Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

How to Control the Negativity Instinct
How can we help our brains to realize that things are getting better when
everything is screaming at us that things are getting worse?
Bad and Better
The solution is not to balance out all the negative news with more positive
news. That would just risk creating a self-deceiving, comforting, misleading
bias in the other direction. It would be as helpful as balancing too much sugar
with too much salt. It would make things more exciting, but maybe even less
healthy.
A solution that works for me is to persuade myself to keep two thoughts in
my head at the same time.

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It seems that when we hear someone say things are getting better, we think
they are also saying “don’t worry, relax” or even “look away.” But when I say
things are getting better, I am not saying those things at all. I am certainly not
advocating looking away from the terrible problems in the world. I am saying
that things can be both bad and better.
Think of the world as a premature baby in an incubator. The baby’s health
status is extremely bad and her breathing, heart rate, and other important signs
are tracked constantly so that changes for better or worse can quickly be seen.
After a week, she is getting a lot better. On all the main measures, she is
improving, but she still has to stay in the incubator because her health is still
critical. Does it make sense to say that the infant’s situation is improving?
Yes. Absolutely. Does it make sense to say it is bad? Yes, absolutely. Does
saying “things are improving” imply that everything is fine, and we should all
relax and not worry? No, not at all. Is it helpful to have to choose between
bad and improving? Definitely not. It’s both. It’s both bad and better. Better,
and bad, at the same time.
That is how we must think about the current state of the world.
Expect Bad News
Something else that helps to control the negativity instinct is to constantly
expect bad news.
Remember that the media and activists rely on drama to grab your
attention. Remember that negative stories are more dramatic than neutral or
positive ones. Remember how simple it is to construct a story of crisis from a
temporary dip pulled out of its context of a long-term improvement.
Remember that we live in a connected and transparent world where reporting
about suffering is better than it has ever been before.
When you hear about something terrible, calm yourself by asking, If there
had been an equally large positive improvement, would I have heard about
that? Even if there had been hundreds of larger improvements, would I have
heard? Would I ever hear about children who don’t drown? Can I see a
decrease in child drownings, or in deaths from tuberculosis, out my window,
or on the news, or in a charity’s publicity material? Keep in mind that the
positive changes may be more common, but they don’t find you. You need to
find them. (And if you look in the statistics, they are everywhere.)
This reminder will give you the basic protection to allow you, and your
children, to keep watching the news without being carried away into dystopia
on a daily basis.

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