> I suspect the human mind is tailored to promote the first outcome and stick it's fingers in its metaphorical ears about the last two outcomes.
It's more complicated than that. Plenty of people hear the bad outcomes and stick their fingers in their ears about the good ones. The subject of recreational drug use is a particularly good one for eliciting this behaviour, both for and against.
The interesting questions are how people in the same society get primed for one reaction over the other, and how we can individually avoid this behaviour and approach controversial topics with an open mind.
It's more complicated than that. Plenty of people hear the bad outcomes and stick their fingers in their ears about the good ones. The subject of recreational drug use is a particularly good one for eliciting this behaviour, both for and against.
The interesting questions are how people in the same society get primed for one reaction over the other, and how we can individually avoid this behaviour and approach controversial topics with an open mind.