The most shocking and surprising tragedies of the modern era were actually the predictable consequences of obviously bad decisions. There are far fewer surprises and unforeseen twists than we would like to believe, and most disasters stem from known issues and small, obviously terrible choices.

This episode was written by George Ettinger with editorial assistance by Adam B. Levine and Adrian Blust. The music is by Jared Rubens and Gurty Beats. Album art for the episode uses an image by Jean-Philippe Delberghe on Unsplash, while the front page artwork is in the public domain.