Where I Was 40 Years Ago (a radio story)

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 16:24:08 -0500, "Bill O'Neill" <billo@shoreham.net> said:

> Not IMO.  However, as big events like JFK & 911 hit us, we do become more
> calloused to the inevitable next event.  How the media blasts us and
> over-stimulates us, collectively, has a numbing impact.

Followups off-list, please....

It's a natural human tendency (demonstrated by numerous psychological
studies that Aaron probably studied in school) to overestimate the
probability of very unlikely events and to understimate the
probability of much more probably outcomes.  Hence, we are shocked and
dismayed when a one-in-a-hundred event happens (like both of the space
shuttle disasters), but excited over the prospect of winning that
one-in-fifty-million mega-lottery prize.

-GAWollman