A foreshortened temporal perspective blinds people to accumulating catastrophe

Evidence

A foreshortened perspective in a disastrous ecological course calls to mind the apocryphal story that Donald Collins (2007) tells about the person who jumps off the Empire State Building. As he passes the 68th floor, he thinks to himself, “So far, so good.” Rachel Carson dedicated Silent Spring (1962) to Albert Schweitzer and quoted the alarm he sounded over the grave consequences of an unremitting foreshortened perspective: “Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.” — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2549 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: An open project enfolds future modifications, so catastrophe feels fated rather than surprising; The 2010 PIIGS crisis was a shift in risk perception, not underlying risk — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 198; Assessing unprecedented threats through old experience leads to catastrophe. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 605 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Foreshortened perspective keeps people blind to irreversible environmental collapse #expands (0.92) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2549