People are scared.

The Anecdote

On the way back from on of my trips, I sat next to a nice couple on the plane.

They seemed nice enough. I could tell they were Christian right away when I introduced myself as Zach, and they asked if it was a name from the Bible. When I said it was, they smiled.

While they introduced themselves, I won’t be using their names here, this isn’t a hit piece. We’ll call them Joe and Nancy.

We got to talking quite a bit over the course of the flight. I always enjoy meeting new people, especially living in the Seattle tech bubble as I do, and I’ve met more than a few folks on plane rides that have really colored my perspective. Strangers are great because you can just tell them anything and they can’t tell your friends.

They worked at a shipyard. My understanding is they ran some kind of church there: They blessed the ships on their voyages, held masses, I’m sure they ran community programs of some sort. They mentioned that their son went across Canada hitchhiking!

As their son travelled across the Canadian highway system, relying on the kindness of others, he would write them, and they gushed about the helpfulness and friendliness of people, and how their son was never in danger or felt unwelcome. The hospitality of the average person overwhelmed him. While they had been nervous before his trip, his safe return inspired them. They were very glad he had gone, and said that although they doubted him in the first place, they had been proven wrong.

The Facts

Things are pretty good. Here’s this. I was gonna talk more about this, but if you search around for it enough you’ll find it.

The Gap

It had been nice to hear the couple talk so excitedly about their son, and I could see the passion and love they had for him. Their eyes got watery when they talked about the love their son experienced from strangers. Given their son’s wholesome experience, the next topic of conversation was shocking.

The conversation drifted as it often does these days to poltics. They brought up Trump and mentioned that they supported him. At this point, Joe and I were mostly talking. He mentioned that he didn’t understand the level of disrespect that Trump was getting, that he thought it was atrocious. He noted that the world was getting more dangerous, that things weren’t like this when he was growing up.

The disconnect here was astounding! Now, absolutely, this isn’t watertight. Their son was in Canada, not the US, and certainly a subsection of the world at large, maybe not a representative sample size. You could make all sorts of arguments about why this wasn’t a perfect fit.

Still, in one breath they were talking about the generousity experienced by their son, how friendly the world had been to him: In the next, they denounced humanity and wished people were better!

The Problem

Media is motivated to show you things that scare you. Modern media is a fire hose of information. Between Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Fox News, Google News, all the cable shows, and every other input, people are consuming more and more and more media. Fear (and its cousin, outrage), more than anything else, drive clicks. Fox News still reports on Hillary Clinton because she gets clicks. She gets clicks because she makes people mad. The same thing happens with Bernie Sanders, AOC, and I’m sure will happen with any other Democratic frontrunner.

This isn’t a conservative thing, either. Part of the reason that Trump got elected, part of the reason that he has stayed so popular, is because the media just cannot keep their eyes off of him. I think that I’ve seen a headline with Trump in it almost every single day, certainly since he took office, and maybe even since about midway through his campaign. Other conservatives and Republicans are the same way - Jim Jordan, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and others, make liberals really, really mad. They get clicks, they get views, their ideas gain traction.

This isn’t a US thing, either. Maduro is a great example of someone that uses inflammatory speech to stay in the headlines. Bolsanero, Un, Xi, and dozens of other world leaders do this. If you want to see this done poorly, just watch the slow burn that is Brexit.

This isn’t a politics thing, either. Trivial as it seems, I’d even argue that Wendy’s twitter philosophy is tied to this same idea. Sure, it’s not fear or outrage generating clicks, more some mild shock value - an official corporal sponsor said WHAT? - but the core idea is the same.

The Solution

Alright, let’s say that you’ve followed me so far, that you agree with all my points, that people are getting more and more outraged and shocked and fearful. Let’s also say that you think that that’s a problem.

I don’t really know what to do about this.

I’m pretty sure that eventually we’re just going to fight a big war about things. To make it clear, I would not like to do this. There have been plenty of people throughout history that have tested that pretty thoroughly, and I don’t think we’re going to uncover anything new here.

But this constant firehose of misinformation and fear and vitrol and hate is impossible to combat. There’s just no way I could have countered the likely weeks a year worth of media that this couple consumes.

When Joe and Nancy tune into the news, they don’t say, “I want to be shocked right now”. They probably had a hard day at work, most people work plenty hard. When they see a cute dog on some news program, they might smile or gush a little.

Even that is cleverly designed to get you to stay in the exact right frame of mind, where you’re just outraged, scared, or shocked enough to stay, but not so much so that you do something else in disgust. Others have written more about this sort of thing - this is literally what Facebook, Twitter, and other feeds are designed to do.

Joe and Nancy’s son travelled across Canada for months. Along the way, they vicariously bumped shoulders with a taste of the world. Their son met new people, explored new places, experienced things he never could have imagined, throwing himself like a rock star into the crowd and hoping they’d catch him.

And they did.

And it didn’t matter.

Joe and Nancy still think that the world is a more dangerous place than it used to be. This fear is going to lead to them wanting a strong leader that can bend some rules to right the wrongs they see everywhere. And they’ll get stronger and stronger until things get better, or until someone finally goes too far.

The Couple on the Plane