What is Cassandra Syndrome?

Cassandra Syndrome refers to a situation where individuals can accurately predict disasters but are not believed by others. This term is derived from the Greek mythological figure Cassandra, who was gifted by the gods with the ability to foresee the future, including disasters. However, she was cursed in such a way that despite her accurate predictions, no one believed her warnings. This led to great personal distress and tragedy, as her accurate predictions of disaster went unheeded, and she ultimately went mad.

An example discussed on "The Jordan Harbinger Show" involved a Japanese civil engineer who accurately predicted the danger of building a nuclear power plant on a floodplain, warning that a tsunami had occurred there 400 years ago. Despite his warnings based on historical data, his advice was ignored, contributing to the Fukushima nuclear disaster 1.

The concept also touches on the psychological and social dynamics of how we respond to warnings about rare or unprecedented events, which often involve a blend of cognitive biases such as the "first occurrence syndrome" where people discount risks of events that have never happened before within their experience or historical record 2.