{"id":101393,"date":"2009-12-04T22:22:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-05T03:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18884161.post-2369792038527309353"},"modified":"2009-12-04T22:22:36","modified_gmt":"2009-12-05T03:22:36","slug":"sensationalism-can-divert-empathy-toward-wrong-causes-cancer-and-malnutrition-being-the-ones-that-suffer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/101393","title":{"rendered":"Sensationalism can divert empathy toward wrong causes: cancer and malnutrition being the ones that suffer"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<p>But there is a more general impact by information providers in biasing the representation of the world one gets from the delivered information. It is a fact that our brain tends to go for superficial clues when it comes to risk and probability, these clues being largely determined by what emotions they elicit or the ease with which they come to mind. <\/p>\n<p><strong><font color=\"#800000\">In addition to such problems with the perception of risk, it is also a scientific fact, and a shocking one, that both risk detection and risk avoidance are not mediated in the &quot;thinking&quot; part of the brain but largely in the emotional one (the &quot;risk as feelings&quot; theory). The consequences are not trivial: It means that rational thinking has little, very little, to do with risk avoidance.<\/font><\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>Much of what rational thinking seems to do is rationalize one&#8217;s actions by fitting some logic to them.     <br \/>In that sense the description coming from journalism is certainly not just an unrealistic representation of the world but rather the one that can fool you the most by grabbing your attention via your emotional apparatus-the cheapest to deliver sensation. <\/p>\n<p> Take the mad cow &quot;threat&quot; for example: Over a decade of hype, it only killed people (in the highest estimates) in the hundreds as compared to car accidents (several hundred thousands1)-except that the journalistic description of the latter would not be commercially fruitful. (Note that the risk of dying from food poisoning or in a car accident on the way to a restaurant is greater than dying from mad cow disease.) <\/p>\n<p>This sensationalism can divert empathy toward wrong causes: cancer and malnutrition being the ones that suffer the most from the lack of such attention. Malnutrition in Africa and Southeast Asia no longer causes the emotional impact &#8211; so it literally dropped out of the picture. In that sense the mental probabilistic map in one&#8217;s mind is so geared toward the sensational that one would realize informational gains by dispensing with the news. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>From <\/p>\n<p><em>Fooled by Randomness<\/em>    <br \/>Nassim Nicholas Taleb    <br \/>Penguin Books\/Random House 2007<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img width='1' height='1' src='https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/18884161-2369792038527309353?l=gmopundit.blogspot.com' alt='' \/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>But there is a more general impact by information providers in biasing the representation of the world one gets from the delivered information. It is a fact that our brain tends to go for superficial clues when it comes to risk and probability, these clues being largely determined by what emotions they elicit or the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":710,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}