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Speaker 1: Pushkin. Imagine the seed a large ballroom. Twelve hundred people

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Speaker 1: are seated around tables, enjoying the finest dining that nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy seven has to offer, which admittedly isn't saying much.

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Speaker 1: But everyone's having a wonderful evening at the Beverly Hills

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Speaker 1: supper Club, which, naturally given the name, is just outside Cincinnati.

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Speaker 1: There's a comedy duo on stage and the headline performer

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Speaker 1: is expected very soon. The singer and TV personality John Davidson,

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Speaker 1: a big star at the time. But what the audience

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Speaker 1: here doesn't know is that on the other side of

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Speaker 1: this scrawling complex of function rooms, something's gone wrong. A

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Speaker 1: fire has broken out and it's spreading fast. The fire

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Speaker 1: department has already been called, and the fire is still

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Speaker 1: some distance away from the crowded cabaret room. But the

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Speaker 1: more it spreads, the more fuel it finds, the hotter

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Speaker 1: it gets, and the faster it moves. Safety standards at

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Speaker 1: the supper club aren't what they should be. There isn't

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Speaker 1: a fire alarm, there isn't a sprinkler system, and there

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Speaker 1: isn't a lot of time. And nobody in that room

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Speaker 1: knows that the fire is on its way. One remarkable

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Speaker 1: young man, Walter Bailey, did his best. Bailey was barely

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Speaker 1: more than a boy. He was eighteen years old and

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Speaker 1: he worked as an assistant waiter. Bailey had seen the fire,

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Speaker 1: and he realized that although it was a long way

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Speaker 1: from the cabaret room, somebody needed to tell all those

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Speaker 1: people to start evacuating. Walter Bailey found the supervisor in

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Speaker 1: the cabaret room, explained about the fire, and asked him

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Speaker 1: to clear the room. The supervisor looked confused. Bailey told

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Speaker 1: him again. The supervisor turned and walked off to clear

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Speaker 1: the room, thought Bailey, who found seventy people lining up

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Speaker 1: to get into the cabaret room. Bailey led them instead

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Speaker 1: to safety. When he returned, he found that nobody inside

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Speaker 1: the cabaret room had moved. I'm Tim Harford, and you're

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Speaker 1: listening to cautionary tales. This cautionary tale is going to

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Speaker 1: be a little different. I hope that's okay. The world

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Speaker 1: seems different these days, so I've been writing some new

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Speaker 1: stories for you to suit the times we're in. There'll

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Speaker 1: be a little shorter, simpler, and perhaps a little more

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Speaker 1: focused on the challenges we face right now and This

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Speaker 1: episode is different in another way too, because in a

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Speaker 1: small way, it's about me, about what I got wrong,

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Speaker 1: and I hope about what you can learn from my mistakes.

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Speaker 1: We'll come back to my mistakes and to the fire

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Speaker 1: in the Beverly Hills Supper Club. But first I wanted

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Speaker 1: to ask you a question. Do you remember Captain Pastrengo Rugiati.

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Speaker 1: You must Cautionary Tales, Season one, Episode one. It was

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Speaker 1: about an oil tanker the size of the Chrysler building

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Speaker 1: a ship with a name Torrey Canyon. That ship was

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Speaker 1: headed for a sunken mass of rocks with a vicious

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Speaker 1: reputation called the Seven Stones, and Captain Pastrengo Rugiati, Poor

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Speaker 1: Pastrengo Rugiati, steered his ship closer and closer and closer

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Speaker 1: to disaster. You can go and listen again if you like,

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Speaker 1: I'll wait. The mystery of Torry Canyon, you may remember,

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Speaker 1: is that while Captain Rugiatti was steering his ship towards

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Speaker 1: the rocks, the weather was good, the visibility was good,

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Speaker 1: Torry Canyon had radar, and the Seven Stones were clearly

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Speaker 1: marked both on all the charts and by a lighthouse

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Speaker 1: vessel warning ships to keep away. There was still time

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Speaker 1: to change course, just as there was still time to

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Speaker 1: evacuate the cabaret room. And yet Torry Canyon did not turn,

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Speaker 1: just as the people in the supper club cabaret room

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Speaker 1: did not move. Captain Rujhatti was a man in a hurry.

