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by StevenRayOrr 2312 days ago
> We just need to know that, even armed with all that knowledge, he still made the decision he did, and that we should not expect others with less knowledge of how software works to be any less human.

This is maybe one of the most important lessons of the 20th and 21st centuries (at least thus far): knowledge does not automatically prevent us from errors in judgments nor does it necessarily protect us from misfortune.

3 comments

Nor does it absolve others from liability.
My friends like to talk about how awesome it would be to time travel or know what the outcome of a future decision will be. Even when armed with knowledge from observed outcomes of near-identical setup scenarios, majority of the time they end up doing exactly what they would have normally done. Happens to me from time to time.
knowledge does not automatically prevent us from errors in judgments nor does it necessarily protect us from misfortune.

Relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/795/

Not automatically, but it can help.

I was in this very situation at the top of Pikes Peak. A storm moved in and the park rangers closed the place and sent everybody away. They knew the statistics of being hit by lightning in that very place.