92 Times Clueless People Came One Step From Death And Didn’t Even Realize It

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, some of the biggest threats were posed by "natural" phenomena: fires could burn down not just your home but the entire city and infectious diseases weren't yet curbed by vaccines. To avoid them, people largely relied on their own experience — as well as the experiences of others.

But as technology advanced, the risks also proliferated. Mines, factories, and other "dirty" workplaces were hotbeds of danger. And it's not like there was a huge emphasis on safety control. But with time, states began gathering data about accidents.

According to Arwen Mohun, a history professor at the University of Delaware and author of Risk: Negotiating Safety in American Society, it was collected to make an argument that you should pay attention to this kind of risk and that the government should step in and try to manage the risk.

The first widely collected data was about public health and about workplace accidents because those were both big political issues. The numbers were meant to shift people's perceptions of risk.

But these days, even though data and statistics are plentiful, mass media is so hell-bent on fearmongering that it also affects what we consider to be safe and not, and suddenly, you might be having nightmares about shark attacks even if you live in a desert.

In the United States, for example, violent crime has been plummeting for decades and air travel is as safe as it’s ever been, but in 2023, 40 percent of Americans said they felt unsafe walking home alone at night — the highest rate since 1993 — and research also suggests that Gen Z sees more risk around them than other generations.

This mismatch between what the evidence says is risky and the appropriate level of fear is what researchers call the risk perception gap.

And the interesting thing is, when our fears don’t match the evidence, the gap becomes a risk all by itself.

For instance, vaccine skeptics who fear the side effects create a greater risk of illness by forgoing the shots, since their anxieties are simply centered around the wrong thing.

Before we judge people in the pictures, wondering how dumb they must be for not realizing the amount of mess they've gotten themselves into, we have to understand that out internal "protection system" is pretty flawed.

A wealth of information we have available online, at our fingertips, may seem beneficial in that it allows us to learn about and protect against dangers, but there are only so many numbers we can process.

Gabriel Rubin, a professor of justice studies at Montclair State University, tells Vox we're simply not built for all of this data, so our brain tries to keep us alive by emphasizing certain things through our emotions. It's yelling, "This is scary. You should sway away!"

That being said, some of us are also more susceptible to misjudging the situation.

Overconfidence is a cognitive bias where we overestimate our abilities or knowledge and incorrectly assume that we are better, wiser, or more capable than we are.

It can seriously affect our behavior and ability to predict success and accurately weigh risk.

Dillon Harper, PhD, a psychologist at Giles and Associates Family Psychology, says overconfidence is the brain's way of boosting self-esteem and reducing anxiety, and it does this by focusing on past wins while minimizing or ignoring failures.

"While this positivity feels great, it can ... [make] us believe we're invincible even when we're not. There is a fine line that oftentimes may feel like a balancing act."