Embracing Ambiguity/Decisive disasters

This is a collection of disasters that have occurred largely because an ambiguous situation was rushed to closure rather than investigated further.


 * Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
 * Space Shuttle Columbia disaster
 * Killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, including especially
 * 1) George Floyd,
 * 2) Daunte Wright,
 * 3) Justine Damond,
 * 4) Jordan Edwards,
 * 5) Greg Gunn,
 * 6) Corey Jones,
 * 7) Walter Scott,
 * 8) Anthony Hill,
 * 9) Akai Gurley,
 * 10) Philando Castile,
 * 11) Breonna Taylor,
 * 12) Amir Locke,
 * 13) Laquan McDonald, and
 * 14) Ahmaud Arbery
 * Heaven’s Gate cult mass suicide, the Peoples Temple Agriculture Project, and various doomsday cults.
 * Deepwater Horizon oil spill
 * Fyre Festival
 * Theranos
 * 1) Various fraudulent investment schemes, including several on this list of Ponzi schemes.
 * 2) Various healthcare frauds, including quackery.
 * Charlatans often deceive their mark with claims of accurately interpreting ambiguous information.
 * 1) Many landmark court decisions turn on the interpretation of ambiguous language.
 * 2) Religious and other schisms often occur when ambiguous information is dogmatically interpreted in new ways.
 * Conspiracy theories are often based on novel interpretations of ambiguous information.
 * Animal rights controversies are often based on interpretations of our ambiguous understanding of sentience.
 * Slavery is justified by asserting differing interpretations of what it is to be human.
 * 1) The resolve to go to war is often bolstered by asserting one interpretation of ambiguous information. Prominent examples include:
 * 2) The Gulf of Tonkin resolution
 * 3) The Iraq Resolution
 * 4) Ideologies are often neatly packaged assemblies of interpretations of ambiguous information.
 * 5) The words justice, freedom, fairness, equality, ownership, trespass, and many others are inherently ambiguous. Various interpretations of these words are the basis for many disputes.