Dr. Safe & Mr. Trust

The abandoned power plant kids know something we don't (no, they don't, probably it's just ass entropy)

The first rule of statistics is that numbers never lie, not even under torture. A famous statistician gave this example: the probability of dying from a bomb placed in a car trunk, calculated over one calendar year, is about one in ten million. The probability of dying from two bombs decreases to one in three billion. So, placing dynamite in the trunk of your Hyundai actually makes you safer. In the picture: Benny Hill.

We have even reached the third part of this Odyssey. You can read part 1 and part 2 here.

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On the stairs at home, I had a pleasant and welcome surprise: a ray of sunshine was coming through my window, after more than a week of uninterrupted rain. In my courtyard, I could see how, despite a blanket of grey clouds covering the Northern sky like a shield, the blue was nonetheless visible.

And this was good news for my expedition: just the day before, I had thought I should buy an umbrella for when it rains, but then I hadn’t gotten around to purchasing it.

This pattern was actually a symptom of a much more troubling tendency of mine lately: I had repeated the same thing in a whole series of situations. I had said, “Maybe we should buy a fire extinguisher since I don’t trust the stove,” without then doing it. I had also said this: “Someone here should learn the Heimlich maneuver,” but in this case too, however efficient the preliminary safety analysis was, it didn’t lead to adequate safety responses.

A shiver ran down my spine: here, this would win back his trust. A common fate toward a catastrophe.

The abandoned power plant was often reported as an illegal hangout spot for young people. Keep this in mind.

As I proceeded on foot towards the red country house, and saw three of the white dogs approaching curiously, I wondered: but how would I convince him?

Gentlemen, for the umpteenth time: the data. Could we, could we feel safe? Did a stochastic model of safety exist? My data spoke clearly. In my life, fortunately, my safety had only been jeopardized by two minor incidents: a motorcycle accident in 1997, and a fall on the stairs in December of 2025. Exactly 50% of the cases occurred outside the home, and the other exact half inside the home.

The stochastic model didn’t just speak clearly, it literally screamed: the probability was exactly split in half, giving no useful information, like a bit that materializes 0 or 1 just at random.

So here are the keywords: entropy, apoptosis, chaos.

Then there was another fact. I, unlike my neighbor, who had always refused, had access to the neighborhood watch chat of the citizens of the small town where I live (I report the following words he said when I proposed he participate: “they’re just a bunch of assholes and that chat is only good for finding someone’s bored wife to stick your dick in”). From this vantage point, I had access to various pieces of information, on a whole series of issues.

Events of a certain relevance had indeed occurred: an audio message reported that some kids had been stopped while throwing stones at buildings. One day some thugs had broken the windows of a parked car to steal its contents. Others had entered the courtyard of a house. But frankly these didn’t seem like noteworthy events to me.

As with my lack of safety orchestration, I think the danger lurked more in what was left unsaid, not in what was said. Darkness always lies in people’s minds, never in their actions. Actions are the light that illuminates.

A man had been photographed while standing still, exactly in the middle of the road, checking information on a mobile phone.

Two people “of clearly foreign appearance” were loitering, one Sunday, in the deserted square, “without apparent motivation.”

Some workmen had been seen working on the power lines, and when questioned about what they were doing, they had given evasive and rude answers.

I rang the bell, and as I saw Arnaldo, the neighbor, wearily come out of the stairway and head towards the gate to come and confront me, I concluded: his bored expression speaks clearly.

And I am here for this very reason.

System’s entropy is always problematic. I mean: look how shitty this looks after it fell on the floor and i lazily rearranged all this stuff. It was boring as fuck. What a bundle of piss.