3 ms·

It's rare that positive news gets reported. It happens, but it's not exciting, generally. "Infant mortality rate in decline for 50th straight year" is great new

by beat 8y ago

It's rare that positive news gets reported. It happens, but it's not exciting, generally. "Infant mortality rate in decline for 50th straight year" is great news, but it's not "news". Instead, we get breathless headlines about shark attacks, which hardly ever happen. Our brains latch on to the wrong things most of the time. The news sucks because our brains suck. They're just giving us what we want.

idoubtit 8y ago
I suppose it was a random example, but it's unfortunately a very bad one if it's about the USA, like most posts here presuppose. The infant mortality in the USA certainly did not decline on every recent year[^1]. And the bad news is that this rate is extremely high for a rich country, with a value similar to Serbia, half more than the average rate in Europe[^2]. This last "news" was even reported under the title "Our infant mortality rate is a national embarrassment"[^3]. [^1]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db09.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db09.pdf [^2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_and_under-five_mortality_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_an... [^3]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/29/our-infant-mortality-rate-is-a-national-embarrassment/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/29/our-i...
- beat 8y ago
  It's not completely random, although I didn't fact-check absolute specifics like you did. What I'm going to do in response is fact-check long term trends, which was my point. First site I checked shows that infant mortality in the US fell by about 50% from 1980-2010 (depending on category, but that's the trend in all categories). Someone did a paper on 1926 US infant mortality rates, and current rates are roughly 90% lower. I'm not comparing to Serbia, or to last year. I'm comparing to decades ago. By focusing on trend rather than momentary detail, I'm seeing the positive where you're seeing the negative.

by beat 8y ago

idoubtit 8y ago

I suppose it was a random example, but it's unfortunately a very bad one if it's about the USA, like most posts here presuppose. The infant mortality in the USA certainly did not decline on every recent year[^1]. And the bad news is that this rate is extremely high for a rich country, with a value similar to Serbia, half more than the average rate in Europe[^2]. This last "news" was even reported under the title "Our infant mortality rate is a national embarrassment"[^3]. [^1]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db09.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db09.pdf [^2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_and_under-five_mortality_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_an... [^3]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/29/our-infant-mortality-rate-is-a-national-embarrassment/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/29/our-i...

beat 8y ago
It's not completely random, although I didn't fact-check absolute specifics like you did. What I'm going to do in response is fact-check long term trends, which was my point. First site I checked shows that infant mortality in the US fell by about 50% from 1980-2010 (depending on category, but that's the trend in all categories). Someone did a paper on 1926 US infant mortality rates, and current rates are roughly 90% lower. I'm not comparing to Serbia, or to last year. I'm comparing to decades ago. By focusing on trend rather than momentary detail, I'm seeing the positive where you're seeing the negative.