1.

[Media coverage] is itself biased toward novelty and poignancy. The media do not just shape what the public is interested in, but also are shaped by it. Editors cannot ignore the public’s demand that certain topics and viewpoints receive extensive coverage. Unusual events (such as botulism) attract disproportionate attention and are consequently perceived as less unusual than they really are. The world in our heads is not a precise replica of reality; our expectations about the frequency of events are distorted by the prevalence and emotional intensity of the messages to which we are exposed.

2.

An availability cascade is a self-sustaining chain of events, which may start from media reports of a relatively minor event and lead up to public panic and large-scale government action. On some occasions, a media story about a risk catches the attention of a segment of the public, which...

I find a lot of modern art intolerable. Especially abstract art. Back in New York I used to frequent the MoMA and Met, and whenever I walked by an abstract painting, I’d sneer:
“Really? You call this art? A 5 year old kid could have done this.”

_{Josef Albers, Homage to the Square: Soft Spoken, 1969. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.}

If I went with a friend, things would get amusing. I’d feign art history expertise and start overanalyzing every Rothko, Pollock, Newman, and Reinhardt piece with a subpar British accent:

“The black space that occupies a large part of the canvas represents the uncertainty and acquired synesthesia of visions in moments of frenzied distress. Isn’t it remarkable – the tension that is distilled from the simultaneous decadence and synergy from the canvas? The temporality of human existence is corroded in the violent strokes of paint on the canvas, that...