Combat the doom machine with me

I'm reading Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax to my five-year-old daughter. It's a tale about a mustached forest guardian fighting a tree-chopping industrialist.

As I turn the pages, the brainwashing begins. The Lorax’s not-so-hidden message: "Humans are evil planet-pillagers."

Uh oh. It's a taste of the pessimism smoothie my kids will be force fed for years to come...

The corporate media has become a modern-day doom machine. And in today’s essay, which is different from my usual Jolts, I’m asking you to help me fight back.

Researchers from Wharton and London Business School sifted through 200 million newspaper pages from the past 170 years.

They found “sentiment” (how positive or negative the news is) is crashing to new lows:

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research

Visit The New York Times website and try to find a positive story. Good news is an endangered species these days. The corporate media is waging a never-ending assault on your happiness.

Despite all this negativity, the truth is we're living in the most prosperous, peaceful time in human history.

Every day since 1990, on average, roughly 130,000 people around the world have been lifted out of extreme poverty. That's headline material for 34 years straight!

Yet only 1 in 20 Americans know about this incredible trend.

The media understands fear sells, and they're peddling it like hot cakes. "If it bleeds, it leads," as they say in newsrooms. Anxiety and outrage keep you glued to the screen—and keeps their advertising dollars flowing into their pockets.

More 12^th graders say it’s hard to have hope for the world today than at any time since at least 1976. That’s according to a long-running University of Michigan survey.

The world is better than ever, but the kids have never been more pessimistic. Huh?

Source: Monitoring the Future

We live in weird times when the more news you consume, the less you know about the world.

Our kids (and grandkids) are sponges, soaking up every gloomy forecast and dire prediction. When I quiz my daughter on The Lorax, she’s already talking about that greedy industrialist ruining the environment.

Pile on another decade of pessimist propaganda, and her worldview will be completely warped.

If we let the corporate media tell our kids how to think, we'll raise a generation of little ones who surrender control of their emotions to them.

I’m determined to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Imagine two families. First the CNN Clan: They constantly watch the news, marinating in a stew of fearmongering, exaggerated negativity.

Then you have the Innovation Enthusiasts: Over dinner, they discuss new breakthroughs—like Elon Musk's thumbnail-sized brain chip allowing paralyzed people to work again.

Which kids do you think will grow up happier, more motivated, and ready to change the world? Be the parent who inspires your kids and grandkids by talking about brain chips, supersonic jets, and cancer-killing jabs.

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Trust in the media has already hit rock bottom. But most folks just sit around and take it.

I’m building a tribe of rational optimists to combat the doom machine. Picture waking up to headlines celebrating technological breakthroughs and human achievements…

And then teaching your kids how to harness these innovations in their own lives. That’s what we’re building with The Rational Optimist Society. It’s the antidote to that “depressed” feeling you get when you read The New York Times.

We need to teach our kids the truth. The world is full of opportunities, and almost any problem can be solved through grit and innovation.

The future belongs to the (rational) optimists. Let's make sure our kids are leading the charge, armed with the knowledge and the tools to make it happen.

Ready to see, and seize, the incredible opportunities of our time and surround yourself with like-minded folks who refuse to let the pessimists win?

Become a Rational Optimist today. Your future self (and your kids) will thank you. Go here to become a founding member of The Rational Optimist Society.

Stephen McBride
Chief Analyst, RiskHedge

PS: I regularly include a “dose of optimism” at the end of my Jolts highlighting the incredible innovations that are making our world better. For a small taste of what we’re doing over at The Rational Optimist Society, consider joining The Jolt today.