Isn't that like trying to estimate unknown unknowns? If one has already reached the point of thinking, 'wait how many major plane crashes have there been in the USA in the past decade, exactly? Why... I can't seem to think of any!'', one has already done most of the perspective changing.
What's interesting about the Fermi Estimate post is that its examples encourage you look for predictors that are unexpectedly reliable, rather than those that first jump to mind.
That I haven't heard of many plane crashes in the past decade, this sounds like something I might hear on a post arguing an opposite point. "Sure, you've haven't heard of plane crashes in a decade, but why suspect that reliable predictors are in the neighborhood of your daily activities rather than your knowledge about the world? And now I will eye you knowingly until you le...
There's a lot of background mess in our mental pictures of the world. We try and be accurate on important issues, but a whole lot of the less important stuff we pick up from the media, the movies, and random impressions. And once these impressions are in our mental pictures, they just don't go away - until we find a fact that causes us to say "huh", and reassess.
Here are three facts that have caused that "huh" in me, recently, and completely rearranged minor parts of my mental map. I'm sharing them here, because that experience is a valuable one.