When I was growing up, many (most?) of the adults on the block were veterans of WWII. Most of the men in that group saw combat. We kids could not get them to share their personal experiences, but they would respond to "lessons learned" questions. Among their answers, there was a thread concerning "maintaining situation awareness" that involved accurate risk assessments and taking actions consistent with the risk. We didn't really know what that meant, so we picked at it until one dad told us a fable to help us understand the concept. In the fable, there were a group of people walking on some tracks when suddenly a train came rushing at them. Some of the people froze in place, some of the people ran down the tracks as fast as they could, and the rest just stepped off the tracks. Freezing in place is a valid threat response when you don't want to be seen. Doesn't work for trains though, and this group was removed from the gene pool. Running is a valid threat response when you want to get out of range of the threat. Doesn't work for trains though, and this group was also removed from the gene pool less a couple who stumbled and fell off the tracks. One of the people in the third group went back on the tracks to try to save a friend and was also removed from the gene pool when the friend wouldn't move. The fable worked and we all moved on.
A dozen years later, when I was a young sergeant trying to keep my squad safe and functional during a firefight, I got to see the phenomenon described in the fable. That was when I realized what the combat vets had carefully not told us: it was not stupid people making stupid decisions, it was terrified people making stupid decisions.
Now it is fifty years removed from that revelation, so I didn't recognize what I was seeing until I read a couple of stories about people taking shelter from flash floods in basements. The light came on. The people refusing mask are running down those mythical tracks. The people refusing the vaccine are freezing in place. Telling them to not be afraid probably isn't going to work. Telling them that all of the people who have died from covid were unvaccinated isn't going to work. I wish I knew what would work. Good luck to them all.