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Speaker 1: He had made a plan to head straight for a

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Speaker 1: harbor one hundred and fifty miles beyond those rocks. But

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Speaker 1: his original course was charted safely through deep open water.

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Speaker 1: At least was the plan. But now new information is

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Speaker 1: coming in. The ship has drifted off the expected course

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Speaker 1: over night, closer to shore. He's now heading for a

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Speaker 1: tight squeeze past the seven Stones. Fishing boats have appeared

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Speaker 1: blocking his way. The current is pushing him towards the rocks.

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Speaker 1: His plan is getting riskier and riskier. But at no

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Speaker 1: point does he stop reflect and rethink everything. Instead, with

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Speaker 1: each new piece of bad news, he furrows his brow

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Speaker 1: and rededicates himself to his original plan. So here's my confession.

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Speaker 1: In the face of the growing coronavirus epidemic, I behaved

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Speaker 1: in exactly the same way. It took me far too

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Speaker 1: long to really think about the information that was coming

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Speaker 1: my way. It took me even longer to take action.

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Speaker 1: I too, and Captain Rugiati, in our very first cautionary tale,

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Speaker 1: I discussed one reason why we don't change course. Psychologists

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Speaker 1: call it plan continuation. By us, we focus on a

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Speaker 1: particular goal. When bad news comes in that should make

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Speaker 1: us rethink, our tunnel vision only narrows. The bad news

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Speaker 1: makes us redouble our focus on the initial plan now

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Speaker 1: that we know it's going to be difficult. Rugiati was

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Speaker 1: racing against the clock, and with each setback the tunnel

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Speaker 1: vision must have closed. In further, he also made his

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Speaker 1: fateful decisions by himself. He was a captain who didn't

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Speaker 1: inform his crew of the details of his plans and

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Speaker 1: didn't seek their comments. As he acknowledged, I must answer

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Speaker 1: for everything for everyone. I must carry the cross alone.

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Speaker 1: If only Rugiati had been open to criticism and had

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Speaker 1: sought the views of his officers, they might have helped

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Speaker 1: him to regain his grasp of the risks and rethink

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Speaker 1: his plans. But having other people to guide you doesn't

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Speaker 1: always help if they're in the same situation as you were.

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Speaker 1: The same assumptions that they can lull you into thinking

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Speaker 1: that none of you have a problem, when in fact,

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Speaker 1: all of you have a problem. There's a famous psychological

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Speaker 1: study conducted in the nineteen sixties by bib Latane and

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Speaker 1: John Darley. The scientists asked their subjects to sit quietly

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Speaker 1: and fill out a questionnaire. Sometimes the subject would be

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Speaker 1: alone and sometimes in a group of three. Gradually, the

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Speaker 1: researchers pumped smoke into the room. When the subject was

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Speaker 1: sitting alone, he or she tended to note the smoke

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Speaker 1: and calmly leave to report it. When the subjects were

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Speaker 1: in a three, who were much less likely to react,

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Speaker 1: each person remained passive, reassured by the passivity of the others.

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Speaker 1: Based on what we now know about the Beverly Hills

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Speaker 1: supper club in nineteen seventy seven, that experiment seems darkly prophetic.

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Speaker 1: That incident is vividly described by Amanda Ripley in her

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Speaker 1: book The Unthinkable. Remember Where We left off? Twelve hundred

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Speaker 1: people were in the cabaret room, listening to the warm

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Speaker 1: up act crack jokes on stage. A fire was racing

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Speaker 1: towards them. Young Walter Bailey's supervisor had shrugged and ignored

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Speaker 1: the problem. Like Pastrengo Rugiati, the supervisor had a plan

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Speaker 1: and didn't seem able to fully appreciate that the plan

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Speaker 1: would have to change. So Walter Bailey did something big,

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Speaker 1: something he assumed would cost him his job. But someone

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Speaker 1: had to act. He decided that it was going to

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Speaker 1: be him. Although he was just a teenager, and although

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Speaker 1: he suffered from stage fright, Bailey strode down the middle

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Speaker 1: of the room, climbed up on stage, grabbed a microphone.

