It's a common concern. Mythologically, it's similar to zombie
   apocalypse tales or the american indian myth of the devices we
   create taking over us.....except the zombies are mixed with the
   "devices we create".

   Is it realistic? Not really. I grew up with "The Bomb" - I was a
   kid at the tail end of the Cold War. It was a certainty built
   into us that, one day you'll be in your classroom and *whoosh*,
   you're cremated and blowing dozens of miles away with the
   super-heated air pushed by the explosive nuclear force.

   After all, there were countable weapons. Thousands and thousands
   of them. One buttton push. One smuggled weapon and disaster was
   all but certain.

   It's not that it *couldn't* happen - heck, ANYTHING is possible.

   But my point is: the _certainty_ with which these
   propaganda/press releases/public relations fairy tales speak and
   the ease at which people nod there heads and go, "its logical! I
   believe it must be true!" is what's scary.

   Then again, the people who believe dramatic news stories tell
   me, "I have my head in the sand". I hate that expression because
   even ostriches don't put their heads in the same. Nobody does as
   far as I know. It's just which stories you believe and put your
   faith in as being accurate.

   I look at the sources - who said it? Why did they say it? Why is
   it likely they said it? And... if there's money involved
   *somewhere* along the line and there's somebody who LIKES
   getting money or influence who is behind saying, well, my
   skeptical flags go up.

   Not that "motive" is easy to determine. We can't know motive,
   not truly. Private minds. But while I do not believe in
   conspiracies (few organizations are as organized as they pretend
   to be - just work for a big corporation or government to see how
   inefficient an bumbling they REALLY are) - I also know that, by
   the time something makes it to the news and *I* see it, it's a
   constructed fairy tale.