Why We Fail To Appreciate the Good News
“A lot of progress and good news concern things that didn’t happen, whereas virtually all bad news is about what did occur.” (Morgan Housel, Same as Ever)
Good things occur incrementally through compounding, so we fail to notice them.
Bad things happen fast, and we note them instantly.
Advances in medical science have saved millions of lives over the past fifty years. Averted deaths are invisible and immeasurable.
For example, the average annual decline in heart disease mortality between 1950 and 2014 was 1.5 percent per year. It averted 25 million deaths owing to heart disease.
Road safety regulations and improved car manufacturing standards averted millions of accident deaths.
Inflation and unemployment in a couple of years are conspicuous. The economic growth of the past fifty years is invisible.
Avoiding bad things is also good news.
