I appreciated your detailed analysis of the fire alarm situation along with evidence and introspection notes.
I’m not sure if it opens up any action-relevant new hypothesis space, but one feature of the fire alarm situation which I think you did not analyse is that commonly people are concerned also for the welfare of their fellows, especially those who are close by. This makes sense: if you find yourself in a group, even of strangers (and you’ve reached consensus that you’re not fighting each other) it will usually pay off to look out for each other! So perhaps another social feature at play when people fail to leave a smoky room when the group shows no signs of doing so is that they aren’t willing to unilaterally secure their own safety unless they know the others are also going to be safe. Though on this hypothesis you might expect to see more ‘speaking up’ and attempts to convince others to move.
I appreciated your detailed analysis of the fire alarm situation along with evidence and introspection notes.
I’m not sure if it opens up any action-relevant new hypothesis space, but one feature of the fire alarm situation which I think you did not analyse is that commonly people are concerned also for the welfare of their fellows, especially those who are close by. This makes sense: if you find yourself in a group, even of strangers (and you’ve reached consensus that you’re not fighting each other) it will usually pay off to look out for each other! So perhaps another social feature at play when people fail to leave a smoky room when the group shows no signs of doing so is that they aren’t willing to unilaterally secure their own safety unless they know the others are also going to be safe. Though on this hypothesis you might expect to see more ‘speaking up’ and attempts to convince others to move.