
Why We're Living in the Age of Fear - jonathanehrlich
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/why-were-living-in-the-age-of-fear-w443554
======
cel1ne
We live in the age of fear because the hose of information that floods us is
constantly opened further: Letters → Telegram → Telephone → Radio → TV →
Internet → Mobile Internet.

Human beings need _time_ to manage their emotions. Time spent waiting. Time
being bored. Time when NO new information, not even positive, is arriving.

We are constantly distracted and thus increasingly unable to sort out our
feelings. That is the reason.

And distracted parents that can't give their children at least 15 minutes of
absolutely undivided attention per day worsen their offspring's ability to
manage emotions even further.

That is why Zuckerberg/Facebook's idea "just flood everyone with everything
and it will get better" is dead-wrong.

What Facebook could do to really help the world is turning off it's platform
for one day each week.

~~~
Gruselbauer
There is no feasible way for me to agree more with this.

I very much belong to those negatively affected by this phenomenon. I'd wager
many a HN commenter is. My RSS feeds are a carefully crafted web of
information, as much of a not-echo chamber I can create. From stuff I don't
agree with on almost anything - Breitbart and its national counterparts,
neocon blogs, libertarian thinktanks - to sources I think of as pretty neutral
- like the simple feeds of press conglomerates just feeding headlines - to the
stuff I agree with vehemently and thus view as most dubious, I get it all, all
day, all the time. Even syndicated across devices. I'm very rarely the one to
ask "what are you talking about?" and constantly the one to explain topics.
It's okay, being the AP of your social circles isn't the worst role to fill.

But it does something to you, doesn't it? I feel like my view of this world
has darkened over the years. I'm only thirty years old now and I feel like
we're headed for disaster on a dozen different concurrent tracks. My view of
man has become shrouded in a perpetual gloom, my idea of a future a cycnical
dystopia.

I know that isn't fair or true, but it's become increasingly hard to think
otherwise.

~~~
wu-ikkyu
What practical use do you get out of reading "news" such as:

>Breitbart and its national counterparts, neocon blogs, libertarian thinktanks
- to sources I think of as pretty neutral - like the simple feeds of press
conglomerates just feeding headlines...

If you are feeling such crippling despair from consuming this information, why
are you consuming it (Assuming you're not a sadist.)? Especially when you said
yourself you know it's not true.

"News" is often like fast food -- it's made as quickly and cheaply as
possible, is highly lacking in nutritional value, and is detrimental to
health.

~~~
oarsinsync
If you don't understand the opposing viewpoint, you can't discuss it with
those that agree with it. You're reduced to "no, you're wrong", which is the
same viewpoint they have.

Sticking to places that are skewed towards a similar bias as yourself doesn't
help you understand those that have differing views to you. It can be
especially important to be able to do this when those people are in your
family, in order to keep your family together, rather than letting those
viewpoints tear you apart.

~~~
grillvogel
>If you don't understand the opposing viewpoint, you can't discuss it with
those that agree with it. You're reduced to "no, you're wrong", which is the
same viewpoint they have.

who cares? what is the purpose of exposing yourself to things that will annoy
you that you have no control over, just so you can argue with people?

~~~
oldmanjay
Your attitude is what leads to echo chambers that cause the arguments to be so
awful and polarizing. Your comment would make me laugh if I weren't so sad
knowing it's how most people feel.

~~~
grillvogel
I think you're missing the point which is that "the arguments" don't matter to
begin with.

------
dbingham
I think some of the fear is justified.

Climate change is a very real threat and it's justifiably scary. Our
government, in the last 8 years, used remotely operated drones to carry out
extrajudicial killings of American citizens -- including a teenage boy. Our
security state now engages in mass surveillance of us in a time when our
government is engaging in extraordinary rendition of suspected "terrorists" in
secret with limited oversight. Economic inequality is worse than at almost any
time in human history, including the gilded age prior to the great depression.

That's not rhetoric, those are simple statements of fact. Those things are
scary and fear of them is justified.

We may be -- in this very moment -- at the safest point in human history. But
the fear isn't about where we are. It's about where we're headed.

~~~
jacquesm
> Our government, in the last 8 years, used remotely operated drones to carry
> out extrajudicial killings of American citizens -- including a teenage boy.

Not my government, but still I can't help but wonder why it should matter that
they are American citizens. A very large multiple of citizens of other
countries is murdered in this way and from where I'm sitting I don't see much
difference between the two.

~~~
tossaway1
One reason it matters is because our Constitution explicitly grants citizens
(not foreigners) certain rights. Our government is not allowed to violate
those rights and if they do, they can technically be held accountable. The
government can do shady things to outsiders within the constraints of the
Constitution.

As long as our government is honoring the Constitution, we have some hope of
fixing its problems/flaws. If they decide they don't need to honor the
Constitution, we have little hope of doing so...

~~~
kefka
Hmmm... [https://www.billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-
documents/bil...](https://www.billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-
documents/bill-of-rights/)

I'm not seeing "citizens" or "non-citizens" in any of these contexts.

What I do see is: "Congress shall make no law", "right of the people",
"consent of owner", and likewise.

It's an unpopular view of the Bill of Rights, but shouldn't these rights be
extended to everyone, and not merely "citizens"? Cause I'm certainly not
seeing that word anywhere in there.

