In this article about a virtual virus that hit “World of Warcraft”, researchers discovered something I’ve always known about, but few people have said out loud. The “Stupid Factor”. No, not Bill O’Reilly. How people naturally can do some stupid things:
One was what she called the “stupid factor” – where some players, rather than remaining safely off-line until the outbreak was over, actually logged on to view the carnage up close.
“The stupid factor of ‘Wow, this is a curiosity. I will take the risk upon myself and go see what it looks like,”‘ she said, likening it to something risk-taking teenagers, who are often imbued with a sense of immortality, might do in real life.
“I’ve never, ever seen that incorporated into a (mathematical) model,” Fefferman said, adding she will factor it into future work.
Now, we would all like to think people would never do this, but just recently a lawyer, who’s father-in-law works with the CDC, thought it would be okay to travel internationally. Then, when told to get back to the US ASAP, he decided to evade Italian authorities, fly into Canada to avoid US police and drive back to America. He did all the covert tactics because he knew he would be quarantined.
Thanks for caring about your fellow man.
Sheesh.
While the events in a virtual world do not reflect what would actually happen, it did open some eyes to the new problems they never thought of. I’m glad someone is thinking of what could go wrong so we can avoid it from becoming a reality.
PS – Wanted to pass this along about optimistic bias. Very interesting.
