I wonder if this was partly due to groupthink, eg within your house. Wikipedia has a useful definition:
“a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink
This is definitely not what happened, but maybe a related thing happened. The Wikipedia article talks about aiming to minimize conflict / agree at all costs, which is very much not what happened in my house (Habryka is a conflict maximizer! always argue!!). There was definitely some measure of wanting to avoid conflict, but only insofar as people don’t like hurting each other, not because of conformity pressure. I think the more important factor was fear of the unknown / pressure to accommodate the most risk-averse person in the bubble (which I’m ashamed to say was me).
The more interesting thing to explore here would be how my bubble and some of the surrounding community ended up in this inadequate equilibrium, where it would be better for all of us to take more risk, but we can’t coordinate to do so.
I wonder if this was partly due to groupthink, eg within your house. Wikipedia has a useful definition:
“a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink
This is definitely not what happened, but maybe a related thing happened. The Wikipedia article talks about aiming to minimize conflict / agree at all costs, which is very much not what happened in my house (Habryka is a conflict maximizer! always argue!!). There was definitely some measure of wanting to avoid conflict, but only insofar as people don’t like hurting each other, not because of conformity pressure. I think the more important factor was fear of the unknown / pressure to accommodate the most risk-averse person in the bubble (which I’m ashamed to say was me).
The more interesting thing to explore here would be how my bubble and some of the surrounding community ended up in this inadequate equilibrium, where it would be better for all of us to take more risk, but we can’t coordinate to do so.