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That was morbidly hilarious. This would fit right in on a reality prank show with a laugh soundtrack.

I suppose the added factor here is the misunderstanding of fire as a hazard. I would suspect most people associate it with the risk of burning (which didn't appear imminent) compared to the perhaps more dangerous risk of smoke based loss of consciousness and suffocation.

F that S. I'm the first to react even when it's not life threatening. srsly... WTF is wrong with people! I know I'm a person too, so inextricably linked with everyone else, but I just don't understand this...

About a month ago there was an earthquake here in California and NO ONE in my office except for me reacted. Literally no one except for myself... that's crazy. WHY!

One guy was from out of state and this was his first quake. Everyone from the leadership of my team was sitting in a conference room nearby my desk, talking about how used to them they all are now; and this ignorant out of state man was saying similar things like "I was watching you guys to see how to react."

After crawling from under my desk, I ran into their room and yelled at them saying they were NOT being very smart and told the guy from (Pennsylvania?) that he should go under a desk if he's in doors and yada yada yada. He scoffed at me.

He scoffed my good advice. Ooooh, ignore the crazy person who actually knows what to goddamn do in an emergency. Why? Well, mostly because I'm an asshole -- but that's the thing, I'm an asshole when I'm right (or believe I'm right -- I am always ready for education when I am wrong).

Of course, as always, for being a contrary and vocal minority I was ridiculed. Office politics and trying to be part of the swarm will get you KILLED. God, you'd think working in a creative industry would weed out fools, but it doesn't. Same dumb asses every where you go.

I'm considering becoming a reasonable person, but goddamn high blood pressure. I need to calm down or I'll die from a heart attack -- caused by fools! Ahh, how fitting.

Ridicule me after I save your fucking life, ingrates.

This happened on 9/11. Only a few people left when they had the chance because the others stayed with the herd, even when some who were leaving urged their colleagues to get out.

@poolcleaner, maybe no-one reacted because they had experience that told them they weren't in danger? The last few earthquakes in California were pretty small (5.1, 4.4) or pretty far away (6.8 50 miles out to sea) and none of them rated above moderate on the MMI. Sorry, but if you run around yelling at people that they should panic, when the danger isn't that great, then yeah, you kinda look like a crazy person.

I certainly won't react to anything under a 5.5 these days.

As for the video, it's kinda bullshit.

It's a completely artificial scenario. If there was a real fire, people would have gotten up, at least a few would be panicking, etc.

People love this kinda thing because they can point and laugh at all the sheep who blindly follow the herd. In reality, this behaviour is an evolved response, because 9 times out of 10, it's the correct behaviour.

There's a phenomenon known as "the wisdom of crowds", where a group of people who make advocate wildly differing solutions to a problem will actually average out to the correct solution. Everyone hates this, because everyone likes to think they're smarter than average, and they want to believe that a single individual is the pinnacle of everything.

This is prevalent in our culture. Look how many stories involve "one man against the odds", etc. Reality tends not to conform to this. Even if you're Arnold Schwarzenegger, when you storm the compound, you get killed by a random guard. Most scientific discoveries are not one lone genius against the establishment, but a whole bunch of people working simultaneously toward the same goal and arriving at the same answer around the same time.

Of course this is not always true, but those are the exceptions rather than the rule.

The sad fact is that a consensus among informed people generally tends toward the correct answer. It makes for a lousy story, but it's generally true.

Still, if you see flames, get the hell out of the building

I would have dialed Emergency Services.
♫ ♪ ♫ 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3 ♫ ♩ ♫

(reference)

@ChaosEngine

I hope I don't have to be the one to point out the multitude of studies which have shown where crowds, group think or subjugation of one's opinion's to someone's authority results in terrible consensual decisions being made:

Stanford Prison Experiment
Milgram Experiment
Asch Conformity Experiment
Bystander Effect

In a situation like this, it's likely no one in the crowd has ever dealt with a serious fire. They may not recognise the risks of unexpected suffocation. They may not recognise how fast fire can travel or the risks of being trapped.

Earthquakes are somewhat different (and living in Oz I have no experience with them), but I would imagine that they can go from mild to serious very unexpectedly. California sits on multiple major fault lines. A serious earthquake is very plausible, it is in fact 'expected and long overdue' to happen:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/16/us-japan-quake-california-idUSTRE72F5KG20110316

@RedSky yeah there are plenty of exceptions, but as I said, this is an evolved response, and for a good reason. In the majority of cases, the group is smarter than the individual as it tends to smooth out the more extreme ideas. Obviously this isn't the case everywhere (look at popular music for example).

And no, earthquakes don't work like that. You get a single large earthquake that strikes first and then a series of aftershocks (which can go on for years). An individual quake doesn't start mild and get worse, it's either bad enough to be dangerous or it isn't.

@ChaosEngine
@poolcleaner

I live in Japan and if I were to dive under my desk every time there was an earthquake, I'd be under there at least 3 times a day. Since the 2011 earthquake we've had constant aftershocks, some as strong as 5 and 6 on the Richter scale (which makes the panic seen over California's most recent quake somewhat amusing).

ChaosEngine is correct, you can gauge how bad the earthquake is by the amount of shaking. On March 3rd, 2011--the only time I have actually dived under a table during an earthquake--plates were flying off my kitchen shelves and shattering on the floor.

That said, Japan is a country that is truly prepared for quakes. Any big items you buy like refrigerators or big screen TVs usually come with fasteners to bolt them down so they don't fall over during a quake. The buildings here are incredibly well-engineered to survive a severe quake--very few people during the 3.11 quake were killed by collapsing structures.

Most other countries aren't that prepared. If I were vacationing in a developing country and a quake struck I would probably get the hell out of the building as soon as possible regardless of if it seemed small because I wouldn't trust the engineering to be as sound as it is here.

tldr:

You're both right. You need to use your experience and critical thinking to decide the best course of action in an emergency. And if you don't have any experience with that particular emergency, then you need to trust the people who do have experience to know what they are doing and follow them. For example, if I were ever in an airplane crash the first person I'd look for is the flight attendant to see what they were doing and follow their lead.

I must be a complete asshole. I don't give a crap what "the herd" does. I've never been in a situation where any amount of other people, doing whatever or nothing, stopped me from doing whatever the Hell I wanted to.