Episodes
Saturday Jan 27, 2018
Hawaii Missile Alert: The STRANGE Narrative - Interview with Jim Malliard
Saturday Jan 27, 2018
Saturday Jan 27, 2018
Paranormal Investigator Jim Malliard and host David Perrodin discuss the puzzling inconsistencies of the January 13, 2018 notification that Hawaii was minutes from a ballistic missile impact. Although the alert was an error, the circumstances of the event are convoluted and information released since the flub only adds to the confusion. Jim and David smoke out some of the possible truths of this rapidly hushed incident. THE EVENT. "An early-morning emergency alert mistakenly warning of an incoming ballistic missile attack was dispatched to cellphones across Hawaii on Saturday, setting off widespread panic in a state that was already on edge because of escalating tensions between the United States and North Korea. The alert, sent by the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, was revoked 38 minutes after it was issued, prompting confusion over why it was released — and why it took so long to rescind. State officials and residents of a normally tranquil part of the Pacific, as well as tourists swept up in the panic, immediately expressed outrage." (NYT - January 13, 2018) HOW ALERTS ARE SUPPOSED TO WORK. To describe the steps in issuing an inbound missile to the United States, Dr. Perrodin extracted upon his personal research of the 9/11 attacks and the change that day in national DEFCON status from a 5 (lowest state of readiness) to 3 (Air Force ready to mobilize in 15 minutes). The DEFense readiness CONdition (DEFCON) is an alert state used by the United States Armed Forces and is controlled by the President and Secretary of Defense. David argued that his interpretation has always been that the (1) North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) would detect the threat through satellites, seismic or other sensors. (2) US Strategic Command (STRATCOMM) would then verify the threat through various tracking and confirmation measures, (3) STRATCOMM would inform the President and Secretary of Defense and a decision would be made regarding the US response, which might result in a change of the DEFCON status which then triggers a prescribed sequence of readiness and offensive tactics. It is at this step that the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) would be activated by the President and messages would be delivered via EBS as an expeditious method of communicating with the American public in the event of a war, threat of war, or grave national crisis. Hence, the Hawaii alert warning should not have been possible as any such warning would have been per directive of the President. THE STORY ISN’T MAKING SENSE. Jim Malliard pointed out several discrepancies with the missile alert and subsequent actions, including:
- Why wasn’t it possible to immediately send a corrective message from the same system that sent the false alert?
- If this was a drill, why not just send out a message stating that this is a test of the emergency alert system – and only a test – there would be no need to state that it was a missile warning?
- The corrective measures now includes a second verify that the alert should be issued – this seems woefully inadequate relative to the degree of the threat.
- Why is the employee responsible for this not responding to questing and why was he re-assigned? This suggests that the act might have been a prank that got out of hand, but wouldn’t that result in immediate termination? If this was a flaw in the system, then this mistake could have been made by any employee, so why re-assign this person?
- Could this have been a hack? If so, the lack of media coverage certainly supports a narrative of wanting to bury this incident.
- Why hasn’t NORAD or STRATCOMM chimed in on this – perhaps denoting the standard operating procedures, sans guarded information, of how the American public would be warned of an inbound missile?
FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts RSS feed. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com David will respond to comments & emails. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests and do not reflect positions of The 405 Media or supporters of “The Safety Doc Podcast”. The show adheres to nondiscrimination principles while seeking to bring forward productive discourse & debate on topics relevant to personal or institutional safety. Email David: thesafetydoc@gmail.com LOOKING FOR DR. TIMOTHY LUDWIG, PHD? Dr. Perrodin’s “Safety Doc Podcast” negotiates school and community safety. To be informed about industrial safety, please contact Appalachian State University Professor Dr. Timothy Ludwig, PhD, at www.safety-doc.com. Learn more about episode guest Jim Malliard and subscribe to his newsletter at www.malliard.com
Tuesday Jan 16, 2018
Video Gaming the System - Are Video Games a Debilitating Addiction?
