+ Safety or Vulnerability? +

I was watching Criminal Minds because apparently that's all I ever do anymore and a pretty interesting point was brought up in the episode Amplification (Episode 24 of Season 4). In case you're not fond of the show or haven't seen this episode basically it's about these two men who create a new strand of anthrax and it's the BAU's job to help create a profile to figure out who created it and find out where they are before anymore locations are hit and everyone else is in danger. And it's brought very real when their own Spencer Reid walks blindly into the lab where it was created and set free, and it shows JJ and Hotch's responses as family people with children and their struggles of not being able to alert their families to stay home where it's safe.

Anyway, back to the point I was playing off of Joe Mantegna's character - David Rossi brings up, "Would it make people feel safer to know all that we've prevented since 9/11 or more vulnerable?"

And I feel that that statement is so dead on that it is almost terrifying to think about. How much do we as people really want to know about the world? If we could know of all the terrible things that you know are happening all around us... even right now, would we really want to?

I mean the majority of humans are perfectly fine living in their own worlds and worrying just about their own lives. I'm no exception. I'm pretty happy having things like national security far away from my mind. How screwed up would we all be if we knew the terrible things that people have tried to do to our country and to our fellow people? How would we be able to continue to wake up each morning and continue on with our lives like nothing had happened? To me that seems like it would be entirely impossible. Once you know something, you can't simply un-know it.

I'd like to think I'd be able to be living a normal life and hear about something like an anthrax attack and be able to continue on, but truthfully who knows? I think most people would then wake up every morning scared to death that something might happen to them that day. And then you have to wonder what is going on right at this moment that we're absolutely clueless about? Is there a reason right at this moment, in my city to be scared that it could be seconds away from some kind of attack - be it biological, chemical, or just weapons in general?

I think that it would help my psyche to not know what was going on around me. But at the same time I wish that I could know. I feel that if I had to, I would be able to handle it and be strong when it's needed.

So, my question to you is how much information is too much? If you were in mortal danger would you want to know or would you rather continue to live in a happy state of ignorance?