This is a really important watch, IMO. The negativity of the news as a meta thing is something I think we don't take enough into account, and it's a driver behind a lot of things which we probably...
This is a really important watch, IMO. The negativity of the news as a meta thing is something I think we don't take enough into account, and it's a driver behind a lot of things which we probably just blame on social media. For example thinking back, I myself often say "Facebook is negativity trash", "Reddit is negativity trash", but they're both actually just reflections of the symptoms this video highlights.
I also want to ping @kfwyre and @balooga - I believe both of you are US-based and, I may be mistaken but I think I've seen both of you take an overly cautious approach about Covid in scenarios which didn't seem to call for it. I want to throw your way the possibility that the US media influenced how worried you were about Covid. And unless you're hyper-aware of how you develop your understanding of the world, even if /you/ don't watch the media, you can still be subconsciously influenced by your acquaintances who do, and so on. This is an invitation on retrospective, now that Covid is "behind" for almost the entire world (even if it still exists).
IMO the reason these types of retrospectives are important is to develop an understanding of how much of a reality distortion field surrounds you. I think americans need to be hyper-aware of it; I've myself been guilty of getting influenced by this; both on Covid very early on, and on a variety of financial matters (because I work with a lot of US people thus need to consume a lot of american news in finance).
Anyway, the second half of the video is kind of cathartic for me, as I spent an entirepandemicarguing that being overly cautious with rules will lead to losing the population's willingness to put up with them. And yet, "this sort of rationality can only be applied in retrospect"... well, /shrug.
Oh, I think you mistook my ping for something it was not! I meant it more as a nudge towards recontextualizing your own feelings towards the pandemic. It's 100% understandable to have been highly...
Oh, I think you mistook my ping for something it was not!
I meant it more as a nudge towards recontextualizing your own feelings towards the pandemic. It's 100% understandable to have been highly worried or even terrified of it early on. As time goes on, though, we learn and we introspect. I know you're doing better (I follow your posts!), but I also know from them that the virus still made you abnormally anxious even mere months ago. So it had me wondering what you'd think about all of this.
Most of my covid-related rants from the past years were squarely directed at Belgium -- I had enough to worry about with my country, and I frankly didn't have the head-space to worry about the USA. And I didn't mean to accuse you of being too careful in retrospect.
Belgium (Europe in general) is fully back to pre-covid, with sometimes some leftover rules which tend to be for the best, eg. masks are mandatory in hospitals now and that's just what it is. But also, I can absolutely see what Wendover is talking about in that video: I got to see both US-based and EU-based media during the pandemic, and while I couldn't spend a lot of my energy on the US, I still have what I remember now to compare. That quote from Matt Taibbi is … oof. On point.
I also see it in the reactions people had. Between all the people I know, there's a trend: My American friends are/were consistently more worried about Covid than my non-American friends. I understand it now as a symptom of the difference in how the media portrayed it in the US, all excited to present it as a World War Z level pandemic. Blaring sound effects and plastering scary graphs so they can be among those in the TV clip in the first five minutes of the inevitable "They Saw It Coming" movie.
We had some of this here too, but, I dunno how to describe it… it was all just more reasoned. And it was just a gut feeling I had, I thought I was just biased, until I saw this video and now it's like things are starting to click for me and I'm putting two and two together.
I think, until the vaccines came along, the polarization happened over all of this more than anything. The extremes the media went to to scare people were causing some to become defensive. With hindsight, it makes sense that the antivax movement took off in that crowd as soon as there was an opportunity for it to.
And of course the extreme-right was the big winner in all of this: Populist movements in general benefit from keeping people scared. The only question I have left is: Is the rise of the extreme right and left in the US because its media is scarier, or is the media becoming scarier to better appeal to that rising crowd?
Again I think you're misinterpreting my comments; I apologize. I had my fair share of worries about Covid. My now-deceased partner with autoimmune disease got both severely sick from it and was...
You felt some of this fatigue relative to restrictions, and I encourage you to consider that many of us share that same genuine fatigue but on different fronts. I don’t think this makes us less rational or less measured — we’re just working with different inputs.
Again I think you're misinterpreting my comments; I apologize. I had my fair share of worries about Covid. My now-deceased partner with autoimmune disease got both severely sick from it and was knocked out by the vaccine for four weeks (no exemptions for those at risk in south korea at the time). My current partner has what we're both pretty sure is long covid. And when I did get it, it wasn't a joyride either the first time.
I was fatigued not just by the restrictions but by everything, as most people were. 2020-2021 were by far my worst years in a decade, and it got bad enough that I had suicidal thoughts again.
