Today we have the knowledge necessary to detect small…
Today we have the knowledge necessary to detect small risks, the leisure in which to notice them, and the wherewithal to act against them. But everyone misses the larger-picture point about the press trend toward reporting smaller and smaller risks: that big risks are in decline. Instead of realizing this, we feel under siege from ever rising tides of very small dangers. Overall, the pessimism-promoting effect of the modern media might be called "headline-amplified anxiety."
— from Takeoff Into Chaos · Progresss Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse by Gregg Esaterbrook
In the book
The party out of power exaggerates every negative trend and denies every positive one to harvest your anger, and a whole industry has grown skilled at discovering new categories of grievance. The cruel irony is that all this noise about small, vivid risks actually leaves us worse at noticing the large, quiet ones that matter. Do not let the broadcast convince you the sky is collapsing; it is selling you the collapse. — Takeoff Into Chaos