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Speaker 1: I want everyone to look to my right, there's an

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Speaker 1: exit to the right corner of the room. And looked

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Speaker 1: to my left, there's an exit on the left. And

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Speaker 1: now look to the back. There's an exit at the back.

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Speaker 1: I want everyone to leave the room calmly. There is

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Speaker 1: a fire at the front of the building. And then

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Speaker 1: Walter Bailey left the stage. I wish I could tell

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Speaker 1: you that one thousand, two hundred people rose to their

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Speaker 1: feet and filed out of the room. But they didn't.

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Speaker 1: Who was this kid? They thought, was he part of

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Speaker 1: the act? Was the fire for real? Was it a problem?

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Speaker 1: People thought of the expense of their ticket, of how

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Speaker 1: much they were enjoying the food, they were looking forward

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Speaker 1: to hearing John Davidson sing. They didn't want to rush

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Speaker 1: out if they didn't have to. So did they have to?

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Speaker 1: It wasn't clear. Think about the last time you were

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Speaker 1: sitting around in a building and a fire alarm went off.

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Speaker 1: Did you spring to your feet and seek the nearest

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Speaker 1: fire exit? And oh I didn't. I looked around to

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Speaker 1: see what others were doing. The same thing happened in

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Speaker 1: the Beverly Hill supper Club. People did what people do.

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Speaker 1: They looked to the left and to the right, as

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Speaker 1: Walter Bailey had told them to, but they weren't looking

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Speaker 1: for the exits. They were looking at what the people

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Speaker 1: next to them were doing. Was Susan to my left moving?

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Speaker 1: What about Fred to my right? With everyone taking cues

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Speaker 1: from everyone else, the group was slow to respond, and

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Speaker 1: they really didn't have a minute to spare. Because I'm

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Speaker 1: a journalist and frankly a nerd, I should have been

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Speaker 1: way ahead of the curve on coronavirus. Think to the

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Speaker 1: thirteenth of February twenty twenty. I know it feels a

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Speaker 1: long time ago. Only three people outside of China had

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Speaker 1: died from the new virus, at least as far as

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Speaker 1: anyone knew at the time. Nobody in the US was

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Speaker 1: thought to have died of it, nor had anyone in

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Speaker 1: my own country, the UK. The virus felt a very

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Speaker 1: distant threat, but it wasn't. More than a thousand people

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Speaker 1: had died in China, and that number was rising rapidly.

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Speaker 1: Twenty five countries had confirmed cases. Well respected epidemiologists had

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Speaker 1: already concluded that there was little chance of stamping out

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Speaker 1: these other cases quickly. The novel coronavirus was too contagious,

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Speaker 1: like the fire in the supper club. It was spreading

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Speaker 1: everywhere and rapidly gathering speed. And I know this because

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Speaker 1: I interviewed one of those well respected epidemiologists. On February

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Speaker 1: the thirteenth, Doctor Natalie McDermott of King College, London walked

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Speaker 1: into a studio at the BBC and told me the

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Speaker 1: latest thinking on the new coronavirus. The early data had

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Speaker 1: suggested that the virus killed more than one in ten

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Speaker 1: of the people it infected. Doctor McDermott reassured me that no,

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Speaker 1: it probably wasn't quite that dangerous. The best guess at

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Speaker 1: the fatality rate was more like one in a hundred,

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Speaker 1: maybe as low as one in two hundred. Nobody knew

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Speaker 1: for sure. Should I just assume that everyone on the

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Speaker 1: planet would get it, I asked, no. She said that

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Speaker 1: was too fatalistic, but if we couldn't contain it, it

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Speaker 1: was certainly infectious enough to infect a majority of the