As I said my post was just an invitation to introspect in the light of the video. I'm sorry I sent the wrong message there.
This factor is actually accounted for in epidemiology generally and disaster planning more particularly. An executive problem that we saw become especially acute with covid in the US is political...
the population's willingness to put up with them
This factor is actually accounted for in epidemiology generally and disaster planning more particularly.
An executive problem that we saw become especially acute with covid in the US is political chaos. Such a large number of people across the spectrum made it such an important ideological/identity issue that physical barrier precautionary measures (masks, not gathering, social distancing, etc.) became almost wholly ineffective for significant swaths of the population.
I'm also not sure that epidemiological models are able to properly account for this factor, which will make planning even more difficult. But it's certainly an interesting time to be in the field, and I'm sad I left it.
It didn't help that centralized guidance was often too cute by half, leaning towards trying to manipulate people into desired behavior instead of inform people matter-of-factly. Most notably,...
It didn't help that centralized guidance was often too cute by half, leaning towards trying to manipulate people into desired behavior instead of inform people matter-of-factly. Most notably, their attempts to discourage masking in the early phases to ensure supply probably did a big disservice later on.
Thanks for the mention, I will give this a look. I was excessively cautious about covid early on, and retained a defensive paranoia long after most had returned to normal. Today, I'm mostly back...
Thanks for the mention, I will give this a look. I was excessively cautious about covid early on, and retained a defensive paranoia long after most had returned to normal. Today, I'm mostly back to normal myself. The one major lasting change in my life that was brought about by the pandemic is that I'm now a fully remote worker instead of going to an office every day. I still have some underlying apprehension about the still-unknown long term effects of multiple infections over time but I'm able to compartmentalize that now along with all the other non-pathogenic risks of daily life.
One of my many therapy modalities is Acceptance Commitment Therapy. One of it's primary goals/tools is removing this negativity bias from decision making. It's primarily deployed on trauma...
One of my many therapy modalities is Acceptance Commitment Therapy. One of it's primary goals/tools is removing this negativity bias from decision making. It's primarily deployed on trauma survivors, as a trauma (especially repeated trauma) essentially extends this negative perception bias across the whole brain, in extreme examples making everything appear as if it is an imminent prelude to another trauma event. It's a real thing in my experience.
I question whether there is any way to standardize measurement of negativity bias from a given media outlet, which means I question the results of the research referenced in the video. But if there is, it would be interesting to me to see how results compare with an index of trauma for each society in which the outlet operates. Standardizaing an index of trauma is probably as fraught as is measuring negativty bias.
I find it amusing that the video could perhaps to be said to deploy the very circumstance it is critiquing. It is, itself, a negative report on the quality of news. And, it could be said to be doing it in service of its commercial sponsor, who, in part, provides (or offers to provide) a solution to the negative bias in any geographic region.
This is a really important watch, IMO. The negativity of the news as a meta thing is something I think we don't take enough into account, and it's a driver behind a lot of things which we probably just blame on social media. For example thinking back, I myself often say "Facebook is negativity trash", "Reddit is negativity trash", but they're both actually just reflections of the symptoms this video highlights.
I also want to ping @kfwyre and @balooga - I believe both of you are US-based and, I may be mistaken but I think I've seen both of you take an overly cautious approach about Covid in scenarios which didn't seem to call for it. I want to throw your way the possibility that the US media influenced how worried you were about Covid. And unless you're hyper-aware of how you develop your understanding of the world, even if /you/ don't watch the media, you can still be subconsciously influenced by your acquaintances who do, and so on. This is an invitation on retrospective, now that Covid is "behind" for almost the entire world (even if it still exists).
IMO the reason these types of retrospectives are important is to develop an understanding of how much of a reality distortion field surrounds you. I think americans need to be hyper-aware of it; I've myself been guilty of getting influenced by this; both on Covid very early on, and on a variety of financial matters (because I work with a lot of US people thus need to consume a lot of american news in finance).
Anyway, the second half of the video is kind of cathartic for me, as I spent an entire pandemic arguing that being overly cautious with rules will lead to losing the population's willingness to put up with them. And yet, "this sort of rationality can only be applied in retrospect"... well, /shrug.
Oh, I think you mistook my ping for something it was not!
I meant it more as a nudge towards recontextualizing your own feelings towards the pandemic. It's 100% understandable to have been highly worried or even terrified of it early on. As time goes on, though, we learn and we introspect. I know you're doing better (I follow your posts!), but I also know from them that the virus still made you abnormally anxious even mere months ago. So it had me wondering what you'd think about all of this.