~~~
andyouwont33
Reading the Constitution is nowhere near enough to understand 200+ years of
U.S. law.

It's akin to thinking reading the wiki page on Special Relativity means you're
Einstein.

~~~
logfromblammo
In particular, the Supreme Court of the US gets to vote on what the
Constitution means. And that sometimes yields non-intuitive interpretations of
the plainly apparent reading of the rights amendments.

For instance, the 4th Amendment would seem to indicate that the US cannot spy
on foreigners without a warrant. Only two justices had the stones to confirm
that. The majority voted that interpreting the amendment as written would make
it too difficult for the US to gather foreign intelligence. They literally
voted that extending basic human rights to everyone would be _too
inconvenient_.

It doesn't matter if the original intent was to protect everybody, rather than
just citizens, when those tasked with judging cases may be swayed by political
expedience.

It is my opinion that reading the US Constitution _should_ be sufficient to
understand the entire foundation of US law, rather than also being forced to
study several centuries of judicial precedent under Anglo-American Common Law.
As an American, I want the US government to get a warrant before conducting a
search, on anyone, anywhere. I don't particularly care whether they are
citizens, because I don't want the US agent to be an asshole when supposedly
representing and defending my interests.

------
astrocat
Is incessant fear-mongering manipulation the inevitable dystopian end of a
society that is always connected to channels of mass communication? This is
the result of the race to the bottom for eyeballs and attention - the appeal
to fear. Does this ever resolve?

We spend so much time lamenting the demise of journalism, the
sensationalization of media, the fear-mongering, etc... But it's not like
distinct "bad choices" led to this state - it's the simple consequence of TPTB
(well, anyone, really) having the ability to engage wider and wider audiences
(and ultimately everybody) in increasingly real-time creating such fierce
competition for attention that we must eventually use our most powerful
emotional appeals for even the most trivial messages.

I mean, look at me, being all fatalistic - I'm guilty too. But I'm
legitimately curious where we go from here, or perhaps more accurately, where
do people think the bottom really is, and what will happen when we get there?

~~~
exergy
Have you ever felt this sense of weariness on the internet? The idea that
nothing is new, you've seen and heard it all before, and just a state of the
brain being fried? This happens with increasing frequency to me, and is part
of the reason why I seem to be gravitating, inexorably as it were, towards a
low-information diet. No facebook, no instagram/snapchat/social media du jour,
minimal news, and certainly no trump fever.

I have a feeling the future will look more like the past than we'd like to
believe. That eventually, similar to banner-blindness, we'll develop
clickbait-blindness and long form, carefully researched and nuanced pieces
will be a prerequisite if one wants attention.

That or /r/forwardsfromgrandma, but I hope it's the former.

~~~
pmyjavec
I've recently been on my own diet, and I have been experimenting with this
method, when picking up the phone, set a timer, say 15 minutes and only
allocate that much time to news, HN, social media etc.

This is where magazines and some newspapers were good, journalists collated
the interesting stuff for us and gave us a digest to read, which was published
at most, once per day.

------
losteverything
Just stop watching tv and listening to radio. Cold turkey. I quit on 2011.

We need campaigns like the "quit smoking" or "keep america beautiful" (anti
trash): no tv and no radio

I always intended to write a summary on my transition from media junkie to my
present state.

I don't need to know about a person I have never met or a place I will never
go. BUT with the internet I can (on my terms) find out about said person or
said place when I need to.

If something is important, a friend or family member will tell me.

Some irony I think: educatable people spend their working lives building
retirement plans and associating with like minded others. Then once they no
longer work they are in front of a tv (or worse have the TV on all the time at
home) watching less minded and less educated and less sophisicated people.

Watching tv is going back in the progress you made building your life. Why on
earth would a college educated person watch talk-tv? Its like undoing your
entire education.

~~~
reality_czech
And yet, here you are on HN, commenting on a clickbait article.
<trump>Sad!</trump>

------
roymurdock
As a 23 year old I can only imagine what it was like to live through the cold
war with the colossal fear of nuclear annihilation soaking into every
activity/decision.

I feel like it must have been so overwhelming yet intangible - in some ways a
nuclear holocaust is much less painful than losing a loved one in a car
accident or seeing your country splinter into violent factions. A nuclear
holocaust is a quick, binary event - either it happens, or it doesn't.

I also can't imagine what the fear of being drafted into a WWII or Vietnam War
situation would feel like.

Would love to hear what anyone with experience has to say about those "ages"
of fear relative to this new one of mass-media/technology-produced fear.

~~~
malz
Over 100 million of us watched The Day After when it aired, a TV movie about
nuclear war. So not only was it top of mind, the range of media alternatives
was so much smaller.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After)

~~~
losteverything
But.... Imo. Top Of Mind did not last at all. Sure for 2 weeks we talked about
it. But "it" was the movie. Not the fact destruction is coming.

~~~
roymurdock
Interesting...even with a greater existential threat...the lack of available
media made it less of a focus? Even if people had wanted to discuss, they
wouldn't have had the platform or information available to have a discussion
about the threat of nuclear war?

