It's not too personal, but I can't really tell you much more than I have a gut feeling it's probably inspired from this quote. Unfortunately, I don't know consciously just what it is I'm doing - can't see the pattern yet - but my subconscious is doing something and it works, apparently.
Or, that's what I would have said two days ago, probably. Now I'm noticing more and more that the same kind of social "reaction" to me also seems to happen in strangers that I haven't talked to yet! This leads me to suspect the pattern may be more meta than I expected, such as something about my general posture / behavior / appearance.
Still, even that is a valid tactic in most cases (be prepared, be attractive, be approachable, etc.), but it seems poorly suited to the context of the great-grand-parent.
Tunnel Creek avalanche kills skiers:
The page I've linked to describes a party of sixteen excellent skiers who went on a trip where they easily could have known better. Three of them died. It's common knowledge that large parties increase the risk of avalanche, but the page described the group excitement which no one managed to override.
One skier was sufficiently uneasy that she avoided the danger, but she didn't speak up to discourage the group.
This isn't the most difficult sort of situation requiring rationality, but it's far from the easiest, either. Any suggestions or work from CFAR about improving the odds of speaking up when a group is about to do something stupid?
The article is heavily multimedia, with big self-loading animations-- it's gorgeous, but it's a bandwidth hog.