Let's talk about the history of anticipating danger.
Let's start by opening this topic and thanking Prof. Dr. Özlem Esen for her inspiration.
Mining is the most dangerous profession. The historical “partnership of pain” between miners, who literally go to the grave alive, and the canary, yes, the canary birds.
Carbon monoxide, a toxic gas that accumulates in the mine, causes what miners call a “happy death”. The miners fall into a sweet sleep with this poisonous gas and breathe their last breath with a smile on their faces without suffering.
At this point, John Scott Haldane, who conducted research on the human body, the respiratory system and the nature of gases, detected a different finding in the respiratory system of canaries than in the human respiratory system. He realized that the birds with their small bodies were created superior to human physiology and could detect harmful gas molecules in the air faster than humans.
Canaries, which are much more sensitive to oxygen and methane gas than humans, would stop singing if the oxygen level dropped or methane gas increased. This would be a sign of poisoning or an explosion, leaving only a dead canary behind.
Mine workers started to descend into the coal mines with canary cages.
Canaries were used in coal mines from the 1890s to 1986 as an early warning system to detect toxic gases such as carbon monoxide and methane. Thanks to their fast metabolism, they protected miners from deadly explosions and fires by being affected by the gas long before humans did, either by stopping singing or fainting. The use of these creatures has been replaced by digital detectors with the widespread use of technological devices.
Let's talk about the hero of a story about a miner's canary named “Little Joe”; On November 3, 1875, this yellow canary stopped singing during a mining shift and saved the lives of dozens of workers by reporting a gas leak. Little Joe died during this incident.
The miners saw him not as a tool but as a comrade and built him a small wooden coffin. “In memory of Little Joe. He died at the age of 3.” They immortalized their respect for him.
In the depths of the mine tunnels, workers would constantly strain their ears against the cage. When the canary stopped singing, it meant death was imminent. When the bird's neck twisted or went silent, the miners would evacuate the mine, saddened by the loss of a friend, but in a hurry to survive because of him.
Children and youth are the canaries of this society, the early warning systems.
To understand the level of development of a society, look at the children and youth in that society.
If juvenile delinquency is on the rise, it means that society is being poisoned. And just as the miners died laughing and not suffering while dying from poisonous gas, we are getting used to it sweetly, sweetly, sweetly.
Nobody starves to death in our societies, but you know what happens in society if a child is hungry or starving. As he grows up, he takes his place in society with only the instinct to satisfy hunger like animals. If he does not have the right teachers and parents, he becomes a cheeky, thieving and criminal.
No one has ever died from lack of love, but if a child grows up without love, he or she will become “unscrupulous”. It will be a society of young people who cannot distinguish right from wrong and who we say “young people were not like this in our time”.
No one has ever died from lack of education, but a child without education “cannot think, cannot produce knowledge” and becomes a society like the first people lived in.
We had a young man who became a phenomenon on social media by shaking his belly and I couldn't believe it when I heard the number of followers. He had 17 million followers watching him shake his belly. I immediately searched the number of followers of our Nobel Prize-winning professor Aziz Sancar and I was horrified with 380 thousand followers.
If we want to prevent juvenile delinquency and have a good future with our young people, we need to create “role models” for them from the right people.
Otherwise, I congratulate you on our “bitter partnership”.