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Speaker 1: planet's population. I nodded. I believed her. I even did

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Speaker 1: the mental arithmetic. There might be five billion cases, and

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Speaker 1: with a one in a hundred death rate, that would

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Speaker 1: be fifty million people around the world dying over the

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Speaker 1: course of a few months. In the United States would

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Speaker 1: be two million deaths. What did I do with the

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Speaker 1: doctor's information. I did what Pastrengo Rosality dear does. His

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Speaker 1: ship plowed on towards the rocks. I anxiously furrowed my brow,

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Speaker 1: and I kept on going, hoping the worst wouldn't happen. Now,

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Speaker 1: I don't want to exaggerate my failings. I didn't crash

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Speaker 1: any oil tankers. Nobody died because of my mistakes. But

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Speaker 1: I could have done better easily. I could have held

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Speaker 1: off on booking my summer vacation. I could have made

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Speaker 1: sure I caught up with my elderly father and stepmother,

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Speaker 1: who were in high risk groups. I could have sold

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Speaker 1: all my shares, or at least most of them, and

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Speaker 1: waited for a couple of months to see whether doctor

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Speaker 1: McDermott's grim scenario was starting to become a reality. Instead,

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Speaker 1: I took some money out of savings to pay down

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Speaker 1: some of my mortgage because I had gigs firmly in

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Speaker 1: the diary that would top the savings back up again.

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Speaker 1: Those gigs were canceled, of course, which means I drained

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Speaker 1: my savings at the worst possible moment. If for goodness sake,

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Speaker 1: I could at least have bought some extra toilet paper.

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Speaker 1: But none of this went through my mind. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: that I wasn't anxious. I was anxious, just like Pastrengo

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Speaker 1: RAGIATI was anxious. I was aware there was a problem,

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Speaker 1: and yet I didn't step back, think things through and

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Speaker 1: turn my anxiety into action. And perhaps you may recognize

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Speaker 1: yourself in that description too. Remember the experiment by psychologists

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Speaker 1: Biblatane and John Dari. They slowly pumped smoke into rooms

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Speaker 1: containing people filling in questionnaires. Solitary subject didn't hesitate to

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Speaker 1: leave and report the smoke, but groups of people stayed

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Speaker 1: and stayed as the smoke thickened, reassured by each other's passivity.

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Speaker 1: Those experimental subjects had done nothing. Now a decade later,

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Speaker 1: the customers of the Beverly Hill Supper Club were re

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Speaker 1: enacting that experiment in the most terrible way. Some people

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Speaker 1: moved in reaction to young Walter Bailey's warning he saved them,

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Speaker 1: but many people were too slow to react, lulled into

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Speaker 1: complacency by the fact that others were also too slow.

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Speaker 1: Four minutes later, the power failed and the lights went

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Speaker 1: out in the ballroom. Toxic smoke rolled in, and anyone

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Speaker 1: still in that room faced a dreadful challenge in getting

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Speaker 1: out alive. Walter Bailey repeatedly held his breath and headed

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Speaker 1: back in to drag out as many people as he could.

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Speaker 1: One hundred and sixty seven people died that night. If

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Speaker 1: it hadn't been for Walter Bailey, the death toll might

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Speaker 1: have been many hundreds more. Bailey also survived. He's a

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Speaker 1: true hero. I'd like to think that if disaster struck,

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Speaker 1: I'd have the courage and the presence of mind of

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Speaker 1: Walter Bailey, But I fear I'm more like those poor,

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Speaker 1: unsuspecting supper club patrons, enjoying their food and looking forward

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Speaker 1: to the music, then wondering what to do and taking

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Speaker 1: cues from everyone else. We're social animals, were humans, we

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Speaker 1: know instinctively that it's normally safer to stay with the

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Speaker 1: group than to do what the group does, but not always.

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Speaker 1: I hesitated too, And then when I started reacting in

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Speaker 1: earnest to the pandemic, I found that the stock market

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Speaker 1: was already plunging, the pasta and toilet paper was already

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Speaker 1: sold out, and there was no hope of getting masks.

