Talk:Availability cascade

Global warming as an availability cascade

I cited the article in the Wall Street Journal whereby it was speculated that global warming might be an availability cascade. The editor who removed the citation and inserted random assertions without any citations or even context incorrectly states that the WSJ citation is not NPOV. I undid her/his edit. --TallulahBelle (talk) 15:48, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

This is a false positive. Every sane person knows that global warming is happening right now, and that we are at fault for it. I'm removing it.--WaltCip (talk) 12:41, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it is unclear whether global warming is occurring, and it is highly controversial (and quite possibly unlikely) that human beings' industry is causing it, since in the last thousand years there have been severe changes in weather that were absolutely not caused by human industry (re: the Medieval Warm Period followed by the Little Ice Age).

Regardless, insofar as availability cascade is concerned, the issue is not global warming, but rather, the Wall Street Journal's point that global warming might well be an availability cascade. Hence it is pertinent for this article. WaltCip's edit, had he proceeded with it as he stated he would, would have elicited a prompt and fully justified undo. --TallulahBelle (talk) 03:04, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not at all clear to me that this belongs in the article. I'm most likely going to remove that paragraph from the article unless there's a compelling reason why it's a significant example. As is it gives undue weight to one particular application of the concept. Plus,the controversial nature makes it highly unsuitable as an example. There must be some standard "text-book" cases that would be better as examples. --66.239.67.130 (talk) 18:39, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

How amusing--I added the global warming example without even checking this talk page or being aware of the WSJ article. As I included it and four other examples, it did occur to me that the controversy of the issues might make them contentious, but then *that is inherent to availability cascades*. If you read the original paper by Kuran and Sunstein, not to mention Kahneman's later comments, availability cascades usually concern threats. Assuming there is some objectively correct level of availability, availability entrepreneurs on both sides of the issue are trying to increase and decrease availability to something other than what it should be. Maybe it is asking too much, but could we here please try to be neutral about what the objective availability should be in the example issues? The three cascades cited by Kuran and Sunstein were largely manufactured, but that is not a necessary feature. OF COURSE GLOBAL WARMING IS HAPPENING, but that does not mean that we are not also seeing an availability cascade (to me equally obvious). I would love to see people think up some interesting availability-cascade examples that are not controversial threats. Simplulo (talk) 16:23, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't think climate change fits in as an example of an availability cascade. The initial definition and description implies a falsified threat. All of the other examples lack evidence to back them, or are blown completely out of proportion relative to their risk. Better examples would be the fear of terrorism in the US, or closely tied to it, fear of Islam or refugees after the Paris attacks. These spread like wildfire through media outlets and social media, with little substantial data to back them up. Autoxidation (talk) 22:21, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

The threat is rarely completely false, but it is exaggerated and spread via the mechanism of availability cascade. In the case of global warming, all the mechanisms and players are there. Given the extent of unscientific, ideological, almost religious belief (not to mention economic interests) on both sides, the threat of global warming may be greatly exaggerated or greatly underestimated. Availability cascades may have reams of data to back them up, but there may be an interest or other bias in interpreting the data. I totally agree with your suggested additional examples. The problem is, how to mention here useful but controversial examples without attracting an ideologue's ire? One has to mention at least two sides, and maintain Wikipedia's neutral tone, and maybe try to pass an Ideological Turing Test. Simplulo (talk) 10:16, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

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