amygdala

I think we live in the most incredible time ever.

A lot of people don’t feel this way.

In fact, most people think the world is going to shit!

How could this be?

A good place to start is the Amygdala.

The Amygdala is our “fear center”, responsible for processing threats.

It’s the part of our brain that makes it hard to ignore bad things.

From a survival standpoint, this is quite helpful.

You only need to get killed once. You can’t afford to ignore deadly threats.

This tendency for the brain to focus on the bad is called “negativity bias.”

Enter The Attention Economy

Almost all media (from newspapers to the news to social media) is paid for by ADS.

Ads need eyeballs. The more eyeballs see an ad, the more people buy the advertiser’s stuff.

This is why advertisers will always pay more money for more eyeballs.

Media companies get paid by the advertisers and are incentivized to provide as many eyeballs as possible.

Since eyeballs are attracted to negative news, media companies prioritize negative stories.

In other words, “if it bleeds, it leads”.

The news should give us a balanced view of the world. Instead, it gives us a negative view.

No wonder so many people think the world sucks.

Thankfully, you can easily override this system.

All you have to do is curate a diet of positive information.

Peter Diamandis is my favorite person to get positive news from.

He has a podcast called Moonshots that talks about bold solutions to humanity’s biggest challenges.

I’m always in a better mood after listening to this podcast.

Great things are happening all the time. You just have to know where to look.

Here’s some of what happened just in 2024:

• 20 million hectares of degraded forest land have been restored since 2020.

• The progression of Alzheimer’s has been slowed by up to 40% in a late 2024 clinical trial.

• Global poverty has dropped below 7% worldwide – the lowest in recorded history.

• Over 80% of the world now has access to the internet.

• Rapid advancements in solar, nuclear, and wind power rapidly lead us to an age of energy abundance.

I’ll end this email by saying that no one knows what’s actually going to happen.

Maybe we arrive at a total utopia. Maybe the nukes get dropped tomorrow.

No one knows, so we might as well adopt the worldview that makes us the most happy and productive.

For me, that’s living with massive excitement for the future.

I hope you feel the same way.

See you next week ✌️

If you found this post helpful/entertaining or know someone who would, I’d love if you could share it with them and invite them to subscribe:

https://www.entreflaneur.com/p/amygdala

Cool things I found during my weekly internet stroll.

1893 Chicago World's Fair doc narrated by Willy Wonka.

How to have an epic 2025.

Most insane stuff from CES 2025. Includes the Nuwa Pen that digitizes your writing, no matter what surface you write on. Super cool.

Most impressive AI avatar demo I’ve seen to date.

Served up by Spijker & me.

Ulelè | Moeaike, Samm (BE), Ajna (BE)

Say It Right - Extended Mix | Bush B4 Me