2 ms·

Humans have to assess all incoming information (gossip round the campfire, stirring in the long grass or twitter feeds) and aa strong bias to pay more attention

Humans have to assess all incoming information (gossip round the campfire, stirring in the long grass or twitter feeds) and aa strong bias to pay more attention to potential negatives in the environment will in general allow us to avoid disasters (like getting eaten) In our evolutionary environments that would be balanced out by "good fortune" - a old tree has just produced fruit perhaps, so we would get our optimism reinforced as much as our pessimism. But good fortune today is basically baked into life for most of the western world - starvation is rare. In short what used to be good news (hey I got to eat today) is just normality and so that leaves just downsides (perhaps an analogy of a roller coaster with half of it underwater - being above water is taken for granted and so there is only dips down and long slow climbs back to normal.) In short, we need to get a sense of perspective back. Social media is not making people worse - we just happen to have sight of every moron and pub conversation that has always been there but not aggregated and delivered in front of us. Democracy is under no more threat than before - we have always had to fight for it - from Tammany Hall to Jarrow Marches and we shall have to fight again. This time however we have human instinct on our side - this is our democracy and you can't take it.

maxxxxx 7y ago
"In short what used to be good news (hey I got to eat today) is just normality and so that leaves just downsides (perhaps an analogy of a roller coaster with half of it underwater - being above water is taken for granted and so there is only dips down and long slow climbs back to normal.)." I think it comes down to income inequality. A lot of people don't share in benefits of a rising economy so they become cynical and detached. The promise is that a rising tide lifts all boats but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. And I don't like the argument that people should be happy with having something to eat and water while the top few percent increase their income every year. This slowly rips society apart.
- lifeisstillgood 7y ago
  The phrase "hey I got something to eat today" was meant to be our paeleolithic ancestors on whom all our modern human reactions are based - we evolved in a world that had (say) equal amounts of good (berries !) and bad (snake!) - so our optimism and pessimism had equal workouts in the environment now I would suggest our pessimism gets much more work out However an interesting podcast (frwkonnomics) has someone last week saying their research showed that we are more pessimistic when stressed and more optimistic when less stressed (indicating that perhaps it is just the stress of the information overload leading to pessimism rather than the information content)

maxxxxx 7y ago

"In short what used to be good news (hey I got to eat today) is just normality and so that leaves just downsides (perhaps an analogy of a roller coaster with half of it underwater - being above water is taken for granted and so there is only dips down and long slow climbs back to normal.)." I think it comes down to income inequality. A lot of people don't share in benefits of a rising economy so they become cynical and detached. The promise is that a rising tide lifts all boats but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. And I don't like the argument that people should be happy with having something to eat and water while the top few percent increase their income every year. This slowly rips society apart.

lifeisstillgood 7y ago
The phrase "hey I got something to eat today" was meant to be our paeleolithic ancestors on whom all our modern human reactions are based - we evolved in a world that had (say) equal amounts of good (berries !) and bad (snake!) - so our optimism and pessimism had equal workouts in the environment now I would suggest our pessimism gets much more work out However an interesting podcast (frwkonnomics) has someone last week saying their research showed that we are more pessimistic when stressed and more optimistic when less stressed (indicating that perhaps it is just the stress of the information overload leading to pessimism rather than the information content)