Our negativity bias. Our apocalyptic bias. Our everything-is-doomed bias.
Our tendency to expect catastrophic outcomes. To focus too much on extreme conclusions. On worst case scenarios. On the end of the world!
Ignoring more moderate, realistic possibilities … Overestimating how sudden and total and irreversible things are going to be … Thinking from our fear and anxiety … As though everything were about to collapse …
Looking to fill our apocalyptic bingo cards …
Our apocalyptic thinking. Our Manichean thinking. Our mad dualisms of absolute good and absolute evil. Our understanding of life as a cosmic struggle.
The way we’re magnetised by bad news. The way we zoom in on threats.
Our catastrophizing. Our black and white thinking.
It’s group-think, of a sort. It’s a group polarisation. Where we drive each other to ever more extreme positions … Where we reward each other’s madness. Normalise it!
The way we don’t just agree, but intensify each other. In our apocalyptic echo chamber. In our impatience with careful reasoning. With all constructive solutions. In our ideological hothousing. In our drunken hothousing.
Always us versus them. Always goodies and baddies. Nothing is ever moderate for us. Always vortices of panic and hopelessness.
Like we’re always playing apocalyptic bingo. Like we’re looking to fill our cataclysmic bingo cards.
Our apocalyptic frisson. Our apocalyptic thrills.
Driving each other to even greater extremity! Feeding each other’s madness!
Reinforcement, right? Norm shifting. The extreme feels normal to us.
Moderation seems like naivete to us. The greatest naivete!
Work in Progress 