~~~
losteverything
< the lack of available media made it less of a focus?

Yes x10. Atomic war..any subject, really. We didn't know what we didn't have.
If it wasnt on the tv or paper it didn't exist.

"Oddballs" talked about DDT, women's rights, ozone layer, Poverty, gambling,
single parenthood- you name the subject.

Letters to editors gave others' voices. But no way to communicate back.
Magazines gave voices too, but weekly or monthly.

Aside from civil rights and anti Vietnam war organizing there was not much
organizing going on.

I recall a spray painted "go to dc Jan 20" on a pinball joint in my university
city hometown.

Printed flyers on poles organized people for war protests.

The first real "always talked about " thing was Watergate hearings and then of
course the Iran hostages and Nightline each night. Constant update on the
subject.

Talk radio did not exist back then. Am radio djs talked but. Never political

------
Animats
One of the big drivers of fear in the US is the basic feeling that life is
harder than it used to be. The implicit guarantee from society that if you
finished school and worked hard you would have a good life is broken. Trump
has tapped into this feeling, with unexpected success.

In reality, we have met the enemy, and them is us. The US's major problems are
internal, not external. The US's economic problems are mostly because we
haven't figured out what to do about automation. What are average people with
an average high school education going to _do_? That's the big problem.

As for threats, terrorism is down in the noise of routine shootings. ISIS can
hurt us a little now and then, but no way could they invade the US and take
over. Militant Islam will continue to be a headache worldwide, but most of the
strongly Islamic states are failed states. Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt - all
were once strong states able to project power, and now they can't.

Climate change is more of a threat outside the US than to the US directly. The
US isn't going to get unlivable temperatures like parts of the Middle East.
Rising temperatures mean agriculture moves north, and the US has lots of
underutilized north. Most of the US is above the levels affected by sea level
rise. (Except Florida. Florida has a big problem. Miami already has to pump
out their city regularly.)

Nuclear weapons proliferation is a worry, yet one that doesn't show up much
politically. North Korea has nuclear weapons, at least medium-range ballistic
missiles, and a dictator with the power to use them. It's getting too easy to
make nuclear weapons. After all, the technology is 70 years old now.

China is the next superpower, and nobody knows what they'll do. Probably
nothing really foolish. Their leadership is not stupid.

Are we really living in an age of fear, or is that a feeling people in the
media get from listening to their own output too much?

~~~
makomk
In reality, the US media and political system have two sides, both of which
are determined to set fixing the broken economic system and racial
equality/"social justice" against each other. In reality, the media have
responded to demagogues blaming the underlying economic problem on other races
by insisting that the problem doesn't exist, that it's just something made up
by the white working class to justify their racism. In reality, the US's
problems may be internal but that doesn't make it any less fucked.

------
busterarm
This story's opening hits too close to home. I grew up in what was
predominantly a minority and gay neighborhood in NY. My mom was moderate-left
and a musician who you can easily associate with the things and people you'd
associate with NY musicians in the 70s.

Bob Grant, Curtis Sliwa and Rush Limbaugh irrevocably changed my family. My
mom is now a religious-conservative, homophobic, racist bigot. She shouts at
people for no reason. She's gotten into arguments with family members at
family dinners and then called the cops on them to have them removed.

My brother is, thankfully, just conservative. Small miracles.

------
jontayesp
Also, don't discount the role religion plays on fear (yes I am a Christian.)
The popular idea in the church is that we are currently living in the end
times and the world will progressively become more sinful/dangerous until the
earth is destroyed and recreated by Jesus. This is a relatively new idea since
the 19th century, but represents the current theological and emotional state
of the church today. Look at Islam and you will see a similar expectation of
the apocalypse. I think a lot of fear and paranoia in our culture stems from
unhealthy religious belief systems.

~~~
cholantesh
Isn't this mostly a Protestant idea? Most all Catholic/EO christians that I
know dismiss 'end times' theology.

~~~
distances
Or just US Evangelicalism, perhaps? I've never heard that the traditional
European Protestants (Lutheran etc) would be preaching the end of times being
here.

~~~
cholantesh
Right; I wasn't sure if this was a Puritan/Calvinist view, so I cast the net a
bit too broadly.

------
mark_l_watson
This flood of information, especially negative information, is one reason why
I think time meditating is so important. I find that meditation helps me
concentrate on what is important and I feel primed to take care of what needs
to be done, as far as maintaining personal relationships, what work is most
important, looking after spiritual, mental, and physical health, etc.

Turn off the TV and stop binging on the news media.

