another Kind of Voluntary Risk: Fraud for Fame and Fortune
Consider a different kind of risk, one generated on the Web or on social media. Australian Dalya Karezi pleaded guilty to fraud for her self-portrayal as a medical expert. She had given advice on various ailments over TikTok and Instagram. Her followers thought she was a qualified doctor. And some of her advice centered on very serious diseases.
Dalya assumed the risk of fraud and has been sentenced to a two-year community corrections order at Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court and fined $8,400. This is what she said about her behavior in an apology letter: “As I write this letter I am crying and still struggling to see how I got to this position because this is very out of character and I never thought I would be in this position.” Woah! What position: having been caught—as was inevitable with all the access everyone has to backgrounds—or having committed fraud that might have harmed some of her 200,000+ followers? If she is referring to the latter, then she, like so many other impersonators, had to have taken a conscious action to declare herself a physician; she even wore scrubs—a sure sign of being in the medical profession, if not unversed in fashion. If the former, then being astute enough to start a website or social media chain, means that she ignored a risk she certainly knew, that of being discovered and punished.
In a similar case of fraud, Onelio Hipolit-Gonzalez, 73, impersonated a doctor on his website and claimed he treated many patients. Hipolit-Gonzalez gave advice on conditions as serious as leukemia. One might think that a guy 73 years old would realize his fraud would eventually catch up to him. Anyone hearing the story would ask why taking such a risk seemed worth the effort, since the consequences of fraud are often much worse than the rewards. Onelio was caught in a sting operation.
Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny
Is self-imposed risk buried deep in our brains?
Maybe it is. Why, for example, do we like riding roller coasters, sliding down water slides that send us tens of meters into a plunge pool—in Atlantis in the Bahamas, in a tube through shark-infested water—or jumping off a bridge with only a bungee cord for protection.
We might understand a group of teens whose brains still have a few more years to mature doing something risky. From lack of experience and a dissociation between frontal cortex and emotional centers, teens have taken risks that became fatal fails, if not for them, then for others. But how do we understand an individual adult or group of adults that take on risk voluntarily: Burglers, for example, Hamas terrorists, or illegal immigrants? And what of druggies or drug dealers? Both risk “big time,” one risking death by overdose, and the other risking capture by authorities if not death by drug rivals.
Somewhere in the human background there lies an affinity for risk. Did start because we live on a risky planet with many dangerous natural phenomena? Because of competition among life-forms, both intra-species and interspecies?
If an affinity for risk-taking harks back to the initial struggles life had as it first emerged from fundamental elemental structures made of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorous, then the penchant for risk has an abiotic origin. If it harks back to predator-prey relationships, then it originated in those first neurons seeking to deal with a hostile environment. And it appears through numerous examples to be part of human nature.
This Is Not You Know What
This is not your practice life. That you might take unnecessary risks is ultimately up to you, but you might not be wholly conscious in so doing. There appears to be a drive toward risk deeply embedded in our brains. It’s something we all seem to know because we mock those who are hypochondriacs or who have anxiety over every potential danger big and small.
Gina Rzucidlo and Anna Gutu tried to turn risk into fame and maybe fortune—not doubt a book deal was a potential source of money. Dalya Karezi and Onelio Hipolit-Gonzalez tried to turn fraud into both fame and fortune. All four suffered the consequences of their risky ventures, the first two more so than the latter two. On a risky planet, taking additional risk seems in my view to be foolish. Yet, I probably have on occasion done something unnecessarily risky, scuba diving for example, driving distracted by a coffee cup and going through an intersection on a yellow light, or even going down that slide at Atlantis. I’ve stood on precipices just a few feet from the edge simply to get a good look, and I’ve used a chain saw to fell large trees. So, I have to say that like many before me and contemporary to me, I need to be reminded daily that this is not my practice life.
Say this in the morning: “This is not my practice life.” It might be the thought that gets you to the next morning. It might be the thought that drives you to do well at what you do—carefully. It might be the thought that keeps you from overdosing or driving impaired. Or it might be the thought that keeps you out of dangerous places you don’t need to enter.
But I understand that deep-seated need lest you think I’m all for withdrawing into Miss Havisham’s mansion or of becoming a hermit. Precaution is one thing; anxiety is another. One can know risk and even take it without foolishness because risk comes in degrees as well as kinds. Anticipation is the best guide because it involves rational assessments based on sound probability. Remember that what you anticipate is rarely a problem—and yes, I know that as in being hit by a bolide or by a random bullet, random risk is part of living on Earth. In randomness you have no real choice. This planet is in practical terms all you have, and it poses risks that occur by chance. Just don’t go out of your way to increase your jeopardy.
