Slow on the Uptake

Megan McArdle is just one of the commentators who are using the Justsie Smollett  "fake racist attack" episode to caution people to go slow in making judgments. The quick reaction of some Democratic politicians now looks foolish, as does the reaction of the left to the Sandmann video of last month.

Going slow is always good advice.  But advice is often ignored. Daniel Kahneman wrote a good book on the subject.  We all jump to conclusions and less often are we willing to reconsider, to apply reason and/or wait for more evidence.

Anyone remember McVeigh?  IIRC President Clinton cautioned going slow and not blaming international terrorists.  (That was before 9/11, but if my memory is correct we were hyper aware of terrorists even then.)

But then it's possible to overreact to the overreaction, which is the interesting take here.