Tuesday Jan 16, 2018
Tuesday Jan 16, 2018
Dr. Perrodin sifts and winnows a pair of articles pertaining to the controversial pathologizing of video games as addictive behaviors warranting recognition by the World Health Organization and American Psychiatric Association.HOW GAMING ADDICTION BECOMES A MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS. Gaming addiction and social media addiction are at the cusp of entry into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). It is the handbook used by healthcare professionals in the United States and much of the world as the authoritative guide to the diagnosis of mental disorders. DSM contains descriptions, symptoms, and other criteria for diagnosing mental disorders. So, yes, society is on the verge of assigning a medical code, or category, to these areas. The DSM is an instant badge of credibility and typically translates into the creation of The International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD Code) which is a system used by physicians and other healthcare providers to classify and code all diagnoses, symptoms and procedures recorded in conjunction with hospital care in the United States. So, from DSM to ICD is a short step. From that point, it’s common for medical providers to bridge the ICD to a medical diagnosis and then some subsequent treatment plan which is mostly guesswork until empirical research charts a reasonable plan of care. Of course, some insurance companies will deny a gaming addiction medical diagnosis with subsequent medication or therapy. K-12 SCHOOL SETTING WILL BE THE ENTRY POINT FOR GAMING ADDICTION AS RECOGNIZED DISABILITY WARRANTING TREATMENT. However, the door is more easily opened in the K-12 school setting where a doctor’s diagnosis of a gaming addiction could lead into a school disability diagnosis as meeting the Other Health Impaired (OHI) or Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. SHAREHOLDERS WANT ACCOUNTABILITY - WHY THIS IS BEYOND A REALISTIC EXPECTATION. Two major Apple investors have urged the iPhone maker to take action to curb growing smartphone addiction among children, highlighting growing concern about the effects of gadgets and social media on youngsters. New York-based Jana Partners LLC and the California State Teachers' Retirement System, or CalSTRS, said in open letter to Apple that the company must offer more tools to help children fight addiction on its services. Among their proposals, they recommend the company enhances mobile device software so parents have more options to protect their children's health. The investors claims are based upon shoddy surveys and the expectations for the corporations to control usage of phones and gaming devices is fully unrealistic. Dr. Perrodin compares this to parental controls to block channels on a television. The issue at hand isn’t the content accessed by those using the devices as much as it is the frequency and duration that people are interacting with devices. Again, Dr. Perrodin argues that people have always gravitated toward activities of interest - be it listening to the radio, talking on the phone or watching TV. WHY “SIGNIFICANT DISTRESS” MATTERS IN ALLEGED GAMING ADDICTION. In an article by David DiSalvo (2016), a 9 question survey, known as the Bergen Survey, is used to qualify someone of having a gaming addiction diagnosis. However, unless someone shows signs of significant distress when trying to reduce their gaming time, an addiction diagnosis wouldn’t apply. Dr. Perrodin identifies this nebulous “significant distress” qualifier as essential as a research study of 19,000 male and female gamers from the US, UK, Canada and Germany indicate that just .5% - 1% of persons would have met the “distressed” threshold - something that wouldn’t at all be out of line for bicyclists or runners, for example, who might exhibit distress if trying to reduce their time with those activities. Dr. Perrodin strongly challenges the validity of the Bergen Scale, which he identifies as very subjective and breaching the well-known problems with expecting people to recall events from 6-12 months ago without conflation of memories. FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts RSS feed. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com David will respond to comments & emails. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests and do not reflect positions of The 405 Media or supporters of “The Safety Doc Podcast”. The show adheres to nondiscrimination principles while seeking to bring forward productive discourse & debate on topics relevant to personal or institutional safety. Email David: thesafetydoc@gmail.com LOOKING FOR DR. TIMOTHY LUDWIG, PHD? Dr. Perrodin’s “Safety Doc Podcast” negotiates school and community safety. To be informed about industrial safety, please contact Appalachian State University Professor Dr. Timothy Ludwig, PhD, at www.safety-doc.com
Saturday Jan 06, 2018
Saturday Jan 06, 2018
