The second reason we misperceive very rare catastrophies is the “numbing” effect of a massive disaster. Psychologists observe that people’s concern does not grow linearly with the severity of a catastrophe. Or to put it more bluntly, if you ask people how much they care about all people on Earth dying, it’s not seven-and-half billion times more concern than if you told them one person would die. Nor do they account for the lives of future generations lost either. At large numbers, there’s some evidence that people’s concern even drops relative to their concerns about individual tragedy. In a recent article for BBC Future about the psychology of numbing, the journalist Tiffanie Wen quotes Mother Teresa, who said: “If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”
Finally, Wiener describes an “underdeterrence” effect that encourages a laissez-faire attitude among those taking the risks, because there is no accountability. If the world ends because of your decisions, then you can’t get sued for negligence. Laws and rules have no power to deter species-ending recklessness.
Perhaps the most troubling thing is that a tragedy of the uncommons could happen by accident – whether it’s via hubris, stupidity, or neglect.
“All else being equal, not many people would prefer to destroy the world. Even faceless corporations, meddling governments, reckless scientists, and other agents of doom require a world in which to achieve their goals of profit, order, tenure, or other villainies,” the AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky once wrote. “If our extinction proceeds slowly enough to allow a moment of horrified realisation, the doers of the deed will likely be quite taken aback… if the Earth is destroyed, it will probably be by mistake.”
We can be thankful that the Apollo 11 officials and Manhattan scientists were not those horrified individuals. But someday in the future, someone will arrive at another turning point where the fate of the species is theirs to decide. Or perhaps they are already on that road, hurtling towards disaster with their eyes closed. Hopefully, for the sake of humanity, they will make the right choice when their moment comes.
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Richard Fisher is a senior journalist for BBC Future. Twitter: @rifish
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