Thinking Rarity Into Certainty

When the news says anything about a problem with flying, or with weather, people allow their imagination to do a number on them.

Due to lack of knowledge, due to the threat of being in a situation where one lacks control, due to being in a situation where you can’t change your mind and leave, and due to lack of built-in soothing (enough to stay calm enough to carefully examine the situation) something bad happens emotionally, though nothing is really happening physically or is about to happen.

  • From Rarity To Possibility
      Without built-in automatic soothing, anxiety makes the rarest of mishaps become — not just a possibility — but probability.
  • From Possibility To Probability
      Lack of control — or illusion of control — in ones own hands causes probability to flame out of control into probability.
  • From Probability To Certainty
      Then because there is no way to escape, probability becomes certainty.

We need to examine how we think things are caused. Things can appear to be caused when there is only association and no causal connection exists. When we don’t examine things, things which are not connected causally — but are merely associated in our own mind — can appear to us to be causal connections.

When scientific studies use statistics and there are more instances of cure associated with a certain drug, ALL that can be legitimately claimed is that there is a statistical association. ASSOCIATION DOES NOT PROVE CAUSE.

In other words, though I would not like to say it, someone needs to counter each step of your thinking with either, “That’s baloney” or, “Don’t you think it would be wise to look at that more scientifically” and it actually is YOUR JOB to do that.

Media is in the entertainment business. So is Hollywood. Reality is rarely to be found on reality TV or elsewhere in the media. Most people can recognize that pro wrestling is staged, that politics is corrupt and covered over with high-minded gloss, and that what you see on TV should to be considered most carefully — not naively believed.