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Speaker 1: Our governments found themselves in the same situation for much

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Speaker 1: the same reason. This series. I'll have more to say

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Speaker 1: about what our leaders have done and failed to do,

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Speaker 1: but for now, let's simply note that many Western democracies

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Speaker 1: found themselves in the same crazy scramble for ventilators, for

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Speaker 1: swab testing kids, for masks, and for gowns. If everyone

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Speaker 1: had started taking action in January, while a risk of

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Speaker 1: a pandemic was still just a risk, we'd all be

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Speaker 1: in better shape now. But just as in the supper Club,

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Speaker 1: before they acted, everyone wanted to be a little more

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Speaker 1: certain that there really was a problem. Amy Edmondson, a

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Speaker 1: professor at Harvard Business School, calls this sort of problem

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Speaker 1: an ambiguous threat. The warning signs aren't completely straightforward, and

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Speaker 1: the potential for harm is unclear as well. Ambiguous threats

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Speaker 1: might be serious or they might not. As Professor Edmondson

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Speaker 1: points out, that ambiguity is exactly what makes these types

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Speaker 1: of threats so dangerous. Because we're not sure that they're serious,

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Speaker 1: we easily find excuses not to take them as lee.

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Speaker 1: While leading epidemiologists were warning that the virus might well

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Speaker 1: become a pandemic, it wasn't obvious that they were right.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't obvious that it would spread so quickly. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't obvious that it would lead to the complete shutdown

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Speaker 1: of major economies around the world. But then, for Captain

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Speaker 1: Pastrengo Rugiati, it wasn't obvious that fishing boats would appear

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Speaker 1: to block his way. It wasn't obvious that one of

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Speaker 1: his officers would make a navigational error. It wasn't obvious

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Speaker 1: that his ship's maneuvering would be delayed by confusion about

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Speaker 1: whether the ship was on autopilot or not. I didn't

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Speaker 1: expect Rugiati to predict all these things, just as I

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Speaker 1: don't blame myself for failing to forecast every detail of

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Speaker 1: the pandemic But what he should have done was realized

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Speaker 1: the risks and take action to reduce those risks. And

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Speaker 1: so should I. I should have thought through the implications.

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Speaker 1: What might it mean if a pandemic threatened to kill

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Speaker 1: two million Europeans and another two million Americans? How might

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Speaker 1: we all respond? And while I might not have realized

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Speaker 1: on February thirteenth that almost half the world was heading

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Speaker 1: into lockdown, it was surely a possibility that I should

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Speaker 1: have considered much sooner than I did. But no, faced

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Speaker 1: with the unthinkable, it's hard to think it. That was

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Speaker 1: never in my mind, Never said Pastrengo Rugiati. There were

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Speaker 1: a lot of things that were never in my mind either.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps they should have been. I hope that I remember

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Speaker 1: my own limitations in future. An chiosan no il capitano Rugiati,

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Speaker 1: I too, I'm Captain Rugiati. Three books that helped us

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Speaker 1: research this episode are The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley, The

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Speaker 1: Ostrich Paradox by Howard Kunrouther and Robert Meyer, and Meltdown

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Speaker 1: by Chris Clearfield and Andrews Tiltic. As always, a full

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Speaker 1: list of our sources is in the show notes on

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Speaker 1: Tim Harford dot Com. Cautionary Tales is written and presented

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Speaker 1: by me Tim Harford with help from Andrew Wright. The

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Speaker 1: show was produced by Ryan Dilley with support from Pete Norton.

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Speaker 1: The music, mixing and mastering are the work of Pascal Wise.

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Speaker 1: The scripts were edited by Julia Barton. Special thanks to

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Speaker 1: Mail LaBelle, Carlie Mallori, Heather Fame, Maya Kanig, Jacob Weisberg,

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Speaker 1: and Malcolm Gladwell. Cautionary Tales is a Pushkin Industry's production