[con-templative]

> Still, I think the fact that the fastest man in the world at the time had tried multiple times to beat it and could not definitely puts a damper on anyone else trying to break a record.

It didn't put a damper on Bannister. In fact, you could argue that the press coverage around the limit motivated more people to try to break four minutes for the acclaim. Without that narrative, maybe Bannister wouldn't have been motivated enough to do it.

> Clearly technology and social forces were at work. Believing you can do something does not make it so. But NOT believing you can do something sure as hell isn't going to help you make it happen.

You may be right, but the 4-minute-mile anecdote doesn't show this. In Landy's case, it wasn't new-found belief, but technology and knowledge that pushed him under four minutes.