Reading Journal: The Ostrich Paradox

Why do we always underprepare for disasters?

That is the central question the book is setting out to answer, and it did so in about 100 pages, which makes it quite a short book. In some ways, I think this work would have been better-suited as a more concise online article, rather than in book form.

In fact, the answer to the above question was succinctly presented in the last chapter:

You might rightfully surmise that we are not all that optimistic about the ability of people to make good protective decisions when faced with low-probability, high-consequence events. As decision makers, (1) we look too little to the future when thinking about our choices, (2) are too quick to forget the past, (3) and try to overcome these limitations by imitating the behaviors of other people who are just as prone to the flaws as we are. In addition, (4) our tendency to be overly optimistic and impulsive, and to (5) choose the status quo when we are unsure about what actions to take, creates what could be called a perfect storm of potential decisions errors.

I added the numbers above to clearly emphasize the individual points that were expounded upon throughout the book. I think we intuitively understand why we underprepare for disasters even though not that many of us are able to fully articulate it through academic terms and evoke examples from psychological experiments.

You will find complicated-sounding words throughout the book: myopia bias, temporal construal, cognitive inertia, simplification bias, polarization effect, etc. All of these seemingly intractable words are actually quite easy to understand. Although they sometimes seem unnecessary, I do appreciate the scientific rigor that is being applied here. It is easy to present an argument like: “we don’t adequately prepare because we don’t want to; the annual premiums are too high; no one plans for time horizon that far into the future; it’s just easier to do nothing.”, but this is worthless in a public policy sense. By concisely articulating and categorizing the problems at hand, we gain a better, more articulate mental representation, and hence we are better equipped to solve them.

I spent a pleasant few hours at my local cafe reading this book along with a delectable cup of spiced hot chocolate I ordered that evening. Afterwards, I thought deeply about my own preparedness for things like car-crashes and earthquakes.

The next day, I called my car dealership’s service center to schedule a service that I’ve been putting off, I felt much more attentive when I drive (at least for the time being), and I spent a few hours of my weekend updating my earthquake preparedness kit. I am unsure if any of these actions will do me any good. But I am glad that the book has allowed me to become much more articulate regarding the various problems faced by policy makers when it comes to disaster preparedness.

Summary

As I briefly alluded to above, the reason we underprepare for disaster is because:

1. We have a short planning horizon and don’t think investments that far in the future is worth it
2. We quickly forget the lessons of past disasters. We don’t forget the actual event. Rather what we forget is the emotional impact of the tragedy.
3. We are overly optimistic. Disasters are things that happen elsewhere, but not here.
4. It is much easier to do nothing and maintain status quo
5. Disaster preparedness is a complex topic and we tend to oversimplify and not consider the full picture
6. We tend to follow crowds. If other people are not doing anything, why should I?

Some Other Interesting Facts:

• Post 9-11, many people reacted to their newly elevated fear of flying by traveling by car. This may have contributed to at least around 2,300 additional deaths due to traffic accidents. The truth is, despite what we may have seen on the news, the risk of accident from driving is much higher than flying
• Immediately after the Northridge earthquake of 1994, roughly 2/3 of Cupertino homeowners had earthquake insurance. In 2022, that number is at about 10%
• We tend to see tragic news on TV, and form the false belief that the photos of other people’s misfortune is precisely that, other people’s misfortune. We form the belief that It could never happen to us.
• The Beverley Hill Supper Club Fire was a tragedy in 1977 that resulted in the death of 165 people, and over 200 injuires. What is less well-known is that there was advice to flee very early into the incident. However, the advice came from a young busboy and not a fire marshal. The crowds were bewildered and didn’t know what to do. Given this uncertainty, they look around to see what others are doing. Tragically, because of our tendency to follow in the action of others, as if they had greater insight into the situation than us, many perished that night.

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