On August 18, 1913, at the Monte Carlo casino, a roulette ball landed on black 26 times straight. Convinced red was “due,” gamblers bet ever bigger on it and lost fortunes. But a roulette wheel has no memory: each spin stays roughly a coin flip. The belief now has a name, the gambler's fallacy.
Remembering is not replaying a recording — it is rebuilding. Each time you recall a memory, it becomes temporarily malleable and can be altered before being stored again. That is why two people can sincerely remember the same event… differently.
In 2003, Johnson and Goldstein compared European countries. Where you must tick a box to become a donor, consent rates ranged from 4% to 28%. Where you're a donor by default unless you opt out, they topped 85%. People aren't more generous on one side; most simply stick with whatever option was chosen for them.