For two reasons: simplicity doesn’t really have a good metric to be minimised, not when it comes to unexpected, seemingly daring or irrational behaviour. Batman’s Jocker character provides tons of example of that, but more to the point at stake: some might see a plane cashing without a trace as complex, while others think hiding is hard. Some might see a highly normalised Relational table as simple, because it can be safely explored it it’s entire possibility space, while others prefer to have no norm, and one long list of untyped events, because its assumed structure is straightforward.
When it comes to likelihood and explanations, Dan Ariely has done tremendous work on explaining how a more detailed story, especially one pandering to our anecdotal prejudice, seems more likely: He commonly gives the example of how a shy person seems more likely to become a librarian than a factory worker but… ‘shy’ isn’t very specific trait, and the less glamorous option is ten times more likely overall, making the likelihood for a shy person to be screwing bolts far higher, dozens of times actually, than lending books.
There you have both: Are they terrorists? Are they skilled? Can pilots make mistakes? Both are unlikely events that may or may not match our experience, actually our mediated experience: few people have met active terrorist and lived (well, the same Dan Ariely is a known exception) or been flown by a bad pilot and been able to tell the story.
It's not complexity that they like, as much as a comfortable prejudice, that either Hollywood-grade airplane-acrobatics are common, or that horrible people are very cunning. You can quote statistics, but then again I don’t recommend it: you’ll become tedious, dull and insensitive before you are even done explaining your methodology about average-end-of-quality-of-life (death is too… binary) and how airplane catastrophies are actually generally positive.
I, for one, can’t get out of my head that there is an increasing disparity in every industry, especially all cultural ones, leading to PR becoming overly sophisticated, and that promoting a movie requires connexion to up to News casters (obviously, see all ‘promo’ segments) that might have been upped to pirates (for documenting Captain Philipps) therefore… this must be Liam Neeson promoting his latest action flick. That’s like, such a good idea I can’t believe no one has tried it earlier.
When it comes to likelihood and explanations, Dan Ariely has done tremendous work on explaining how a more detailed story, especially one pandering to our anecdotal prejudice, seems more likely: He commonly gives the example of how a shy person seems more likely to become a librarian than a factory worker but… ‘shy’ isn’t very specific trait, and the less glamorous option is ten times more likely overall, making the likelihood for a shy person to be screwing bolts far higher, dozens of times actually, than lending books.
There you have both: Are they terrorists? Are they skilled? Can pilots make mistakes? Both are unlikely events that may or may not match our experience, actually our mediated experience: few people have met active terrorist and lived (well, the same Dan Ariely is a known exception) or been flown by a bad pilot and been able to tell the story.
It's not complexity that they like, as much as a comfortable prejudice, that either Hollywood-grade airplane-acrobatics are common, or that horrible people are very cunning. You can quote statistics, but then again I don’t recommend it: you’ll become tedious, dull and insensitive before you are even done explaining your methodology about average-end-of-quality-of-life (death is too… binary) and how airplane catastrophies are actually generally positive.
I, for one, can’t get out of my head that there is an increasing disparity in every industry, especially all cultural ones, leading to PR becoming overly sophisticated, and that promoting a movie requires connexion to up to News casters (obviously, see all ‘promo’ segments) that might have been upped to pirates (for documenting Captain Philipps) therefore… this must be Liam Neeson promoting his latest action flick. That’s like, such a good idea I can’t believe no one has tried it earlier.