… except that the parents in 1928 were wrong. The causes of school shootings clearly *weren’t limited to “those crazy folks in Michigan”. These risks affect everyone in America more or less equally, and the sense of “distance” granted by, well, distance was giving them a false sense of security.
No. Their feelings and plans where pretty well calibrated to the actual risks, much better than ours are. Instrumental rationality is clearly on their side.
You may however say their rationale was wrong, but recall that you just read a modern take on their rationale, you aren’t talking to or even reading actual thinking done by parents from 1928. Why be so uncharitable? Why didn’t you focus on a different take the author claimed was better understood by 1928 America:
A tragedy like this is so rare, our kids are already safe. Not perfectly safe. No one ever is. But safe.
… except that the parents in 1928 were wrong. The causes of school shootings clearly *weren’t limited to “those crazy folks in Michigan”. These risks affect everyone in America more or less equally, and the sense of “distance” granted by, well, distance was giving them a false sense of security.
TL;DR: distance ≠ difference.
No. Their feelings and plans where pretty well calibrated to the actual risks, much better than ours are. Instrumental rationality is clearly on their side.
You may however say their rationale was wrong, but recall that you just read a modern take on their rationale, you aren’t talking to or even reading actual thinking done by parents from 1928. Why be so uncharitable? Why didn’t you focus on a different take the author claimed was better understood by 1928 America:
Not updating the odds of a school shooting in your local school is different to updating them insufficiently.
Also distance = difference is a very reasonable heuristic for humans to use.
In most cases, yes. For example, I’m Irish, and this doesn’t cause me to update the odds of a school shooting in my local school.