Why Do Humans Prefer Bad News?

🧠 1. Evolutionary Wiring: Negativity = Survival

In prehistoric times, our ancestors who were more alert to dangers—a lurking predator, a poisonous plant, a change in weather—were more likely to survive.

> 🧬 Negativity bias developed as a survival mechanism.

This means: We detect threats faster than opportunities Negative events leave stronger and longer-lasting imprints in memory. We tend to assume the worst first—it’s safer

Even today, when physical dangers are rare, our brain responds as if bad news is still a threat to survival.

🧪 2. Neurological Bias: The Brain Reacts More Strongly to Negativity. Studies using fMRI and EEG have shown:

The amygdala, which processes fear and emotion, lights up more in response to negative stimuli

People remember insults more than compliments

Bad news increases cortisol levels (stress hormone), triggering alertness

In short: Negative stimuli are processed more deeply and with greater urgency than positive ones.

📺 3. Media Logic: "If It Bleeds, It Leads"

Media outlets across the globe, especially in the digital era, thrive on attention. Since humans are naturally drawn to bad news, the media ecosystem is designed to amplify fear, outrage, and scandal.

This includes: Gossip, crime, corruption, war, and personal downfall stories. "Breaking news" alerts that hijack your attention

Social media algorithms that reward emotional engagement, especially anger and anxiety

> Fear sells. Outrage spreads. Calm does not go viral.

Even entertainment is not immune—many successful films, series, and dramas are based on conflict, betrayal, or tragedy.

📉 4. Gossip and Schadenfreude: Social Brains at Play

Gossip (especially negative) is a social survival tool.

In ancient tribes:

Gossip helped people monitor reputations

Knowing who was dangerous, untrustworthy, or cheating the group had survival value

Gossip helped strengthen in-groups ("us") by mocking or blaming out-groups ("them")

 This may explain why people are secretly drawn to the downfall of others, especially celebrities or powerful figures—known as schadenfreude (pleasure in others' misfortune).

🧩 5. Cognitive Economy: Negativity Feels 'More Real'

Positive stories often require context, explanation, and effort to believe. But negative stories feel immediate and concrete.

Examples: "Corruption scandal exposed" is easier to grasp than "Quiet reforms succeed""War breaks out" triggers urgency; "Peace treaty signed" seems distant or abstract

The brain prefers shortcuts, and negativity offers fast emotional processing without critical thinking.

🌐 So, Is the International Press Capitalizing on It?

Absolutely. Most global media—especially digital platforms—are not just reporting news but competing for your attention. And they know:

> 🔺 Negative headlines = more clicks

🔺 Fearful content = longer watch time

🔺 Emotional outrage = more shares and comments

This results in what scholars call “doomscrolling”—the compulsive consumption of bad news, which then increases anxiety, stress, and pessimism.

🌱 But Humans Also Long for Hope—What Can Be Done?

While we are wired for negativity, we are also capable of joy, awe, love, and growth. The key is:

✅ Awareness – Understand your biases; don’t let the worst things dominate your mental space

✅ Media Literacy – Ask: Who profits from this panic? Why am I being shown this now?

✅ Curated Consumption – Balance your media diet: combine critical awareness with positive, constructive sources

✅ Community Focus – Support journalism that highlights solutions, not just problems (e.g., "solutions journalism")

🧭 Final thought:

Humans' ancient brain, built to detect danger, has collided with a digital world designed to exploit that fear. But being aware of this makes you part of the solution.

> The challenge now is not just to consume news, but to understand why we consume it, and at what cost.

Indian Lefts -Part 2

The Silent Collapse of the Indian Left — And the Possibility of Renewal

It’s tme to move beyond the well-intentioned musings of individual leftists like Achuthan. However noble or intellectually sound they may seem, such voices no longer resonate—neither within the Left parties nor in public discourse. The ideological centre of the Indian Left has eroded, and the symptoms are now impossible to ignore.

🎭 The Cadres vs the Command

At the grassroots, Left-leaning supporters are often sincere—driven by patriotism, personal integrity, and a deep emotional loyalty to their leaders.

But the leadership tells a different story. Many have become instruments of foreign influence or captive to narrow interest groups. Hidden agendas are not uncommon, and the divide between principle and practice continues to widen.

🧠 A Deeper Crisis: Not Just Ideological, But Epistemological

The Left's failure isn’t only about messaging or strategy—it’s about how they understand reality itself. The Marxist lens of class struggle, while historically powerful, now feels antiquated in a world shaped by:

Artificial intelligence and automation

Identity-based politics

Climate crises

Market-driven governance

Hyperconnectivity and digital surveillance

The Left continues to use 20th-century tools to interpret a 21st-century world. As a result, it no longer even asks the right questions, let alone offer solutions.

🎯 The Shift from Class to Aspiration

Where the Left speaks of exploitation, the Right speaks of aspiration.

Where the Left laments inequality, the Right promises opportunity.

Even among the working class and urban poor, the dream is no longer revolution—it is upward mobility.

The Left’s politics of grievance has failed to evolve into a politics of hope, and in doing so, it has lost its audience.

🕸️ Losing the Cultural Narrative

Politics is no longer limited to parliament or party manifestos.

It plays out on WhatsApp, in cinema, classrooms, festivals, and family dinners. The Indian Right recognised this early and began reclaiming cultural pride—linking nationalism to tradition, faith, and emotional belonging.

The Left, in contrast, either ignored or dismissed these cultural signifiers, often in the name of rationalism or secularism. This created the impression that the Left was out of touch with the Indian psyche, speaking only to urban elites while mocking the everyday values of the masses.

🧱 The Irony of Left Elitism

Though it champions equality, much of the modern Indian Left has become socially and intellectually elitist.