------
protomyth
Perhaps Rolling Stone would like a little introspection given their fear
mongering and false reporting about the University of Virginia.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/business/media/rolling-
sto...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/business/media/rolling-stone-stays-
focused-as-defamation-trial-is-set-to-begin.html?_r=0)

~~~
dredmorbius
Whataboutism.

 _Rolling Stone_ did retract the story, and has done some considerble
introspection on the topic.

[http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-
campu...](http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-what-
went-wrong-20150405)

A key point of the story for me, having seen multiple other instances of
people claiming narratives which proved false, _is that it is difficult to
guard against someone who is committed to telling and promoting untruth_. The
more so if the person appeals to you as sympathetic or persuasive. This is at
the very heart of the con.

It's why being _both_ compassionate to someone who's claiming wrongdoing,
_and_ making triply-certain you've dotted all 'i's and crossed all 't's is so
crucial.

Hoaxes and (bogus) conspiracy stories, financial and business cons, and
political cons work like this. They press all our psychological levers which
are geared toward belief, and twist them. Piltdown Man, Crop Circles, Clever
Hans (the more so as the perpetrator himself was by all accounts among the
deceived), the Chess Turk, and other hoaxes.

I could draw more examples from current headlines, though that might prove
more divisive.

~~~
protomyth
> Whataboutism

people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones

> Rolling Stone did retract the story, and has done some considerble
> introspection on the topic.

Let's look at that link:

"Erdely and her editors had hoped their investigation would sound an alarm
about campus sexual assault and would challenge Virginia and other
universities to do better."

They weren't reporting news, they were doing advocacy and fear mongering.
Nowhere do they say, this is a bad thing for journalists to do.

"At Columbia, an aggrieved student dragged a mattress around campus to call
attention to her account of assault and injustice. The facts in these cases
were sometimes disputed, but they had generated a wave of campus activism."

"Sometimes disputed: must be the new word for the accused was innocent[1].
Even their outside report is dishonest about the subject.

Also, the whole section on their asking for comment from the fraternity
without providing any information on what the reporter wanted comment about is
beyond unkind.

but as to learning from the experience:

"Yet Rolling Stone's senior editors are unanimous in the belief that the
story's failure does not require them to change their editorial systems."

1) [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/magazine/have-we-
learned-a...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/magazine/have-we-learned-
anything-from-the-columbia-rape-case.html)

------
wu-ikkyu
>Bad news gives people a great survivor emotion. There's a great euphoria that
pours off the bad news item... This survivor emotion is very necessary for
news papers and news reports, also it helps to sell advertising which is all
good news and is therefore very threatening. Good news threatens people with
change. Bad news merely enables them to enjoy the grief of their neighbours.

-Marshall McLuhan

------
nkoren
Slightly OT, but when it says "Every day there are 96 deaths from car
accidents," I think: _Rubbish -- that 's the number of deaths every 42
minutes._

Then I realise: _Oh, they 're just giving statistics for America. The non-
existence of the rest of the world is assumed._

In fact I largely concur with with the central thesis of this article, but
this is a global phenomena and needs to be seen in that perspective.

~~~
grecy
> _this is a global phenomena and needs to be seen in that perspective_

You are correct that it's global, though like many negative-cultural things,
America is currently clearly "leading" the way, and the west of the developed
world is trailing far behind, though, unfortunately, they are trying to catch
up.

------
c2the3rd
I find this sort of answer unsatisfyingly incomplete.

All the examples of people who profit off fear: mass media, lawyers,
politicians, and industrial pharmaceuticals have all existed for decades
longer than the current age of fear. That makes them insufficient as a cause.
There must be something else.

~~~
wmccullough
Disclaimer: I'm not a scientist, sociologist, psychologist or any other -ist,
so I'm not saying this from a quantitative place. This comes from a place of
observation on my part. Take it for what it is.

I think fear is a natural human attribute left over from an earlier time in
human existence, I really do.

From a young age, if we're lucky enough to have parents, we flock to them
because we perceive that the monster under the bed will get us.

In our teenage years, we fear the next steps of our lives and I'd dare say
that even the most introverted kid wants to fit in.

In our twenties, we fear being successful or not.

These are gross oversimplifications, but I think the point is illustrated. I
think there are two parts to this fear thing. I think we humans are naturally
fearful due to thousands of years of biology, and I think we look to leaders
out of fear, there's certainly enough evidence of this if you just look at
society as a whole and how we behave. Time and time again, societies
throughout history look to leaders to placate our fears. The Stanley Milgram
experiments touch on this too.

Now for what I perceive to be the dark part of this whole thing. Our leaders
have learned that we can be controlled through fear. I say learned, but I
possibly mean that this is biological too. If you look back throughout
societies, all great societies either were, or eventually became autocratic.
We live for someone else to make the scary monsters go away.

Sadly, I think we need fear. Have a look at the Universe 25 experiments to see
what happens when a society has all needs met. Spoiler: It appears to end in
death and mentally ill behavior.

~~~
pjc50
Universe 25 did not have _all_ its needs met: it was chronically overcrowded.
That was the whole point of Calhoun's experiments.

~~~
wmccullough
Thank you for the info, I missed that part.

------
kawera
For those wanting to go deeper on this subject, a very good book is Dan
Gardner's "Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear".

------
mancerayder
(Off Topic)

I posted a similarly-minded article, also from Rolling Stone, and it got
flagged. While Trump was in the article's title, the flagger may not have read
it since it was a bigger-picture article about the media and political system
as a whole.

