Reading about the Baltimore bridge disaster, I found myself very comforted to learn how quickly the sailors and bridge workers responded to stop traffic and keep the disaster from being even worse. I do think the world is mostly peopled by “Petrovs” — and that’s why we can live in this precarious sugar castle with only *occasional* disasters. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There are major issues with the "billion dollar disaster" graph. See Roger Pielke analyses on The Honest Broker. In brief, damage is more expensive because we are wealthier. The physical impact (including on lives lost) is quite different.
If you write enough articles, you can be sure some will strike gold. But I will give you the benefit of the doubt and attribute the quality of this one to proficiency :)
"We do know how to distinguish between floods happening in India against a ship destroying a bridge in Baltimore."
Therein lies the rub. It doesn't matter that we *can* distinguish between them, because the problem isn't a conscious one. The subconscious interacts with the never ending stream of stress-inducing rubbernecking by jacking up anxiety, urges to isolate, and other unhealthy responses.
> The way to solve this isn’t to just have a single silver bullet to create trust, but to have a large number of shots on goal to make even the unlikely of a higher statistical likelihood.
What if it was possible to develop a means to reliably detect when powerful people are engaged in wrongdoing or deceit (regardless of intent)? That would be a pretty powerful bullet, since most problems originate with a small number of super powerful people, politicians and experts being the most common.
No, that is impossible. However, if one asks an adequately large sample size (which I have blown by loooooong ago) and finds little variance including among genuinely intelligent people, *especially when they are literally experts in relevant fields*, it's "a fair bet" that one is onto something.
Reading about the Baltimore bridge disaster, I found myself very comforted to learn how quickly the sailors and bridge workers responded to stop traffic and keep the disaster from being even worse. I do think the world is mostly peopled by “Petrovs” — and that’s why we can live in this precarious sugar castle with only *occasional* disasters. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Precisely! They're not isolated heroes. Heroism seems an option available to many, if not most, as situations unfold.
There are major issues with the "billion dollar disaster" graph. See Roger Pielke analyses on The Honest Broker. In brief, damage is more expensive because we are wealthier. The physical impact (including on lives lost) is quite different.
Imagine how powerful humanity could be if we could get even 2% of the population interested in fine-grained truth like this!
Agreed. Hence the distinction re lives lost Vs emotional valence, and as I write the latter might be what's driving the feeling of doom.
Very well said. I have a version of this I call the Free Rider theory of civilization. https://x.com/flantz/status/1775259023455240475?s=46&t=hUkz4VIFfbawd0Y-Rca3Kg
Beautiful
If you write enough articles, you can be sure some will strike gold. But I will give you the benefit of the doubt and attribute the quality of this one to proficiency :)
Thank you :-)
"We do know how to distinguish between floods happening in India against a ship destroying a bridge in Baltimore."
Therein lies the rub. It doesn't matter that we *can* distinguish between them, because the problem isn't a conscious one. The subconscious interacts with the never ending stream of stress-inducing rubbernecking by jacking up anxiety, urges to isolate, and other unhealthy responses.
"The people have sharp eyes”. Mao was always pithy.
Had to read this very quickly so I'm just writing thank you for this extensive analysis, not to comment on it.
My absolute pleasure
> The way to solve this isn’t to just have a single silver bullet to create trust, but to have a large number of shots on goal to make even the unlikely of a higher statistical likelihood.
What if it was possible to develop a means to reliably detect when powerful people are engaged in wrongdoing or deceit (regardless of intent)? That would be a pretty powerful bullet, since most problems originate with a small number of super powerful people, politicians and experts being the most common.
How would we do that?
You can ask humans questions in a very particular way, and then analyze their responses, in very particular ways.
And no, I'm not talking journalism lol
Are you to ask all the humans?
No, that is impossible. However, if one asks an adequately large sample size (which I have blown by loooooong ago) and finds little variance including among genuinely intelligent people, *especially when they are literally experts in relevant fields*, it's "a fair bet" that one is onto something.