The overwhelming pursuit of perfection is driving young people into increased levels of depression and anxiety per a Yahoo article that referenced a study of over 41,000 college students between 1989-2016 in America, Canada and Great Britain. (Parker, 2018). In this episode of The Safety Doc Podcast, Dr. Perrodin centers his analysis and discussion on personal psychological safety as he affirms and challenges claims of the article, and identifies linkages to the school setting. WHAT IS PERFECTIONISM? The authors broadly define perfectionism “as a combination of excessively high personal standards and overly critical self-evaluations.” Findings suggest that kids these days are more obsessed with perfection than many previous generations were, and this obsession is associated with increased depression and anxiety. THE STUDY. Dr. Perrodin cautions that a single study has limitations and becomes stronger when analyzed in conjunction with similar studies. Nonetheless, this study has stand-alone merit as it was conducted with 164 samples for a total of 41,641 students in 3 countries over a duration of 25 years. The article states that the perfection dilemma is “worst” in the US. Dr. Perrodin tempers that claim as only 3 “First World” countries participated in the study and the countries have democratic governments and similar societal structures. THREE REASONS FOR INCREASED PERCEIVED PRESSURE TO BE PERFECT. The research presents three reasons for this shift: the rise of neoliberalism, increasingly anxious and controlling parents, and the increasing power of meritocracy. OK, word salad alert! The Safety Doc is going to describe these reasons per practical observations of everyday life. Neoliberalism is the free market. It means that the “forever” jobs of the 1970s are behind us. This is the age of Fiverr, where people from across the globe advertise their services and competition limits one can charge, but positive reviews and niche, high-quality work can also bring great demand for your skills. The latter part is meritocracy, or meaning that individual’s skills determine the demand for their compensation. This can be frightening, as the thought of a stable job with a single employer is morphing into free agent contractors. Yet, it is liberating as you can cultivate multiple income streams and play to your strengths as long as those strengths have a market demand. I know a 20-year-old man that narrates books and does other professional voice over work. He has a backlog of requests and has accordingly increased his fees. His services have received very positive reviews, he is diligent with his clients, and works from home. Finally, parents are anxious and controlling as was pointed out in the recent Safety Doc Podcast about Ohio parents canceling an 8th grade field trip to DC over fears of terrorism. That act sent a precise message to those youth, “You are safe(r) at home. Do not engage in reconnaissance. We’ll teach you all you need to know about what lies beyond the city limits.” SOCIAL MEDIA. Dr. Barbara Greenberg, a clinical psychologist specializing in family and relationship issues, singles out another important factor: social media. “These people grew up being constantly evaluated on social media,” she points out. So what’s so bad about striving to be perfect? It can lead to increased depression and anxiety. “Research among college students and young people, for example, has found self-oriented perfectionism to be positively associated with clinical depression, anorexia nervosa, and early death,” the study authors point out. “It is also associated with greater physiological reactivity (e.g., elevated blood pressure) and ill-being (e.g., negative affect) in response to life stress and failure.” Researchers even identified a link with suicidal ideation. THE SOCIAL MEDIA SCAPEGOAT? Dr. Perrodin is not on Facebook and even laughs when his friends say, “I couldn’t find you on social media - what’s up with that?” Well, that’s the point. One is not obligated to participate in social media. It is optional. Each of us has a choice. That point is lost in the article, argues Dr. Perrodin, that every person has a choice to be captive to social media. We are framing social media as an addiction and preparing to label it as a medical condition as the groundwork was recently laid when the American Psychiatric Association gave sanctified Internet Gaming Disorder. Really? Does the teen that reads 3 novels a week have a Literacy Consumption Disorder? Remove the game from the gamer or book from the reader and my hunch is the withdrawals manifestations would be strikingly similar… IT’S A MYTH. Perfection is a myth as nothing, by scientific definition or empirical measure, is perfect. Engineers have objective tolerances for bridge constructions. And then there’s subjective perfection which is 100% vanity and a “consensus” reality. But, in reality, most people are intentionally programmed what to think, injected with bursts of dopamine celebratory moments for accomplishing nothing as self-introspection is buried alongside the art of debate. By the way, it means nothing to me if this post is liked or shared on social media.