How did we get here? Why are we what we are? How did our ancestors ancient and recent get through the filters of risk and death? How will we get through those filters?
*Alyssa Guzman. 11 Oct 2023. Rival mountaineers who died in Tibet were scaling last remaining mountain on list of 14 tallest peaks. https://nypost.com/2023/10/11/2-rival-mountaineers-die-in-tibet-as-they-competed-to-be-first-us-woman-to-scale-14-tallest-peaks/
**Joshua Lynch. 13 Oct 2023. TikTok ‘doctor’ revealed as total fraud who gave people health advice on cancer, HIV while donning scrubs https://nypost.com/2023/10/13/fake-doctor-dalya-karezi-revealed-as-total-fraud-who-gave-people-health-advice-on-cancer-hiv/
Apparently, civilized people are remnants of pre-civilized people. By that I mean you, I, and all other humans are connected to the minds, as well as to the bodies of those 100-plus billion humans who preceded us. How else explain risk-taking when risk is avoidable, you know, like climbing the 14 highest peaks? Why do “civilized” humans take risks when they could live in relative safety? It’s not as though they have to hunt mastodons with handmade wooden spears tipped with flaked flint.
I suppose evolutionary psychologists could link our risk-taking to our hunter-gatherer days or maybe to our reptilian heritage in the brain stem. For most of Earth’s eight billion living humans, the need for risking life just to eat has diminished considerably. Except in rare times of hurricanes, earthquakes, wars, and Buttigieg port backups, food is plentiful. I hunt, for example, at the local Giant Eagle grocery store, and I rarely return home without the exact food I set out to catch: “Honey, the store was out of sourdough, so I bought the Tuscany loaf.” I even fish there. Believe me, I have a most risk-free outing every time I go “hunting” and “fishing” there, and only during those rare shortages do I tell the tale of “the one that got away.” I’ve even caught food and drink on Amazon, but never in the Amazon.
So, how do I account for modern risk-taking, for modern risk-takers? Rodeo cowboys riding freehand on bucking broncos and bulldogging steers, cliff divers, and mountain climbers—not to mention those who pose on slippery precipices just to take a selfie.
Two Women United in Risk and Death
Is it fame we seek? Eternal life? Is risk-taking our way to become immortalized, say like Sir Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay? Then the risk is very big because those who try to repeat the success of others but fail are rarely remembered, are rarely immortalized. Who remembers the Silver Medalist save a coach or family member?
Take as examples of voluntary risk-takers the two women who recently died during their attempt to climb Mount Shishapangma in Tibet. * They had set out to climb the 14 tallest peaks, and Shishapangma was their last challenge. Avalanches ended both lives. Risky business, mountain climbing, far more risky than going to the local Giant Eagle in search of food—unless one considers negotiating traffic peopled with drivers drunk, high, or distracted by texting.
Gina Rzucidlo and Anna Gutu and their Nepalese sherpas died on the mountain, and chances are you never heard of them, lost in the many names of failed risk-takers. The rival climbers wanted to be the first to scale those peaks. I know those peaks are dangerous places because I’ve been vicariously up several of them myself, thanks to National Geographic, TV, and leisure time—risk free, unless one counts the inactive time on the couch a risk for heart disease and atrophied muscles.
I’ll go back to my question: How did we get here, to a point of taking unnecessary risks? How did we get to a point of simultaneously reducing risk and seeking it? Does risk-taking lie deep in our brain? Is it a product of the limbic system? Or the reptilian stem?
Another Kind of Voluntary Risk: Fraud for Fame and Fortune
Consider a different kind of risk, one generated on the Web or on social media. Australian Dalya Karezi pleaded guilty to fraud for her self-portrayal as a medical expert. She had given advice on various ailments over TikTok and Instagram. Her followers thought she was a qualified doctor. And some of her advice centered on very serious diseases.
Dalya assumed the risk of fraud and has been sentenced to a two-year community corrections order at Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court and fined $8,400. This is what she said about her behavior in an apology letter: “As I write this letter I am crying and still struggling to see how I got to this position because this is very out of character and I never thought I would be in this position.” Woah! What position: having been caught—as was inevitable with all the access everyone has to backgrounds—or having committed fraud that might have harmed some of her 200,000+ followers? If she is referring to the latter, then she, like so many other impersonators, had to have taken a conscious action to declare herself a physician; she even wore scrubs—a sure sign of being in the medical profession, if not unversed in fashion. If the former, then being astute enough to start a website or social media chain, means that she ignored a risk she certainly knew, that of being discovered and punished.