Most of my covid-related rants from the past years were squarely directed at Belgium -- I had enough to worry about with my country, and I frankly didn't have the head-space to worry about the USA. And I didn't mean to accuse you of being too careful in retrospect.
Belgium (Europe in general) is fully back to pre-covid, with sometimes some leftover rules which tend to be for the best, eg. masks are mandatory in hospitals now and that's just what it is. But also, I can absolutely see what Wendover is talking about in that video: I got to see both US-based and EU-based media during the pandemic, and while I couldn't spend a lot of my energy on the US, I still have what I remember now to compare. That quote from Matt Taibbi is … oof. On point.
I also see it in the reactions people had. Between all the people I know, there's a trend: My American friends are/were consistently more worried about Covid than my non-American friends. I understand it now as a symptom of the difference in how the media portrayed it in the US, all excited to present it as a World War Z level pandemic. Blaring sound effects and plastering scary graphs so they can be among those in the TV clip in the first five minutes of the inevitable "They Saw It Coming" movie.
We had some of this here too, but, I dunno how to describe it… it was all just more reasoned. And it was just a gut feeling I had, I thought I was just biased, until I saw this video and now it's like things are starting to click for me and I'm putting two and two together.
I think, until the vaccines came along, the polarization happened over all of this more than anything. The extremes the media went to to scare people were causing some to become defensive. With hindsight, it makes sense that the antivax movement took off in that crowd as soon as there was an opportunity for it to.
And of course the extreme-right was the big winner in all of this: Populist movements in general benefit from keeping people scared. The only question I have left is: Is the rise of the extreme right and left in the US because its media is scarier, or is the media becoming scarier to better appeal to that rising crowd?
Again I think you're misinterpreting my comments; I apologize. I had my fair share of worries about Covid. My now-deceased partner with autoimmune disease got both severely sick from it and was knocked out by the vaccine for four weeks (no exemptions for those at risk in south korea at the time). My current partner has what we're both pretty sure is long covid. And when I did get it, it wasn't a joyride either the first time.
I was fatigued not just by the restrictions but by everything, as most people were. 2020-2021 were by far my worst years in a decade, and it got bad enough that I had suicidal thoughts again.
As I said my post was just an invitation to introspect in the light of the video. I'm sorry I sent the wrong message there.
Totally fair. Sorry I pounced on you. Clearly I still have some more introspection to do myself.
No stress. I always appreciate reading your (especially long-form) comments, you know :)
This factor is actually accounted for in epidemiology generally and disaster planning more particularly.
An executive problem that we saw become especially acute with covid in the US is political chaos. Such a large number of people across the spectrum made it such an important ideological/identity issue that physical barrier precautionary measures (masks, not gathering, social distancing, etc.) became almost wholly ineffective for significant swaths of the population.
I'm also not sure that epidemiological models are able to properly account for this factor, which will make planning even more difficult. But it's certainly an interesting time to be in the field, and I'm sad I left it.
It didn't help that centralized guidance was often too cute by half, leaning towards trying to manipulate people into desired behavior instead of inform people matter-of-factly. Most notably, their attempts to discourage masking in the early phases to ensure supply probably did a big disservice later on.
Thanks for the mention, I will give this a look. I was excessively cautious about covid early on, and retained a defensive paranoia long after most had returned to normal. Today, I'm mostly back to normal myself. The one major lasting change in my life that was brought about by the pandemic is that I'm now a fully remote worker instead of going to an office every day. I still have some underlying apprehension about the still-unknown long term effects of multiple infections over time but I'm able to compartmentalize that now along with all the other non-pathogenic risks of daily life.
One of my many therapy modalities is Acceptance Commitment Therapy. One of it's primary goals/tools is removing this negativity bias from decision making. It's primarily deployed on trauma survivors, as a trauma (especially repeated trauma) essentially extends this negative perception bias across the whole brain, in extreme examples making everything appear as if it is an imminent prelude to another trauma event. It's a real thing in my experience.
I question whether there is any way to standardize measurement of negativity bias from a given media outlet, which means I question the results of the research referenced in the video. But if there is, it would be interesting to me to see how results compare with an index of trauma for each society in which the outlet operates. Standardizaing an index of trauma is probably as fraught as is measuring negativty bias.
I find it amusing that the video could perhaps to be said to deploy the very circumstance it is critiquing. It is, itself, a negative report on the quality of news. And, it could be said to be doing it in service of its commercial sponsor, who, in part, provides (or offers to provide) a solution to the negative bias in any geographic region.