Interesting article on how fear is being used in media to negatively affect the population's thinking abilities, and how it actually, physically affects the ability of the people to think their way out of the fear-porn being pumped out by the mockingbirds.
The Wages Of Perpetual Fear
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/wages-perpetual-fear
What Perpetual Fear Does To Us
>"During sustained stress, we’re more fearful, our thinking is muddled, we assess risks poorly, and act impulsively out of habit, rather than incorporating new data.”
Under a long stream of fear (like scary headlines), our thinking breaks down. Let me put that very simply: You may be very bright in essence, but when you consume hours of fear every day, you become stupid. And please understand: This is biological. Your brain operations become those of a stupid person.
The people selling fear on TV, web pages and social media are being rewarded for it. They have become, using my terms loosely but not unfairly, drug dealers, selling damaging material that people become dependent upon. Moreover, these are professionals. Social media companies are fully aware that their business models depend upon people being addicted to them. They are careful to keep them addicted.
The fears people consume, then, are coming to them from people who are cashing in from it.
>“Stress weakens connections that are essential for incorporating new information that should prompt shifting to a new strategy - while strengthening connections with habitual brain circuits.”
In other words, fear locks you into your habits and your previous choices.
It literally diminishes the brain pathways that allow you to change your mind.
This is serious, and I suspect that you’ve seen examples of this already.
>“Under sustained stress we process emotionally prominent information rapidly and automatically, but less accurately. Working memory, impulse control, decision-making, risk-assessment and task shifting are impaired.”
Again, prolonged fear locks people into whatever path they’re already on. And again, this is biological. The brain circuits are directly affected.
Still…
From everything I’ve written above (and there are other nasty effects like domestic violence), it would appear that we are doomed; that our neighbors who’ve drunk deep from the river of fear are brain-locked, and so long as the fear stream continues (there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight), they will get more and more rigid in their biases, and that violence will continue and increase.
The wages of perpetual fear are polarized and locked minds. And that leads to knee-jerk opposition, violence and murder. We’re seeing that now and we stand to see it for some time. The world, it seems, has become addicted to fear.