Definition: People estimate the probability of an event or frequency of something by the ease with which instances come to mind.
Insight: When people remember things not because of their actual frequency, but because it is vivid, gory, distinctive, or emotional - they will overestimate how likely it is.
Insight: The news can make people miscalibrated.
Reference: Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman defined the availability heuristic.
Insight: When people are first confronted with information that challenges their existing beliefs, it can make them even more committed to those beliefs, even if they are wrong.
Insight: Belief systems can change by generation.
Example: Carbon emissions and the environment.
Insight: People benefit from other's sacrifices and suffer from their own - so everyone has an incentive to free ride, and everyone suffers.
Insight: A solution is an authority that can punish free riders, however government with that power is unlikely to restrict power to maximising the common good.
Insight: Carbon pricing/taxes combine government and market intervention.
