Excerpt from a spoken YouTube segment in which Mo Gawdat argues that mainstream media amplifies humans' negativity bias, causing people to overestimate the prevalence of violent or harmful acts; he contrasts this with abundant positive human capacities (love, symphonies, everyday kindness) to argue humans are 'not that bad.'
We sometimes let our ego take the best of us. But are there more serial killers in the world? Or people who condemn killing? Are there more school shooters in America or people who disapprove of hurting a child? And when you see that truth with our limited intelligence as humans, you realize that we're not that bad. A species that is capable of love or capable of composing a symphony is divine, right? The problem with our world, James, is that media has hooked on to the negativity bias of the human brain. So the mainstream media only talks about the one woman that hit her husband on the head last night. Okay? They don't talk about all of those beautiful love stories where people made love and met for the first time and enjoyed. You know, that deep connection is wonderful. And so many of them. For everyone that hit her husband on the head, there must be a million that didn't, right?
