{"id":868733,"date":"2025-08-28T23:14:43","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T04:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/28\/were-hardwired-for-negativity-that-doesnt-mean-were-doomed-to-it\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T23:14:43","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T04:14:43","slug":"were-hardwired-for-negativity-that-doesnt-mean-were-doomed-to-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/28\/were-hardwired-for-negativity-that-doesnt-mean-were-doomed-to-it\/","title":{"rendered":"We\u2019re hardwired for negativity. That doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re doomed to it."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Over the past week or so, the US economy took a major hit<\/a>, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was no longer in the business of caring about the environment<\/a>, and the only thing the internet can talk about is Sydney Sweeney<\/a>. But here\u2019s the thing: Even amid the constant deluge of news that alternates between the negative and the just silly, there\u2019s another story unfolding. It\u2019s quieter, slower, less flashy, but it\u2019s real, and it matters. And that\u2019s the story of progress<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Good News<\/h2>\n

A weekly dose of stories chronicling progress around the world.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/form>\n<\/div>\n

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That\u2019s why a few months ago I launched Good News<\/a>, Vox\u2019s weekly newsletter dedicated not to ignoring our often difficult reality, but to placing it in the broader context it deserves. This past Monday, Good News got the Unexplainable<\/a> <\/em>treatment, as Vox\u2019s excellent science podcast invited me on to discuss why, exactly, we find good news so elusive<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s not just the media\u2019s bias<\/a> \u2014 although, as I confessed to Unexplainable<\/em>\u2019s Meradith Hoddinott, that\u2019s undeniably a part of it. After nearly 25 years in journalism, I\u2019ve learned that the press is fundamentally a watchdog, conditioned to bark loudest when things go wrong. But there\u2019s also a deeper reason: our own negativity bias<\/a>. Humans are hardwired to focus on threats, an evolutionary adaptation that once kept us alive on the savannah but now leaves us doomscrolling through headlines.<\/p>\n

In the Unexplainable<\/em> episode, Meredith and I explored this psychological quirk, highlighting stories of genuine progress that usually slip under the radar. Like this one: despite fears about rising crime, the murder rate in the US is potentially on track to hit historic lows<\/a>. And despite the worsening effects of climate change and the proliferation of billion-dollar disasters, fewer people globally died from extreme weather<\/a> in the first half of 2025 than in any comparable period on record.<\/p>\n

Why spotlight developments like these, which can feel like the opposite of news? Because focusing only on what\u2019s broken can blind us to what\u2019s fixable. Realistic optimism isn\u2019t na\u00efve; it\u2019s necessary. It fuels the belief that problems, even enormous ones, are solvable, which in turn inspires action. And, as I\u2019ve discovered writing the Good News newsletter, this optimism can act like armor, helping us face a challenging, sometimes frightening future with greater resilience.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why Good News felt like a natural outgrowth of our work here at Future Perfect, where above all we want to capture an accurate view of the world as it is \u2014 the bad and <\/em>the good. So, give the episode a listen \u2014 you\u2019ll hear us break down the science of negativity and the underappreciated power of hope. And, of course, subscribe to Good News<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Bryan Walsh
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past week or so, the US economy took a major hit, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was no longer in the business of caring about the environment, and the only thing the internet can talk about is Sydney Sweeney. But here\u2019s the thing: Even amid the constant deluge of news that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":868734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107512,2882],"tags":[145923,6094],"class_list":{"0":"post-868733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hardwired","8":"category-were","9":"tag-hardwired","10":"tag-were"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}