The following are samples from the public comment forum for this article. Strong themes that presented in the forum included:
- Nothing is perfect so don’t worry about it.
- The older generation is more competent than the younger generation.
- Social media is horrible.
- Agency and purpose is experienced by creating things of value - be it tending a garden or helping others.
- Failure equates to a flawed person.
"Most important, life is not perfect. It is messy and imperfect. It is ok for things to be imperfect."
"Ah the good old days of watching a small screen Black & White TV, have to get up and change the channel be lucky if you can get at least a good 4 or 6 channels, depending where you lived and bang on the side of the TV to receive good reception. AM Transistor Radios, later AM/FM. Rotary Landline Phones and Public Phone Booths. The youth of today could not survive that. I did and I could survive that if we went back to it."
"That's because the social media culture is all about 'look at me look at me' and when no one is looking at you, they get depressed. Social media as an outlet has morphed into a horrible thing. Humans abuse and twist everything into something awful."
"The problem with a lot of these kids is simply that they don't know how to lose. They were never provided with the tools to cope with failure. Unfortunately the ability to overcome and learn from failure is mandatory for success. Their inability to deal with adversity is a huge roadblock."
"What is driving people into depression is the fact that they don't do anything. They sit and watch videos, videogames , text and never really have to do anything. Now they don't know how to do anything. Ask any of them to change a tire? Plant a garden, do anything real. When you can't really do anything you should be depressed."
"Having been a hiring manager for 25 years I have first hand knowledge that the young adults of today are not striving for "perfection", they are petrified of social failure. They don't want to become the best person they're capable of for the good of those that depend on them, so they can make a difference. It's all about "how would it look...". Give them a comfort puppy and some real responsibility. Oh yea...and take away smartphones until they graduate high school."
"I am on the older spectrum of millenial age group and I agree that social media plays a part in how we are. I will add though that when I was in school there was huge pressure to go to college. We were told that if you didn't you would never be anybody. You would be worthless to society. We were fed huge dreams that if we majored in anything that we would be successful adults and make money. A lot of educators and parents are responsible for how this generation turned out. My peers didn't have jobs in high school. Their parents bought them new cars in exchange for just taking out the garbage or good grades. So many grew up book smart but we're not instilled with street smarts. How to function properly as an adult is not taught at all. Fresh out of college with high hopes we hadn't a clue how to balance a checkbook, apply for a job, work on our cars, etc. because society, educators, parents failed to give us a chance to learn. We are a product of previous generation that failed to educate us in basic life skills and now it's up to snowflakes to figure it out or give up. When the lazy label is pointed at our back constantly we have become terrified of failure thus we never learn."
FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts RSS feed. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com David will respond to comments & emails. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests and do not reflect positions of The 405 Media or supporters of “The Safety Doc Podcast”. The show adheres to nondiscrimination principles while seeking to bring forward productive discourse & debate on topics relevant to personal or institutional safety. Email David: thesafetydoc@gmail.com LOOKING FOR DR. TIMOTHY LUDWIG, PHD? Dr. Perrodin’s “Safety Doc Podcast” negotiates school and community safety. To be informed about industrial safety, please contact Appalachian State University Professor Dr. Timothy Ludwig, PhD, at www.safety-doc.com
Monday Jan 01, 2018
Army; DHS Prep Teachers for Active Shooters with Video Games - Will it Work?
