The conclusion here seems largely unjustified by the data and indeed is difficult to relate to simple distributions or statistics: > Increasingly, public insti

The conclusion here seems largely unjustified by the data and indeed is difficult to relate to simple distributions or statistics: > Increasingly, public institutions seem to exist to manage the obsessions of a tiny number of neurotic—and possibly malicious—complainers. Why would anyone complain about airport noise when it is ~100% guaranteed to do them no good, and almost all the benefits go to everyone else even if it somehow did anything? Just thinking like an economist here... (Indeed, if a large fraction of locals did complain about something like airport noise, that would itself be highly suspicious to me - as it would indicate an organized campaign or an issue which has become politicized in some way and is now a pretext for something else entirely like a culture war.) And if there is something I've learned about design and problems, it's that you can have a huge problem, and you are lucky if even 1% will ever tell you. Your website could be down, and if even 1 person takes the risk of going out of their way to tell you, you should thank your lucky stars that you have such proactive, public-spirited readers! See also: "Theory of the Nudnik: The Future of Consumer Activism and What We Can Do to Stop It" https://gwern.net/doc/economics/2020-arbel.pdf https://gwern.net/doc/economics/2020-arbel.pdf , Arbel & Shapira 2020; https://pointersgonewild.com/2019/11/02/they-might-never-tell-you-its-broken/ https://pointersgonewild.com/2019/11/02/they-might-never-tel... (commentary: https://gwern.net/ref/chevalier-boisvert-2019 https://gwern.net/ref/chevalier-boisvert-2019); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule