We’re so weird: we love hearing bad news about other people but avoid it when it is about us

Sometimes people are weird, irrational cave men pretending to be civilized and rational. Our response to bad news or improbable events is a case in point. We all know that bad news sells: people are addicted to bad news about others, but there is a caveat: as long as its not too close to home or about them. On the other hand 90% of people delay or avoid preventive care appointments that could identify serious illness, and I would include the serious illness our sick planet is suffering from in this thought. That is weird. We revel in hearing bad in others but actively avoid it when it an issue that could kill us.

On top of that there is another level of weirdness in terms of how most of institutions, such as the medical system avoid looking for rare problems that are difficult to identify and tough to cure as well. In the medical world there is even an expression for this: When you Hear Hoof Beats, think Horses, not Zebras. What it means is that Doctors are trained NOT to look for rare diseases [zebras] until they have exhausted looking for the common illnesses [horses]. There are two problems with this. In the real world, especially when the medical system is stretched to the breaking point, they never get around to looking for the zebras – until things are catastrophically bad, and thus usually too late for a positive outcome. Secondly, in north America 10% of [sick] people suffer from a rare disease – so they really re not that rare, but as there are 10,000 of them and only 5% are curable it is understandable why the medical system tries to avoid dealing with them. The result of this is that it takes on average 5 years to be diagnosed for a rare disease: once again, this is often too late.

Taken together, these two human bits of weirdness means that it is to be expected that most of us are incapable of dealing with the deadly illnesses we are inflicting upon the Earth and all life on it. Of course there are political reasons given for this, but I wonder if these political problems are just a reflection of our weird human nature and that what we have to admit that we as a species will not admit that its really, really bad for us until its too late for an easy cure. That’s if we are lucky. It’s also possible that it will be too late to avoid mass suffering and pain. That difference is a matter of time. That will only happen the 90% of normal folks have suffered so much that they are finally willing to admit that things are really bad for us, now and are finally willing to search for zebra solutions and not simplistic horse solutions which are the traditional approaches which do not apply to us now.

So what can you do? Be a “zebra doctor” . Stop looking and enjoying hearing about bad news that others are suffering. This is called schadenfreude in the world of Psychology and not a redeeming feature of humanity. On the other hand be brave enough to acknowledge and feel that the bad news out there is about YOUR life and your family’s life. Most of us think the problems “out there” are not going to affect us.. until they do. And then its too late. Whether is fire or flood or food shortages or political turmoil realize that the rare zebra event called climate/ecological collapse is actually happening NOW. To YOU. That’s hard. It’s means you have to look for zebras. It means you have to be abnormal and not ignore the signs that things are not going as well for you as you imagine. Finally, it means you need to be a “zebra doctor” who has enough imagination to see and then help cure this rare disease called the modernity. That means you need to learn how To Communicate Bad News Effectively – try this link to do that https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2024/01/28/how-to-communicate-bad-news-effectively/ Good luck!