Heuristics that almost always work
This story reminded me of a story written by a Czech biologist who studied animals in Papua-New Guinea and went to a hunt with a group of local tribesmen.<p>The dusk was approaching, they were still in the forest and he proposed that they could sleep under a tree. The hunters were adamant in their refusal: <i>no, this is dangerous, a tree might fall on you in your sleep and kill you</i>. He relented, but silently considered them irrational, given that his assessment of a chance of a tree falling on you overnight was less then 1:5000.<p>Only later did he realize that for a lifelong hunter, 1:5000 are pretty bad odds that translate to a very significant probability of getting killed over a 30-40 year long hunting career.