Lack of Control in Assessing Risk

person

Terror attacks, mass shootings, shark attacks, plane crashes. All these are much scarier to us than driving in our car or eating donuts for breakfast. But the latter are far, far more likely to kill you than the former. So why is it that some things create an oversized threat in our minds?

A lot has to do with just how our brains are wired. The fear response fires before the prefrontal cortex, where reason resides. So we feel fear first then decide what to think about it rather than the other way around.

If the government could pass law that would take resources from airline safety and put it into auto safety so that we could reduce auto deaths by 10,000 a year but we'd have one jet crash per year killing 100-200 people how would it change the way people feel about participating in each?

I wonder how much lack of control has to do with it too. If, or more likely when, self-driving cars take over the roads. Will 30,000 auto deaths in the US each year still be tolerable? I'm thinking even 1,000 would make a lot of people never want to get in a car.

I intentionally find the statistics on threats that may cause me fear and then do my best to act accordingly regardless of the pesky amygdala. It seems like making decisions based on evidence and logic gets more natural over time.

http://discovermagazine.com/2011/jul-aug/11-what-you-dont-know-can-kill-you

http://www.nsc.org/NSC Images_Corporate/odds-of-dying-graphic.jpg

Jeroen

It's an interesting line of thought. I think it's best to not fear death at all. There is an afterlife and very likely some form of rebirth. This means it's safe to ignore any threat of dying associated with an activity as irrelevant, just let death come as it may as you do what you do. Then you can dismiss any associated logical or intuitive impulses as unfounded, and you are just left with the atavistic responses to things which lead to injury, such as heights, speed, sharp objects.

But this problem with assessing risk happens not just in assessing chances of dying, these same factors confound mankind as a species in many areas. It's good to be aware of the fact that one's decision making process is not entirely logical and may not stand up to reasoned scrutiny especially when under pressure.

Shoshin

So why is it that some things create an oversized threat in our minds?

An optimist thinks this is the best possible world-A pessimist fears this is true!
A Dharma practitioner lives in the moment, so in a crisis will know what to do!