Too many leaders and influencers [emphasis added by SocialPanic], including politicians, journalists, intellectuals, and academics, surrender to the cognitive bias of assessing the world through anecdotes and images rather than data and facts.

Source: Focal Point: Harvard Professor Steven Pinker says the truth lies in the data – Harvard Gazette

Just look at social media posts which echo what people read in the media or hear from “leaders”. Most of what I see from angry people on social media reveal anger about issues that are not what they think they are. Pseudo news writers are influencers who echo and parrot these negative stories from those living the life of miserablism (Does CNN stand for Continuously Negative News?)

As the author above notes, school children practice active shooter drills but spend zero time on drowning or car crashes (and I add, bicycle safety) which kill far more children. People believe crime is worse (when the data shows it in decline), that global poverty is worsening (when it has dramatically fallen) or that wars are killing more than ever (except “battle deaths have plummeted”), or that solar power, which after decades produces 3% of global electricity, can produce 100% in ten years.

Our “understanding” of the world around us is driven by nonsense assertions of leaders, then echoed by pseudo news reporters, and then further amplified on social media.

These are examples, he says, of “statistical illiteracy and disdain for data”. And that, in a nut shell, is a description of social media posts!

Another example is the recent bon fire of idiocy over the fires in the Amazon. Facts do not matter. And social media propagandizing makes this all possible!