Good morning John and welcome to this special report from the Vlogbrothers newsroom.
Today, January 3rd, 2014 at 10:00 AM Pacific Time, the Golden Gate Bridge did not collapse.
110,000 vehicles were safely conveyed over 8,000 feet from one side of the bridge to the other,
including cars, trucks, semi-trucks, not even to mention the countless bicyclists and pedestrians.
The bridge did not collapse, despite being exposed to harsh weather conditions and constant vibrations
for more than 76 years.
The death count at this point is unknown, but is thought to be zero.
Thanks for sharing all the good news John, and there is so much good news. But there's also bad news.
Including the fact that many people seem to be physically incapable of believing that there is good news
in the world. There were a lot of comments on your video and I'm not saying all, but a lot saying things like:
"Divorce rates are only down because the economy is in shambles and people can't afford them anymore."
NOPE.
"Infant mortality's only down because there are more abortions being performed."
"Yeah, people are getting cured of more diseases but there are more diseased people."
"Well, my Internet speeds didn't get any faster, so I don't believe it."
It does actually seem hard to believe that the world is getting better and there are reasons for that.
And it's not just cable news, which we love to complain about.
#1: Psychology.
Studies show that we weigh bad stuff happening to us about two times more heavily than we weigh good stuff,
which means that we have to have, like, two times more good stuff happen to us just to think that the world
is good and we have bad stuff happen to us.
Second: Probability.
So if your newspaper only covered you and the 1,000 nearest people to you, there would be about
one murder per lifetime, but as we expand that circle to all seven billion people on the Earth,
there are terrible things happening pretty much every moment of every day. Terrible and unusual,
which our brains like to know about just in case they might affect us, and so we pay attention to all of it,
and it's just too much.
#3: Entropy.
Things fall apart, destroying stuff is easy, building it is hard. The universe tends to disorder, so just keeping
stuff from falling down is hard. like, everyday, the Golden Gate Bridge doesn't collapse is a victory that goes
uncelebrated. And yet, mostly bad stuff doesn't happen, so we are constantly surrounded by good news,
which makes it pretty boring, so we don't talk about it. Part of the big psychological theory of mind is that our
brains pick out unusual things and focus on them and so we don't think about all of the great stuff
that just works and happens and no problems. There's gas in the gas station and food at the grocery store.
#4: Good is gradual.
Bad stuff happens in spikes. Like, stock markets crash. They don't crash upwards, just down.
There's no good equivalent of a terrorist attack. You can't crash a cancer cure into a hospital and just
*Pwsh* everybody's better, can't go to the airport with a gun that shoots healthy kidneys and then shoot a bunch
late stage diabetics. Kidneys just flying inside of people. Plt Plt Plt. Plt. I got four now!
Good stuff happens gradually over a long period of time. And that's okay.
Finally, #5: Bias.
All these factors pile up on each other and we start to believe that only bad stuff ever happens in the world
and once we believe that, we only take into account information that reinforces it.
This is cognitive bias called confirmation bias, which I think is why a lot of people were trying to poke holes
in what you said in your last video John, because it didn't fit with the worldview of "The world is messed up and
broken and going downhill like crazy." And so you try and figure out why that isn't the case
when in fact, it just is. The world's okay. I'm not saying though that it's all unicorns and Sherlock premieres.
Income inequality in the US is ridiculous. We have the highest incarceration rate in the world,
and global climate change is going to threaten the stability of everything. I've got nothing against caution,
we should be cautious. But we should also not be pessimistic, because that's just going to hold us back.
John, I'll see you on Tuesday.
I drew these things on the back of Hanklerfish drawings, so if you got a Hanklerfish drawing,
there's a chance that you will get one of these. And if you're interested in psychology, which is a lot of what
we were talking about in this video, I am pleased to announce that the next season of Crash Course,
I will be doing Crash Course psychology. Also, go subscribe to Grace's new channel, youtube.com/itsgrace