What's the line between flaggable and acceptable when it comes to articles
such as these?

~~~
daveloyall
Especially since user comments about candidates are the new norm, at least for
the past several days.

------
jessaustin
_According to [some survey], Americans are most afraid of corruption of
government officials..._

This is so rational (obviously corruption is common) and long-term-focused
(corruption will eventually destroy the state, but it will take a really long
time) that I'm a bit impressed by my fellow citizens...

~~~
mwfunk
I suspect that it's the opposite of what you might hope it would be. I suspect
that the fear of corruption of government officials is almost entirely based
on accusations of corruption from their political opponents, and that those
same Americans don't believe that "their" politicians are equally corrupt.

I do think there is actual corruption on all sides, simply because of the fact
that money and campaign donations are such huge factors in the political
process. I think every American should be horrified by this and should be
doing everything they can to take money out of what is effectively our hiring
process for high-level government officials.

However, I fear that this is not what [some survey] picked up on. I fear that
[some survey] picked up on fans of politician X believing X's accusations of
corruption on the part of politician Y were true, while simultaneously not
believing allegations of corruption about their own candidate. And vice versa.
I fear that all [some survey] picked up on is the sheer toxicity of the
process nowadays, and not people who are concerned about the integrity of the
political process itself.

~~~
jessaustin
There are probably some true believers left, but everyone I've talked to in
the last several years sees the corruption that exists on both sides. The
surprising thing about the survey for me was that lots of people see that
corruption as a major problem.

------
Ccecil
I have asked no less than 10 people why they listen to talk radio when it is
clearly propaganda. The response is strangely always almost verbatim "I like
to stay informed". It amazes me that they always say the same thing in
response. I have found a similar thing when I mention I have no Facebook
account...the response is almost always "I just like to keep in touch with
people"...but they never seem to point out these are typically people that
they stopped talking to years back for a reason. Has this person called you in
the last 10 years? When was the last time you actually saw them in person?

Whenever I get the exact same response from multiple people I start to
question the role of social media and "news" in brainwashing of the masses.

~~~
edanm
I have lots of family that I am not in daily contact with. I still like to see
pictures of them and know what's going on in their lives.

Same goes for some friends that I'm not in active contact with.

You can disagree with how other people conduct their lives, but I'd be careful
to conclude it's "brainwashing".

~~~
Ccecil
When was the last time you just called one of them? Or stopped by for a visit?

I apologize if I upset you by implying mass brainwashing...I just find it odd
that many share the same reasoning.

In my personal opinion...social media furthers the disconnect from actual
relationships and creates imaginary ones that are based on reading posts and
looking at pictures but you never really get to see the real person.

~~~
edanm
And in _my_ personal opinion, social media allows me to be almost 100% more in
touch with my family that lives on the other side of the globe, who I would
probably barely think about if it wasn't for Facebook. Personally, I find this
a good thing. In the counterfactual world in which FB didn't exist, I would
have zero contact with them - now I have some.

I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong, everyone can make their own choice
about what's better for them. I'm just saying:

1\. It's a _huge_ leap to go from "many people disagree with me" to "may
people are brainwashed". Note that tons of the HN population share your views,
but I never said I think you are all brainwashed, and I think it would be
pretty silly to say so.

2\. Saying that social media furthers the disconnect from actual relationships
is a pretty big statement, and without real proof it's mostly anecdotal.
Everyone has opinions on what is good or not, worthy or not, moral or not, etc
- I really think more people should just trust that others know what they're
doing. If people use FB and say _why_ they use FB, it's not a 100% certainty
that they're right, but give people the benefit of the doubt regarding their
own choices!

3\. Most people share the same reasoning on why balls fall to the floor when
released from the hand. That's not a weird thing - it's because gravity is
real.

Btw, I'm not upset at all, just disagree :)

~~~
Ccecil
Lol...I get everything except the balls thing. But anyways...no problem. Do as
you please.

Not saying it is wrong to disagree with me...just saying that there is a
common theme in responses...which makes me concerned. I wasn't intending to
put down those who use social media. Just stating 2 cases where I see a near
verbatim response from multiple people in different locations and times. It
brings out my paranoia that their response is "scripted" in some way. Not
saying I am correct in any way...just a concern I have.

------
droopybuns
Fear, like Sex, is a foundational human motivator that has been shown to
persuade people to buy things. I don't believe there is anything new going on
now. [https://youtu.be/IKqXu-5jw60](https://youtu.be/IKqXu-5jw60)

------
dreamlayers
There might be some kind of homoeostasis for anxiety. If you're not facing
serious threats, anxiety gets amplified, and if you're facing serious threats
it gets reduced, so it doesn't vary too much. It would be similar to how some
say there is a happiness set-point.

~~~
amelius
> If you're not facing serious threats, anxiety gets amplified

By whom? And does this entity know whether or not you already have your share
of anxiety?

~~~
pjc50
By _homoeostasis_ , same as all the other chemical processes that maintain the
body.

------
kukx
Is this time any different than previous? Well at least the fear of nuclear
annihilation is smaller. It's kinda normal for the US to think it's on the
brink of a disaster. And it's normal for Europeans to think the US supremacy
will end at any moment. And still it doesn't and the US is better off than any
time before.

