I’ve been reading an interesting pop psychology book called “You Are Not So Smart.” The book details various ways that our brains and minds can trick us into misreading reality.

In one chapter the author argues that in times of emergency, instead of freaking out like you might think, many people refuse to acknowledge the peril around them. They seek normalcy and discard any incoming information that interferes with that interpretation.

As the author points out, we can more easily convince ourselves that things aren’t as bad as they seem because the media often inflates dangers that turn out to be nothing.

Regular media overhyping and panic building over issues like Y2K, swine flu, SARS, and the like help fuel normalcy bias on a global scale. … With so much crying wolf, it can be difficult to determine in the frenzied information landscape when to be alarmed, when it is really not a drill.

I’d almost forgotten all the media hand-wringing over Y2K and the total non-event it turned out to be.

This comes around to a related thought I’ve been having. When Donald Trump announced his candidacy, the media treated as a joke. The same is basically true with Bernie Sanders. Frankly, I thought of these candidates as jokes. But we may be approaching a point where the final contest will be Trump versus Sanders. Whatever you might think about either of them, you have to give them credit for believing in themselves when “the establishment” did not.