system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How does electricity figure out if you're standing on an insulator or not?

So as we know for a person to get electrocuted a circuit needs to be completed. You cannot stand on a wooden chair and get electrocuted. So when you stand on a wooden chair and touch a live wire, how does the electricity figure out that you're standing on an insulator? Does the electricity pass through you first before failing to complete the circuit because of the wood?
gpt
How does the water at the surface of the bathtub know that the drain at the bottom has been opened?  It doesn't, directly, but the water at the bottom of the tub is flowing through the drain and no longer resisting the weight of the water at the top.  The water level starts going down because of that lack of resistance at the bottom.

It's the same with possible electrocution: a lot of electric charge is suddenly pushing at one end of your body, but if there's an insulator at the other end, all the other charges in your body pushing against the insulator and against each other will cause them to brace against and resist the incoming charge.