~~~
cicero
What is different today is the Internet. Before that we had TV and radio,
which also magnified fear, but not to the extent as the Internet where you can
find the "news source" that best fits your particular fears.

~~~
kukx
I don't think it makes much, if any difference. The internet can be used to
spread misinformation, but it can also be used for fact checking. So the net
outcome is not that obvious. I'm curious to see some hard data on this
subject.

------
bksenior
There was a big change to consumerism around the second WW. I cant recommend
this doc enough:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s&feature=youtu.be)

~~~
nyolfen
incidentally, the director of this film released a new film last night which
is relevant to the topic at hand:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFtsrjlsclQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFtsrjlsclQ)

(if it's yanked off youtube before you can watch, the title is
'hypernormalisation')

------
grecy
I'm traveling in West Africa right now, and it's fascinating me how different
the reality here on the ground is to what thousands of people tried to warn me
off. A huge percentage of people think "Africa" is a war-torn, disease
infested hell hole and that I would be murdered on day one.

I have spent a massive amount of time wondering why people have such a
distorted view of reality, and are so adamant about it - even though they have
zero first, second or even third hand experience.

I honestly believe it's caused by the 24-hour "news" spin-cylce in America.

Those "news" stations discovered long ago they need sensationalist stories to
continually hook people in. They need shock value, they need over-the-top. And
so it goes that when they report on "Africa" they report about some war. Then
a month later it's Ebola on the other side of the continent. Then a month
later it's famine in some other distant part of the continent. Never mind that
in the mean time hundreds of millions of warm, kind, generous people are
happily living their lives, smiling, partying and loving life. The picture
mass media paints simply does not include 99.9% of what actually happens here,
because it's not sensationalist enough for their ratings. And so the average
American sitting at home is told that "Africa" is war/disease/famine, which is
only a tiny percentage of the whole picture. The "news" stations are not
actually lying, they're just painting a fraction of the overall truth. And
it's the fraction that gets them good ratings, not the fraction that everyday
people need to know about to be well informed about the world.

Exactly the same thing is true of the reporting of Australia in America.
Australia is actually a very stable place, nothing much really happens (no
civil war, no prime ministers assassinated, little violence etc.) Of course,
the media looks for something sensationalist, and now a massive number of
people think Australia is "full of deadly animals waiting to kill you". The
first time I saw a report of a shark attack in Australia on TV in America I
was gob smacked and thought 50 people must have died by the way they were
carrying on for 5 hours. In fact one person had a small bite on their leg that
needed a few stitches. Having lived there for 23 years I can tell you the
majority of Australians have never even seen a deadly animal, but that doesn't
stop the American media painting that false picture and the false story
continuing.

In the case of Australia it's mostly funny/harmless, and characters like Steve
Irwin even played up to it really successfully. Obviously in the case of
Africa it's extremely harmful.

I think it's terrifying when the outlet a society relies upon to receive
information about the world is so utterly biased and wrong. When 330 million
people don't know the truth, how can they make good decisions?

~~~
knz
> Australia is actually a very stable place, nothing much really happens (no
> civil war, no prime ministers assassinated, little violence etc.) Of course,
> the media looks for something sensationalist, and now a massive number of
> people think Australia is "full of deadly animals waiting to kill you".

America is the same. Despite all of the rhetoric about the election, gun
violence, and policing the US is largely a safe and stable country. Are there
major issues to address? Sure - but every country has those (Europe has seen a
similar rise in politicians such as Trump, every OECD country is having
similar growing pains related to the changes in employment/housing patterns,
and violence related to gangs/drugs is an issue just about everywhere).

The challenge of course is to stay aware of the issues facing the world and
society without getting caught up in the fear. Stability doesn't make
addressing issues such as police shootings, mass surveillance, or terrorism
are any less important.

~~~
wepple
Whilst I mostly agree, I think the key difference is that the US has a
majority control of international media, and whilst they love to hype up
domestic concerns for viewer ratings, they're significantly more reckless when
talking about "not-America".

The fact that you level Australia and the US has both "safe and stable"; the
US is an order of magnitude more troublesome than Aus (As someone who has
lived in Australia but currently lives in & loves the US)

~~~
knz
I grew up in New Zealand and have visited Australia many times (and still have
many friends and family living in Australia). I now live in Minnesota.

Is it really any better there? Australia has it's own history of crime related
violence, corrupt police, poor treatment of Aboriginal people, poverty, child
abuse, drug crimes, and offshore detention centers. Australia is also another
major country that seems to ignore environmental issues. Australia only has
12% of the population that the US has - I suspect that if the population was
larger the similarities would be even more apparent.

I love visiting Australia but there are definitely some issues under the
surface there.

~~~
wepple
Yeah actually you make some fairly valid points. In some ways, Trump reminds
me a lot of Abbott (who's name escaped me so I googled "stupid australian
prime minister" and was rewarded with the first result), and while organized
crime in Aus is a lot less controlling, if Australia were US-scale it would
be.

