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There is, however, another aspect of loophole in human psychology that Daniel Gilbert did not touch on.

You see? We worry more about damage caused by human beings than that by objects, and prefer eliminating a small risk to reducing a large one. Now, the observation still holds when you turn the table around. Most of us love to see direct benefit from our action rather than doing nothing but wait, or prefer curing a few patients to reducing the suffer of many.

(As to the last point, that's at least partly, if not entirely, because those few recovered could turn up in the press conference and advocate that wonderful treatment.)

All of a sudden the four-stage strategy in response to crisis, as outlined by Sir Humphrey Appleby, flash through my mind:

1. Stage one: We say nothing is going to happen.
2. Stage two: We say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
3. Stage three: We say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
4. Stage four: We say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

Gosh, I find this strategy less repelling now.