In this case his story would have never been written. Thus we get a big survivorship bias to hear only about unlikely events and get some kind of wisdom tidbits from those.
>In this case his story would have never been written. Thus we get a big survivorship bias to hear only about unlikely events and get some kind of wisdom tidbits from those.
That's not necessarily true. Many years ago, I killed a 77 year-old woman by striking her with my bicycle. Her skull fractured when she hit the pavement. I heard her skull being crushed, but I didn't realize it at the time -- after I realized what that sound was, it's haunted me to this day.
I was completely at fault (I blew through a red light and hit her after avoiding someone else) and while I don't think about it every day any more, I bear the responsibility for her injury, eventual death and the grief it caused her family.
While I don't consider myself a bad or evil person, I made a really bad decision that cost someone their life. And I will bear the guilt of that bad decision forever.
I don't give myself a pass because it wasn't a malicious act, mostly because that poor woman is still dead regardless of my motivations.
I can't go back and change the past, but I've tried to make better decisions since then. That's not enough, but it's all I can do to avoid such things moving forward.