Why don't we see disaster coming when it is so obvious?

[thalberg]

Seriously, I have been thinking lately about people's apparent inability to think ahead.  Does anyone have any idea why this is, or how we can learn to see--and avoid-- bad things coming that are so obvious?

https://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=BzjLlqIuVhI

[retrouvailles]

So fake.

[gerryjay]

nothing as a live broadcast. everything can happen, and usually does...

about your point, i´m a deep forward thinker. my conclusion: murphy is always there.  

but i can understand this kind of disaster because i was not protagonist of one by detail.

when i was like 10, i went in a college trip to a near city. the principal point of interest was a church, and in the front of that church there was a square, and in that square there was a pond. i was very fond of photograph and stuff, and want to have several pictures of the church, from various standpoints. so, i clicked in front, from the left, against the sun, etc. when doing that, i noticed that the best point to a picture would be in the middle of the pond, where i can reach through a fence and a passage. when i was about to go in there, a mate called me because there was i don´t know what and i was supposed to be there. i thought that late i could go back there.
notice that this single and stupid mate just saved my life. that pond was the home of a cheer family of small crocodiles (hence the high fence that i did planed to pass) and i think i wouldn´t have much future going into the place.

so, i´m very solidary to the bird product eater, er... i mean the reporter...  

[counterpoint]

Okay, I think, the video is not very helpful to answer this question 

Some things are predictable and some are not.

If we can't see predictable things, then it's because we don't want to see them.

[communist]

 
i agree with thalberg we totally should have saw that rubbish interpretation 

[ksnmohan]

I go with counterpoint - Just because we DO NOT WANT TO SEE THEM!

[timothy42b]

I go with counterpoint - Just because we DO NOT WANT TO SEE THEM!

But we do see disasters coming.

We panic every day over imagined threats.

The trouble is we are very poor at critical thinking.  We do a lousy job of differentiating between real hazards and those we merely perceive as hazards.

We continue to smoke and drive without a seatbelt while we protest against MMR vaccinations, fluoride, Alar, etc.  The list goes on and on, but there is no doubt the things which we most fear are NOT the things that are going to hurt us. 

[sharon_f]

It's funny when I read the subject of this thread I was certain it was going to be about the American electorate.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
H.L. Mencken

[gyzzzmo]

Because especially Americans are naive people   , their governments never really encouraged 'thinking' since that would destroy American elections :p
Thats why birds are having so much fun pooping in their mouths, clearly.

Gyzzz

[landru]

It's funny when I read the subject of this thread I was certain it was going to be about the American electorate.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
H.L. Mencken

I thought that too! But it must be said that the majority of the American people did see disaster coming in 2000 and voted accordingly. It is 2004 that I'm mystified about...

What a great quote!

[gerry]

It's funny when I read the subject of this thread I was certain it was going to be about the American electorate.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
H.L. Mencken

Yes, wasn't it Kurt Vonnegut who predicted in "Player Piano" that the managers would live on one side of the river running the automated plants and all the out-of-work masses would be given a house and a TV on the other side to keep them quiet and content--and that the President would be a former movie star? We're almost there. 


...BTW, what kind of town would have a crok pond in a main square in front of a church...with an easily penetrable fence??

[rc]

The trouble is we are very poor at critical thinking.  We do a lousy job of differentiating between real hazards and those we merely perceive as hazards.

We continue to smoke and drive without a seatbelt while we protest against MMR vaccinations, fluoride, Alar, etc.  The list goes on and on, but there is no doubt the things which we most fear are NOT the things that are going to hurt us. 

It seems to me that fear is promoted everywhere.  It sells "look how filthy the air is, buy our purifier", "thieves break into cars everyday, you should get a car alarm",  some commercial with animated germ-monsters and MrClean comes and beats 'em up.  Fear can help sell things, and also instill weird paranoias in the process.

Fear also makes good news, there's nothing so captivating as a disaster.  It really struck me in the US how horrible the focus was in the news.  If someone were to sit down and watch a lot of TV, it probably wouldn't take too long before they began to develop a fearful outlook from sheer saturation.

Oh well...  Nobody forces people to tune in..  The alternative would be more regulation, but nobody wants that, everybody wants their freedom of choice and I agree.  People can live how they want.

[gerry]

Maybe we could launch a "fear campaign" to warn people of the dire consequences of denying their children an arts-inclusive education

[alessandro]

Dears,
First of all thanks again, dear thalberg for all the sheet music you share and for your dry sense of humour.
In my opinion, in my life, I think a rather tend to a vision that life, the universe IS mainly a disaster.  That life necessarily ends with death is absurd and a disaster.  I live in a permanent state of 'what will be the next disaster ?'.  In my human relations for example, in coupling, I go from the one disaster in the other.
The clip with the pooping bird, I think that for the bird it could have been a great moment of joy pooping right into the mouth of this maybe stupid journalist.  So, that's not necessarily a disaster, but more a moment of joy or accomplishment. 
What could be the next great disaster ?
Was it a good idea to shoot that satellite down yesterday ? There has been a topic on a Third World War, but I think it is so uncomprehensible that people often seem just looking for trouble or disaster.
I can't see at all what's coming, I have at most some idea, but that is nothing that interferes with my way of life.  But I do think that I have a general feeling of disappointment, of lack.  That I'm not made for a state of great hapiness.  I do know that for instance this or that girl could make me perfectly happy but I don't do nothing about it (don't have the guts to even ask for a date).  I can't explain this contradiction in me very well.  It's a mixture of knowing that there's better and pessimism or cowardess.  I live some kind of disaster and don't want to take the risk to get into a bigger one etcetera.
Kindly.
 

[i heart xenakis]

I think the climate problem (I prefer to say "climate problem" these days because it incurs less evangelical wrath than "global warming") would be a good example, at least for my answer.  I think that often people are just too effing lazy, and bigger things like that are out of the hands of either the individual or even a large populus many times; that's up to the government, so maybe you should write a letter to your congressman!  Ok maybe that was a bit tangential >>  But yeah, when it comes to huge things like that, I feel that unless it's an IMMEDIATE crisis, the human race is just too full of procrastinators.  We're not doing anything until we have to wear sunblock on Christmas.

[thalberg]

Dears,
First of all thanks again, dear thalberg for all the sheet music you share and for your dry sense of humour.

 

Thank you for your response, Alessandro. 

Just in case it comes up again, I think you might have me confused with thalbergmad.  There's thalbergmad and then plain thalberg.  I'm just thalberg, without the madness.  The mad thal is the one with the sheet music.