The tendency to respond to a salient tragedy by removing its cause—such as requiring baseball coaches to wear helmets after a one-in-a-million freak fatality, or laws and precautions during the shark-attack scare—is a remarkable human phenomenon that is usually hard to justify on all-things-considered grounds, especially given possible unintended consequences like reduced caution from a false sense of safety.
normativepending
Speaker
Russ RobertsEvidence Quote
“it's a remarkable human phenomenon that when these kind of events happen we have such a natural visceral instinct to remove the cause ... I wonder whether coaches will take more care or less care of avoiding line drives if they know they're wearing a helmet which is a different type of unintended consequence”
Created: 6/15/2026, 9:17:23 AM
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