Mad cows swimming in Fukushima discharge

By Jason Lim

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) notes in a recent report on the progress of the IAEA Review of Safety Related Aspects of Handling ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System) Treated Water at TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS) that "these findings provide confidence in TEPCO's capability for undertaking accurate and precise measurements related to the discharge of ALPS treated water. Furthermore, based on the observations of the IAEA, TEPCO has demonstrated that they have a sustainable and robust analytical system in place to support the ongoing technical needs at FDNPS during the discharge of ALPS treated water."

It doesn't exactly say that the water is safe. But it's a close second since the IAEA does, however, endorse all the methodology and analytics used by TEPCO to evaluate the safety of the water. Based on studies and reports from authoritative and trusted sources, I believe that the Fukushima discharge is safe for fish and humans alike. However, I still don't want to eat fish caught in those waters and don't want my family to do that either. Is that hypocritical? Damn right. But it's a hypocrisy that's rooted deeply in my better-safe-than-sorry instincts.

Remember mad cow disease? It seems to be a lifetime ago when former President Lee Myung-bak was ambushed by a flurry of gripes on resuming imports of U.S. beef that quickly blossomed into the biggest street protest seen in the country since South Korea became a democracy, just as he took the reins of the government. Despite scientific and statistical evidence to the contrary, there was real public fear that the resumption of U.S. beef imports would put Korean citizens in imminent danger of contracting the incurable mad cow disease.

There was even a widely believed claim that the homogenous Korean race shared a gene that made it especially susceptible, and a warning that babies could catch the disease from wearing diapers made from infected cow parts. To call these claims overblown would be a gross understatement. But they nevertheless tore through the internet to become an onslaught of patently false "truth" that the authorities, despite being armed with "facts," were helpless against.

Today, I literally haven't heard of any Koreans contracting mad cow disease from American beef. However, if I were in Korea during those times, surrounded by misinformation flying about and triggering my fears, I would probably stay away from imported American beef. Intellectually, I would understand that the chances of contracting the disease would be miniscule. But I would tell myself it's better to be safe than sorry, even at negligible risk, until the overall social atmosphere changed to lower my threat perception.

I consider myself fairly well-informed and rational, but I know that I have and will be making non-rational decisions based on the prevailing public narrative that is patently false and largely driven by partisans interested in fearmongering for their own benefits. In other words, my decisions are not entirely of my own making. I have agency, but my agency is influenced by the prevailing, collective stories that are currently in vogue, regardless of how factually dubious they may be. David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, once wrote, "Behavioral economists have shown the limits of the classical economic model, which assumes that individuals are efficient, rational, utility-maximizing creatures. Psychologists have shown that we are organized by our attachments. Sociologists have shown the power of social networks to affect individual behavior."

Amplify this power by a million. Mad cow disease's main social attachment engine was the Agora forum on Korean internet portal, Daum. These days, we have social media platforms that allow us to actively create our own customized echo chamber of similar political leanings, backgrounds, ethnicities, and hundreds of other micro demographics that will reinforce the exact message that we want to hear in the first place. Therefore, the collective stories that are in vogue that so influence my decisions are actually in vogue because I created the space where those stories have become inevitable and trending.

It's an insidious, self-feeding loop of confirmation bias that informs a mental construct about the world that can brook no evidence or facts that counter the safety of its ecosystem. Barry Goldwater, often credited as the father of modern American conservative movement, famously said, "The choices that govern his life are choices that he must make; they cannot be made by any other human being … Conservatism's first concern will always be: Are we maximizing freedom?''

Unfortunately, that's the not the first concern of a human being, as we have seen in the recent epoch of social media. Our first concern is to feel secure and safe within our own environment ― both physical and mental. Being secure and safe necessarily means maximizing the stability of the status quo over changes. In fact, any change ― anything different from what I know ― is a threat. It's a better-to-be-safe-than-sorry world of stagnation. In this world, freedom becomes the enemy if freedom leads to decisions that can result in changes.

Mad cows swimming in Fukushima waters may be perfectly safe to eat. But I won't be eating them because my friends won't be eating them. Until they start eating them, what's the nature of the agency or freedom that I wield?

Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.