I think Schneier is speaking about our memories of events in retrospect, however. Spectacular, strange and rare events are more punctuated in our memories, and therefore take up more of our mind share when reflecting on the past.
What's going on now, in the moment, seems to be something different. I keep hearing people taking minor news stories and blowing them up into apocalyptic scenarios like they WANT them to be true. As an example, there was a story a few days ago about how some tigers at the Bronx Zoo were infected. The next day, I overheard some people talking about how Covid19 is now infecting pets and there are animals spreading it in the streets of NY. Nearly every day I'm hearing things like this. Go look at the trending movies on Netflix - every one of them has to do with pandemics or the world ending. People want to fantasize about these realities. Why is that? It has to be some kind of coping mechanism. Is this an expression of society's deep discontent with the way things are and a desire to see it all come down? Whatever it is, for some reason, imagining the worst case scenario decreases pain/increases pleasure for a lot of people. It's fascinating.
That's a great article, thanks for sharing. I definitely agree that life seems easier in a post-apocalyptic scenario in the same way that re-writing some software from scratch is easier than just fixing it :P i.e. it seems that way now, but definitely isn't when you get there. However, having it as a waypoint marker sure is comforting.
What's going on now, in the moment, seems to be something different. I keep hearing people taking minor news stories and blowing them up into apocalyptic scenarios like they WANT them to be true. As an example, there was a story a few days ago about how some tigers at the Bronx Zoo were infected. The next day, I overheard some people talking about how Covid19 is now infecting pets and there are animals spreading it in the streets of NY. Nearly every day I'm hearing things like this. Go look at the trending movies on Netflix - every one of them has to do with pandemics or the world ending. People want to fantasize about these realities. Why is that? It has to be some kind of coping mechanism. Is this an expression of society's deep discontent with the way things are and a desire to see it all come down? Whatever it is, for some reason, imagining the worst case scenario decreases pain/increases pleasure for a lot of people. It's fascinating.
Here's a great article on the subject: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/psychology...