Quote:
Originally Posted by Bandwagon Surfer
People get far to defensive on these types of subjects and take things personally, when there is really no need to. Since the scientific revolution we have changed from a mindset where our traditions and holy books know everything, and switched to a mindset which acknowledges that we do not know everything and it is up to us to discover and learn more.
But with this comes the fact that everything will always be changing to keep with what we know now. This means that you cannot fault people for making decisions in the past that we now know better about. As long as the person made the decision with the best knowledge available at the time, they were responsible. Where problems come is when people do not adapt to what we have learned.
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You're making an assumption that in the past society valued safety just as highly as we do now, and the only thing that has changed is we know more about risks. I think we need to recognize that only do we know more about the long-term health effects of things like head trauma (and smoking, drinking, etc.), we place a much higher value on reducing those risks than people did in the past. Our notions of acceptable risk have changed.
But how much they've changed varies person to person. Just look at how wide the range of attitudes are around child safety. Some are content to raise kids the way they were raised 30 years ago. Others avidly try to remove any possible chance of harm coming to their children. Most people fall somewhere in between.
No doubt we'll change our expectations around hockey. But let's not pretend it's a simple matter of making obvious changes as more science comes to light. It's still a judgement call based on competing values.