https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-66655801

This is based. Charging in first to give people confidence that the path forward is safe is a type of good leadership.

There’s a long history of public figures using such a device to shape public perception and behaviors; Lady Diana shaking hands with an HIV patient in 1987, Fernando Aiuti kissing another on the mouth in 1991, Elvis Presley getting vaccinated live on TV in 1956, Obama drinking Flint water in 2016, etc.

Network analysis studies have shown the “outsized influence over social norms and behavior” [that] a few “social referents” carry within a group (https://doi.org/f77xdh), not just in humans but in chimpanzees as well.

Aviator, diver, Etherean, nexialist, PhD in aviation ∩ climate science | Host of /diving /ethfinance /eth-staker /geopolitics /science /singapore /thomas

Some such displays backfired, though, like this Punjab chief minister who drank river water in 2022 to prove its innocuity, and ended up hospitalized two days later.