Monday Jan 01, 2018
Monday Jan 01, 2018
The Army and Homeland Security announced the release of a no-cost computer-based simulation that trains teachers how to respond in an active shooter situation at a school. Forum commenters felt the instruction is an encroachment on 2nd Amendment rights and there has been little analysis of the design and intended rollout of the program. Dr. Perrodin debates the good, the bad and the undetermined of this novel approach. NEW, BUT NOT THE FIRST ATTEMPT AT FREE ACTIVE SHOOTER TRAINING. On 12-28-2015 FEMA released the free course: IS-907: Active Shooter: What You Can Do. The course is comprehensive and recommended by the Safety Doc. Yet, it’s relegated to the long list of unknown or dreadfully under-utilized no-cost FEMA offerings centered to public safety. Dr. Perrodin believes that the FEMA course should have been promoted as the recommended training prior to participating in the video game simulation – somebody dropped the ball here as IS-907 should have been coupled to the new virtual simulation. VIRTUAL REALITY ACTIVE SHOOTER TRAINING – THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE TO BE DETERMINED. Here are David’s 5 positive takeaways about the new virtual training: (1) Video games are actually a great way to learn - remember the interview with Dr. Seann Dikkers in Safety Doc Podcast #18? (2) This is a stepping stone to multi-person virtual reality trainings that can be calibrated for variables and injects. This system is only a first attempt - and not much more than a single-player early version Call of Duty at this point. (3) This will be free to schools and I expect free training materials that schools than then mesh with their own intruder training protocols. (4) This doesn’t have the unnecessary drill trauma that has become so common with theatrical school shooting multi-agency trainings which have prompted litigation by staff and students and also police departments refusing to participate in such drills due to exposure to litigation. (5) This will generalize to mall workers, retails workers, and eventually become as common as Bloodborne pathogens trainings. THE BAD. (1) Most school shooters told somebody or made some social media posts days or months ahead of time - we need to focus on improving threat detection and threat input systems - this will have an impact on preventing school shootings. (2) Using dispatch recordings to construct the scenarios is incomplete. There also aren’t many options and no schools are similar in physical layout, staff, discretion philosophy. There are hundreds and thousands of pages forensic studies from just Sandy Hook - use those to inform your development of the scenarios. (3) I couldn’t discern the opportunity for the participant to ask questions - for example, “What should I do if I caught the hallway between classrooms?” or “I didn’t hear the announcement over the PA about the Lock Down.” (4) What about a vehicle revving down a packed sidewalk? (5) The majority of commenters are strongly arguing that this initiative is a threat to the 2nd amendment - so we see a loss of focus on the intended purposes of the training which is situational awareness and also accelerating contemplation of heuristics - options, and making decisions. THE TO BE DETERMINED. (1) Drill fatigue is a real phenomenon and if this is perceived as a novelty, it won’t be more effective than standard drills or tabletops. (2) There is a risk that this could be perceived as an all-inclusive training when it is only a tool - a tool to really help sharpen situational awareness and force people to make decisions -- and these are two factors that generalize to safer schools. (3) I have little idea on how this would be used for interagency training exercises. (4) Will we see increased focus on threat identification and threat reporting systems? (5) As this evolves to full virtual reality, how will VR sets be funded - will trainings be centralized and then schools would be on a circuit of training. Even though the video “game” is free, VR might not be an option for poorer districts and some districts might just dismiss this and stick with theatrical simulations. FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts RSS feed. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com David will respond to comments & emails. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests and do not reflect positions of The 405 Media or supporters of “The Safety Doc Podcast”. The show adheres to nondiscrimination principles while seeking to bring forward productive discourse & debate on topics relevant to personal or institutional safety. Email David: thesafetydoc@gmail.com LOOKING FOR DR. TIMOTHY LUDWIG, PHD? Dr. Perrodin’s “Safety Doc Podcast” negotiates school and community safety. To be informed about industrial safety, please contact Appalachian State University Professor Dr. Timothy Ludwig, PhD, at www.safety-doc.com