Why are humans SO BAD at risk assessment? Is it nature? Nurture? Media hype? "Not so "common sense"? Logical fallacies? Misuse of statistics? Ego?

[DrPepper12]

Wrong About Risk? Blame Your Brain NYT

It’s tough to know what to worry about. Coup? Cancer? Global warming? Asteroids?

Although the human brain is well adapted to respond to risk, it’s not skilled at sorting out which modern risks to worry about.”

“Our biases reflect the choices that kept our ancestors alive. But we have yet to evolve similarly effective responses to statistics, media coverage, and fear-mongering politicians…. Though emotions are themselves critical to making rational decisions, they were designed for a world in which dangers took the form of predators, not pollutants.”

Part of the problem is that our emotions have evolved to help our brains make “lightning fast” assessments about risk before we have a chance to think. Things that have been around awhile — snakes and spiders, for instance, scare us. But bigger risks, such as fast driving like doesn't cause instinctive response. “Our emotions push us to make snap judgments that once were sensible — but may not be anymore".

Fear also strengthens memory. So catastrophes like plane crashes and terrorist attacks stay with us. “As a result, we overestimate the odds of dreadful but infrequent events and underestimate how risky ordinary events are,” the author writes.

The problem is, this leads to bad decisions. The magazine notes that after Sept. 11, 1.4 million people changed their travel plans to avoid flying choosing the much riskier option to drive instead.

The magazine details several other fascinating examples of how we get risk wrong. We underestimate things that creep up on us, which helps explain why we fear cancer more than heart disease. Having control gives us a false sense of calm, which explains why we worry about pesticides on our foods.

And notably, we seem to need a constant level of risk in our lives, which leads to “risk compensation” and explains why people end up speeding once they put a seatbelt on.

Next: Why we ♥️ "unnecessary risk".

[WindAtMyBack]

Where does age come in? Safety is a learned trait to a large degree. Young people think "It will not happen to me." Intellectually they know it CAN happen, but their actions don't reflect that. Young people tend to think they are invulnerable - or at least that's what their actions indicate.

I remember when I was a gymnast in high school. Gymnastics is a pretty dangerous sport. I remember when I was about 16-17 and some kids from the middle school were visiting our gymnastics program. Even with just a few years difference in age, the fear factor was very different. Everyone on the team commented on how those kids were trying all kind of crazy things that no sensible person would do. I mean, we did some pretty crazy stuff ourselves. But those kids had NO fear whatsoever.

Now that I'm on the other end, I have to relearn safety. I have to be reminded (usually the hard way) that I'm not as young as I used to be and I shouldn't be doing that shit. My strength is nowhere near what it used to be. My balance and reactions are nowhere near as good. Doing things strictly out of habit gets the better of me sometimes. I have to mentally remind myself to not do shit - and very often do it anyway.

[Dargil]

A failure of thorough, unbiased traditional education. A look at the post-war 1950's and early 1960's will show how clueless we have become. Watch a few 25 minute episodes of the Twilight Zone to understand how sophisticated our culture was. WW2 and the early Cold War required Critical Thinking. We act like spoiled children now. Other that those at the fringes, nobody hated JFK or Nixon. I doubt we could win WW2 now. Ditto getting to the Moon. The exceptions are JDVance and Elon Musk. They are our future after Trump terms out.

I know you don't agree with any of this, but spare us from proving We act like spoiled children now.

[Gwendoline]

I think people generally have good risk assessment skills but often are ignorant of the risks and often worry about what the media tells them they should. 1 in 3 people will get cancer in their lives and some people are genetically more likely to get it. There does seem to be links to cancer and the food we eat and where we live that maybe we can control but generally it's a lottery we can't control where as most of heart disease cases, obesity and diabetes can be controlled if people would just eat right.

[SweetDripp]

I think that a lot of it is that people have become too reliant on what info is pushed to them through social media rather than seeking out info and using critical thought.

[exitseven]

This was true in 2020 with covid. The odds of young people getting it were low ans dying from it very low. Yet our schools were closed for two years

[OddBeMe]

I read an interesting psych today article. About getting people to care before something bad happens. It described this guy who miraculously escaped custody for a stupid crime only to be caught 2 hours later. What was his plan?

Would his life had been easier on the run? Rather than face the consequences?
What if he thought ahead and maybe didn't commit a crime to begin with?

[lightbulb27]

good question. because we are controlled by fear... which is a terrible master.

[msc545]

Narcissism preculdes the formation of appropriate pessimism.

[jshm2]

Nah. Most people want to live a life, not suffer one, like some ivory tower academic.

[seeyounexttuesday]

We saw that with all the lefties losing their mind in 2020, and then the dumb women picking 'bear'.

[Likes2drive]

Maybe most decisions are made emotionally