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by JoshTriplett 702 days ago
> It's like they think that appearing overly concerned about something potentially dangerous is more embarrassing than being killed by something actually dangerous.

This is a real psychological phenomenon. Most people don't want to be the first person to yell "fire!", or to appear to take a situation more seriously than it warrants, because they might be wrong and they'd stand out as being wrong and feel embarrassed. That feeling can "stick" shockingly long after you'd think the situation was obvious.

We have not socially normalized and trained the concept that it's better for people to occasionally be understandably wrong than to delay reacting to problems. The right reaction to quick reactions that turn out to be incorrect should be "Thanks for calling attention to what might have been a problem!", not an array of signals that all convey "what a weirdo".