On this topic, there's an excellent episode of This American Life where someone looks into one of the origins of this idea, and it takes some interesting turns:

On this topic, there's an excellent episode of This American Life where someone looks into one of the origins of this idea, and it takes some interesting turns: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/668/the-long-fuse https://www.thisamericanlife.org/668/the-long-fuse