My gut feel is still that Australia is more forward thinking; gun control and
healthcare aren't an absolute nightmare. Then again Australia won't touch
marriage equality because of a strong enough pocket of conservative religious
people in smaller towns.

Hello from fellow Kiwi who's lived in straya for a few years (amongst other
places) and somehow currently landed in new york :)

------
mouzogu
Using biology to justify simple laziness, prejudice and bigotry seems
contrived and unnecessary to me.

My amygdala, as far as i know, cannot tell whether my fears are real or
imagined. Whether the imminent danger will really kill me or whether i will
just wake up in a cliched hot sweat.

We are supposed to be reasonable, open minded and balanced people. This is the
criteria by which we should analyse the politics of fear. As opposed to
looking for some primeval trigger within our supposedly fatalistic brains.

------
pklausler
The best defense: honing one's critical thinking skills.

~~~
BOOSTERHIDROGEN
any books ?

~~~
pklausler
I am fond of Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the
Dark".

------
chippy
I suspect that this is due to a human psychological flaw based in living in
the present.

Consider this: We all think, right now, that this time is the most important
time that has ever happened in history. Right?

Consider this also: Everyone has always thought that about their own moment in
time. Every time in history has been considered to be the most important
moment in time.

Consider this a bit more: Think about yourself in ten years time - you would
be thinking your time then as being the most important time. People in the
future will think their own time as the most important.

We can either assume two things from this: 1) That time increases the
importance, value and crucialness of the present continually from when humans
begun until the infinite future. or 2) that we have a flaw in our thinking.

When I've brought this up in this forum, people will defend today. They will
say that today really is the most important, and bring up examples from
technology etc. They will demonstrate their bias of living in the present day.
Think about risk - is today more or less risky in terms of nuclear war than
during the Cuban missile crisis? Is today more or less risky for your family
in terms of disease and quality of life? We are biased, and it's in our very
brains. We want to defend our faulty perceptions of reality, as they are
literally our reality. But it's not the truth of the matter, and it's not
logical. So I expect you to defend the current day.

The article touched on this - in terms of crime, it's much better than it has
been. It's easy to say, but we don't feel or believe this. It must be wrong,
right? Perhaps it always has felt wrong.

Another flaw about memory - which is probably related. We don't tend to
remember ourselves being as scared or anxious in this kind of daily effect, in
the past. Thus the past feels better through our memories.

I've studied the fear of crime. This is perceptions compared with the actual
risks and actual levels of crime. One way to ask people about how fearful is
to consult their memory - "how many times in the last week, when walking down
the high street, did you see something that made you fearful". This is a
better question than "do you think the high street is more dangerous these
days?".

So, in conclusion - we are biased to our present days. We have trouble
comparing what we felt like in the past with the time now. We cannot easily
extrapolate how we think and feel about today with the future. We are not
really living in the age of fear, we just are currently feeling that we do.
Indeed, we always think and feel that we are. We need to recognize our
perceptions of reality shape our realities.

------
guard-of-terra
Well maybe we should stop backing people into a corner then?

For example, why don't back down on immigration? Instead, it sounds like
"we're not listening to your concerns, rightful or not, your opinion won't
affect how things are done". Hard to imagine how this treatment won't lead to
panic attacks.

Actually, countries definitely become harder and harder on immigration but
there's a failure to project these changes to fellow voters.

While reading this article I've got the exact feeling that, to the author,
it's much more important to reinforce immigration than care about fellow
citizens' feelings.

~~~
Noseshine

      > Well maybe we should stop backing people into a corner then?
    

I agree with you thus far...

    
    
      > For example, why don't back down on immigration?
    

But why this? I would ask for one thing: Rationality and existence of a
connection.

For example, if my country Germany is any guide, the parts of the country with
the most fear of immigration are the ones least affected by it! Given that
missing connection, how would it solve anything to listen to the demand of
people in those regions to limit immigration?

I agree with you - but only if the people demanding something are actually
affected by it, both ways (i.e. by the thing itself as well as by what they
demand).

~~~
megous
In Czech Republic, it's even more pronounced. The government accepted in total
about 20 immigrants from Syria so far and if you read comments on the
internet, or watch demonstrations, it's like the end of the world is coming.

Also some of the fear might be quite shallow. There was a report of some old
lady in the village that accepted some refugees. She was first afraid when
asked about newcomers, stating fears that are commonly represented in the
media. Then when she was told that they have children, and lack some stuff,
she went there and donated some clothes.

