4 ms·
One winter day, my wife looked down the coast and noticed that the bell buoy that marked the entrance to Plum Island Sound was lying on the beach. This thing is
by wrycoder 6y ago
One winter day, my wife looked down the coast and noticed that the bell buoy that marked the entrance to Plum Island Sound was lying on the beach. This thing is enormous, about 30 ft long. We drove down and walked around it with some other curious people. Took some pictures.
She thought that we ought to report it. I told her that many people would already have done that. A couple of days went by and there didn’t seem to be any action.
So we finally called the Coast Guard. They said, “Wow, we didn’t know that, thanks very much!”
- sneak 6y agoThe validity of this effect has been called into question, but for a long time, this was the "standard response" to situations like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
- BolexNOLA 6y agoYeah the Kitty Genovese (sp) story is an example right? Wasn’t that proven to be a myth or something?
- flamtap 6y agoYes, the popular story about the 30-odd bystanders was broadly unfounded. In fact there were two calls to the police.
- DagAgren 6y agoYes, just like Stockholm Syndrome, it was made up to cover up a bungled police response. Neither one is a real thing.
- ohashi 6y agoSource? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome#FBI_Law_Enforcement_Bulletin_(1999) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome#FBI_Law_Enf... says it's rare but FBI seems to be saying it is a real thing.
- DagAgren 6y agoFBI isn't exactly a trustworthy source of psychology. Psychologists and the DSM do not recognise it as a real thing. Here is the backstory of how it was created: https://twitter.com/sezmohammed/status/1252500993972948992 https://twitter.com/sezmohammed/status/1252500993972948992
- roland35 6y agoI had a similar situation while driving through South Carolina on the freeway - we saw a small fire on the side of the road! My wife and I were wondering if anyone called about it and I thought that probably not, everyone assumes someone else did. We did end up calling 911 and they didn't seem aware if it yet and sent a fire crew out!
- CydeWeys 6y agoSimilar story different ending, I was driving over the San Mateo Bridge in broad daylight and screeched to a stop to avoid hitting a bicycle that had fallen off the back of someone's car and was sitting the rightmost lane. We managed to get out of there after spending a long terrifying minute looking in the rearview mirror at vehicles blithely approaching us at 75 mph and swerving into another lane at the last second upon realizing we were stopped, despite the emergency blinkers. Finally a gap in traffic opened up and we were able to get out of there too. After we cleared the bridge we called 911 and as soon as my girlfriend said the words "San Mateo Bridge" the dispatcher said "Are you calling about that bike? All the calls we're getting right now are about the bike. Police are already on the way. Have a good day." And she got hung up on! So, fortunately, sometimes the bystander effect isn't in play, and lots of people are independently making the good decision to report a dangerous situation to 911.