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    Thought for the day

    Posted by Ralf Goergens on November 12th, 2011 (All posts by )

    Fatalists become the first fatalities

     

    This entry was posted on Saturday, November 12th, 2011 at 10:29 am and is filed under Human Behavior. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

    3 Responses to “Thought for the day”

    1. david foster Says:
      November 12th, 2011 at 11:36 am

      The US FAA identified five psychological characteristics of dangerous pilots:

      Impulsivity..”do something-quickly!”

      Invulnerability..”it won’t happen to me!”

      Macho..”I can do it!”

      Resignation..”What’s the use?”

      Anti-authority..”Don’t tell me!”

      “Resignation” in this context is basically the same as fatalism. One might think that the “Macho” and “Resignation” attributes would not coexist in the same person, but I suspect that they often do, just at different points in the thought chain leading to an accident.

    2. Robert Schwartz Says:
      November 12th, 2011 at 11:58 am

      “As defense analyst Colin Gray Writes in a recent book about the near-term possibilities of major conflict, ‘Another Bloody Century,’* when considering optimism and pessimism, ‘optimism is apt to kill with greater certainty.’

      — “Fear of China” by Robert D. Kaplan in The Wall Street Journal, on page A14, on April 21, 2006.

      * ISBN 0297846272

    3. Ralf Goergens Says:
      November 12th, 2011 at 2:10 pm

      David,

      I think that this kind of resignation would only come at the point of near total exhaustion when all available options have been exhausted. Should he (almost certainly a male person) survive the incident in question he’d only need a night of good sleep to get over it. You probably read Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff”, so you’ll see what I mean. :)

      Robert,

      I don’t see think that pessimism and fatalism are one and the same. You can be pessimistic and still be determined to do everything you can to ensure a positive outcome. ‘Running scared’ even if you have no overt reason to be worried is one ingredient of success, I think.

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