Dark cover with a faint plus-minus glyph: The Exchange Rate on Bad News — your attention pays roughly double for the minus sign, a rate set when bad news could kill you.

The Exchange Rate on Bad News

The math of surprise is perfectly symmetric — a doubling and a halving are mirror twins. Your attention has never honored the symmetry: it pays roughly double for the minus sign, every business paid in attention has found that premium, and the rate was set in a world where bad news could kill you. It no longer can — but the rate never moved, and for the first time the filter that quotes it takes instructions. … readThe Exchange Rate on Bad News