Hardliners that join fringe political parties are probably quite different.
But also less open to reason. But I suspect that most people's fears can be
quite easily ameliorated.

~~~
nostromo123
If all refugees behaved like that, with a willingness to integrate and
understand our ways, I think there would be much less fear going around.

The people start being afraid when they see that some of the so-called
refugees are violent, look down on women / homosexuals / Christians / Jews /
etc., try to live by their own law, and so on. In a word, we are tolerant and
have to accept their intolerance.

Don't believe me? Just look at the reports of Christian refugees being mobbed
by Muslim refugees in asylums in Germany. I don't understand why in such a
situation the Christian refugees have no right to be protected, while the
Muslims have to be shown "tolerance" for their "religious beliefs". Or Muslim
refugees openly declaring in German newspaper interviews that Hitler was a
great man and Jews should be eradicated. Do we really want such people in
Western countries?

This is what makes people afraid, not the fact that someone has a different
skin colour or a different religion. Sure there are some lunatic "white
supremacists" / bona fide racists, but most people's fears are legitimate and
not born out of xenophobia or racism. And this is the obstacle to a reasonable
discussion: usually, any such fears are dismissed with the "you're racist"
comment. Sorry, I don't think I'm racist just because I don't subscribe to the
idea that Jews should be exterminated.

------
dreta
Funny to see this on a site that publicly crucified a guy falsely accused of
rape, and pushed the “1 in 5 women get raped on campus” myth.

------
dudul
Maybe because of media and news websites publishing stories such Jackie
Coakley's... and then wondering why we live in the Age of Fear...

------
kingkawn
We'll get bored of fear soon too

------
wnevets
Is this age of fear really any different than the previous?

~~~
mwfunk
Perhaps. If you think of irrational or uninformed fears as memes (in the
classic sense, not the "pictures with captions" sense) that propagate through
a society, the Internet provides mechanisms for those memes to spread much
more quickly, and with far less resistance, than before.

At the same time, these same communications mechanisms allow falsehoods to be
debunked much more effectively, assuming that readers would rather believe
hard boring truths than comfortable exciting falsehoods. Then again, I've seen
enough people (even on HN!) say things like, "I would rather be passionate
about a lie than bored by a truth" (paraphrasing) that I wonder if even this
is true.

------
sickbeard
People living in times of peace have a distorted reality field where they
believe things are about to get them and the end of times is imminent. When
you look at actual data, none of these are true.

------
nsxwolf
How come I'm not afraid?

------
anigbrowl
As a practical matter, when large parts of the population are heavily
motivated by manufactured/social fears (as opposed to practical fears of
things like bad weather bringing famine), civil unrest and instability is not
far behind.

The United States faces a grave situation in which a significant portion of
the electorate may reject the outcome next month if it does not go their way,
and the side that is more likely to lose is also the side that is most heavily
armed because it is most fearful. Scared people with significant access to
weapons is a recipe for disaster, as we already see in the context of many
individual situations.

This might seem an overly pessimistic view of the US election context, which
after all has often evoked bitter rivalries many times in the past only for
them to evaporate by election day. I think this time is significantly
different not only for historical reasons that need not be rehearsed here, but
because this time the Us is in line with a global trend of rejecting
democratic institutions and market solutions in favor of ideology and force -
hence the rise of so many far-right parties and strongmen everywhere from
Europe to the Philippines.

Most people don't have the intelligence or education to fully comprehend the
complexity of a global marketplace and the regulatory and technological
structures that underpin it. Further, most people don't have the resources or
patience to wait for long-promised economic benefits to reach them in a time
of deep economic uncertainty. The last 25 years have been a fantastic time to
make money - if you're inclined or drawn towards certain styles of
entrepeneurship. If you're not a business person and just want to make a
living and raise a family, and you didn't happen to pick a career in the right
sector of the right growth industry, they've been pretty shitty; a lot of
people have seen their household incomes fall in real terms, and the ones
without the know-how to see the reasons for such economic changes are pretty
angry.

Most people just want to go to work, get paid, and raise a family with a
similar or slightly better standard of living than they experienced as
children. They're not interested in becoming too knowledgeable in economics,
political theory, law, technology and so on. Their parents didn't bother with
much of that and they did fine, because the developed world saw huge economic
growth during the cold war and earlier generations experienced at great
standard of living at a reasonable cost, in many cases leaving much of the
bill for future generations. This seemed rational at a time when unlimited
economic growth seemed inevitable and there was no real awareness of global
environmental impacts. Automation was supposed to allow us all to work a bit
less and enjoy more and more leisure, etc. etc. The fact that many of these
expectations have turned out to be ill-founded may be the result of
conspiracy, or of simple naive optimism, or some combination of the two. It
doesn't matter.

What does matter is that the socio-economic-political consensus of 'western
civilization' has broken down and we are now facing the possibility of massive
structural instability and existential risk. To put it bluntly, I would say
there's a 50% possibility of global scale war within the next 5 years. The
_best_ outcome I foresee is limited civil unrest followed by a second cold
war.

Long-time readers may recall that I'm not big on hyperbole.

------
rimher
Michael Crichton was right

------
life_is_short
What's the tldr? After 1000+ words I still can't see it. I wish articles said
the main point in the beginning.

------
squozzer
Mass media fear-mongering has been around as long as I have been alive, and as
easy to reach as the evening news.

------
throwaway98237
Strong AI on the horizon, about the same horizon as quantum computing and
pervasive robotics; the new triad. Nuclear arsenals capable of destroying the
world several times over. Biological weapons that can be created and deployed
by organizations much, much smaller than traditional state actors. Social
media educating us that systemic racism has been causing systemic killings of
certain parts of our population. Whistle blowers educating us that privacy is
all but dead. Trump is on the ballot. Yeah, there is reason to be afraid.