In a similar case of fraud, Onelio Hipolit-Gonzalez, 73, impersonated a doctor on his website and claimed he treated many patients. Hipolit-Gonzalez gave advice on conditions as serious as leukemia. One might think that a guy 73 years old would realize his fraud would eventually catch up to him. Anyone hearing the story would ask why taking such a risk seemed worth the effort, since the consequences of fraud are often much worse than the rewards. Onelio was caught in a sting operation.
Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny
Is self-imposed risk buried deep in our brains?
Maybe it is. Why, for example, do we like riding roller coasters, sliding down water slides that send us tens of meters into a plunge pool—in Atlantis in the Bahamas, in a tube through shark-infested water—or jumping off a bridge with only a bungee cord for protection.
We might understand a group of teens whose brains still have a few more years to mature doing something risky. From lack of experience and a dissociation between frontal cortex and emotional centers, teens have taken risks that became fatal fails, if not for them, then for others. But how do we understand an individual adult or group of adults that take on risk voluntarily: Burglers, for example, Hamas terrorists, or illegal immigrants? And what of druggies or drug dealers? Both risk “big time,” one risking death by overdose, and the other risking capture by authorities if not death by drug rivals.
Somewhere in the human background there lies an affinity for risk. Did start because we live on a risky planet with many dangerous natural phenomena? Because of competition among life-forms, both intra-species and interspecies?
If an affinity for risk-taking harks back to the initial struggles life had as it first emerged from fundamental elemental structures made of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorous, then the penchant for risk has an abiotic origin. If it harks back to predator-prey relationships, then it originated in those first neurons seeking to deal with a hostile environment. And it appears through numerous examples to be part of human nature.
This Is Not You Know What
This is not your practice life. That you might take unnecessary risks is ultimately up to you, but you might not be wholly conscious in so doing. There appears to be a drive toward risk deeply embedded in our brains. It’s something we all seem to know because we mock those who are hypochondriacs or who have anxiety over every potential danger big and small.
Gina Rzucidlo and Anna Gutu tried to turn risk into fame and maybe fortune—not doubt a book deal was a potential source of money. Dalya Karezi and Onelio Hipolit-Gonzalez tried to turn fraud into both fame and fortune. All four suffered the consequences of their risky ventures, the first two more so than the latter two. On a risky planet, taking additional risk seems in my view to be foolish. Yet, I probably have on occasion done something unnecessarily risky, scuba diving for example, driving distracted by a coffee cup and going through an intersection on a yellow light, or even going down that slide at Atlantis. I’ve stood on precipices just a few feet from the edge simply to get a good look, and I’ve used a chain saw to fell large trees. So, I have to say that like many before me and contemporary to me, I need to be reminded daily that this is not my practice life.
Say this in the morning: “This is not my practice life.” It might be the thought that gets you to the next morning. It might be the thought that drives you to do well at what you do—carefully. It might be the thought that keeps you from overdosing or driving impaired. Or it might be the thought that keeps you out of dangerous places you don’t need to enter.
But I understand that deep-seated need lest you think I’m all for withdrawing into Miss Havisham’s mansion or of becoming a hermit. Precaution is one thing; anxiety is another. One can know risk and even take it without foolishness because risk comes in degrees as well as kinds. Anticipation is the best guide because it involves rational assessments based on sound probability. Remember that what you anticipate is rarely a problem—and yes, I know that as in being hit by a bolide or by a random bullet, random risk is part of living on Earth. In randomness you have no real choice. This planet is in practical terms all you have, and it poses risks that occur by chance. Just don’t go out of your way to increase your jeopardy.
How did we get here? Why are we what we are? How did our ancestors ancient and recent get through the filters of risk and death? How will we get through those filters?
*Alyssa Guzman. 11 Oct 2023. Rival mountaineers who died in Tibet were scaling last remaining mountain on list of 14 tallest peaks. https://nypost.com/2023/10/11/2-rival-mountaineers-die-in-tibet-as-they-competed-to-be-first-us-woman-to-scale-14-tallest-peaks/
**Joshua Lynch. 13 Oct 2023. TikTok ‘doctor’ revealed as total fraud who gave people health advice on cancer, HIV while donning scrubs https://nypost.com/2023/10/13/fake-doctor-dalya-karezi-revealed-as-total-fraud-who-gave-people-health-advice-on-cancer-hiv/
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