There is an excellent explanation of this odd human characteristic in the Wikipedia that is well worth looking over. As I drove into Regina Thursday morning in serious arctic temperature conditions the whole trip seemed to be filled with various SEP fields that I, like most others are simply ignoring.

To deal with the  uncomfortable but obvious environmental polution problems created by our species someone came up with the idea of bagging all of that issue into something called "global warning" which we have notice our own government and its supporters simpy turn it into an SEP field.

The political and economic polarisation that has infected the scene in North America is another such SEP field where we all know that the fundamentals of our democratic society are being attacked but we ignore that and find other issues to haggle over while the real problem is being ignored. The political right is wrong and the political left is impotent.

Meanwhile, huge numbers of people on the planet are fanatically embracing a religion that advocates the killing of unbelievers whole the religion calls infidels. We are ignoring this issue because it is messy to condemn a religion when we are staunch believers in freedom of religion yet this religion and its followers are in the midst of a huge "holy war" in which we, the "unbelievers" are the enemy and our lives and freedom are endanger. Definitely this is an SEP field large as life and being ignored.

But don't take my word for it, take a look around and notice how many obvious issues exist and are being ignored to maintain civility or just get through each day without hassle.