Its urban intelligentsia speaks in the language of academic conferences and journal articles—far removed from the vocabulary of the common man.

Meanwhile, the Right speaks in the language of the street and the temple.

It is emotionally accessible, culturally rooted, and communicatively superior. It has democratised political engagement, while the Left has slipped into self-referential discourse.

🔄 A New Beginning—or a Slow Fade?

The Indian Left stands at a crossroads. Without serious introspection and reform, it risks not just electoral defeat but complete intellectual irrelevance. Yet, there is still a narrow window for renewal.

That path forward demands courage and humility. It requires the Left to:

Move beyond outdated class-war doctrines

Embrace identity politics with care, not cynicism

Engage meaningfully with tradition and faith, without surrendering secular values

Shift from protest to policy innovation

Decentralise leadership and nurture young voices

Speak the language of modern India—not 1960s slogans

The Left must reinvent itself not by mimicking the Right, but by reconnecting with society in real terms. The future belongs to those who offer clarity, empathy, and vision—not just criticism.

🧭 Final Thought

India’s Left has become like a third-grade student asked to submit a professor’s thesis—woefully unprepared for the complexity of today’s challenges.

The fall of the Soviet Union, the capitalist transformation of China, and the strategic evolution of the Indian Right are not just political events; they are warnings—and blueprints.

The time has come for the Indian Left to choose: reinvention or irrelevance.

The Intellectual Decline of the Indian Left

 The Intellectual Decline of the Indian Left

It’s time to move beyond the well-intentioned ideas of individual leftists like Achuthan. However noble they may seem, such thoughts have no real traction—neither within the party nor among the public. The ideological core of the Left, once potent and relevant, has eroded.

At the grassroots, many Left-leaning cadres are sincere—marked by patriotism, personal integrity, and deep affection for their leaders. Yet, the leadership that guides them tells a different story. Over time, it has become increasingly evident that some among the top brass are compromised—either influenced by foreign powers or controlled by vested interests. Hidden agendas are not uncommon. This widening disconnect between the base and the leadership has caused lasting damage.

More critically, the Indian Left as an organisation suffers from a deep ideological vacuum. Once driven by the fierce passion of class struggle and worker mobilisations, it now finds itself stranded. The theoretical backbone of Marxist doctrine, built around class conflict, has lost its edge in a fast-evolving world.

Modern realities—globalisation, the rise of individual enterprise, savings-led growth, corporate ecosystems, the shift from blue-collar to white-collar jobs, the emergence of a powerful middle class, and the steady increase in consumer purchasing power—have rendered the Left’s old templates ineffective. They have failed to adapt.

The Right, by contrast, has formulated long-term strategic plans that address these changes. It has crafted a narrative that aligns with aspirations of a growing nation. The Left, meanwhile, seems clueless—its intellectual engines rusted, its rhetoric stuck in a bygone era.

Beyond slogans, protests, strikes, and calls for rebellion, the Left appears unable to generate new ideas. The revolutionary fervour that may have served a purpose during the industrial age now feels misplaced in an economy driven by innovation, services, and markets.

Today, none of the Left's agendas hold promise. While the Right prepares for the next hundred years, the Left is still clinging to ideological scripts written fifty years ago. The fall of the Soviet Union and China's transformation into a state-driven market economy are living reminders of how the Left’s core doctrines have crumbled or been redefined.

In India, the Left’s position is akin to assigning a third-grade student the task of writing a professor’s dissertation. Their awakening to contemporary challenges is too little, too late.

Take, for instance, the legacy of B. R. Ambedkar. Contrary to popular belief, the Right is not interested in sidelining him. Instead, it is strategically incorporating his image to expand its own ideological appeal.

As for the Congress, it suffers its own identity crisis. Rahul Gandhi remains a figurehead—a product of perception management by those with vested interests. Beyond that symbolic projection, there is little substance.

The Indian Left must confront this crisis with honesty. Without serious introspection, innovation, and ideological renewal, it risks further irrelevance in a rapidly changing political and social landscape.

IMD and Local weather men

Why Some Individual Weathermen Seem More Accurate:

1️⃣ Local Experience & Microclimate Knowledge

Many independent weathermen are hyper-local experts.

They study city-specific topography, sea breeze patterns, humidity, cloud movement, and localized factors which national models often generalize.

Example: Chennai’s sea breeze timing, convergence zones over North Tamil Nadu, or the Cauvery delta rain spells are better understood by locals.

2️⃣ Freedom to Take Risks

IMD must follow protocol and issue conservative, officially validated forecasts. They can’t afford to create panic.

Independent weathermen can afford to predict unusual patterns, experimental models, or gut-feel based forecasts, which sometimes turn out to be correct.

3️⃣ Use of Multiple Models and Satellite Feeds

Many independent weathermen track open-source international models like ECMWF, GFS, ICON, IMERG, and real-time Doppler radar imagery.

They cross-check between models, look for anomalies, and issue custom forecasts — often with a better sense of local ground reality.

4️⃣ Instant, Direct Communication

Social media (Facebook, Twitter, Telegram) allows them to publish hyperlocal updates instantly.

IMD bulletins follow a fixed schedule and format, while these individuals can quickly react to changing conditions.

5️⃣ Focus on Small Areas

IMD forecasts cover large zones (like "Chennai and surrounding districts" or "coastal Tamil Nadu").

Independent weathermen often predict for small suburbs, city areas, or one taluk.

Example: “T. Nagar and Velachery will get a cloudburst by 7 PM” — something IMD won’t specify. 

Is IMD Really That Bad?Not at all.

IMD has improved vastly — with new radars, high-resolution models, and cyclone tracking.

They have to issue forecasts responsibly for the entire country and can’t indulge in speculative or area-specific predictions without confirmation.

IMD remains the official, authoritative source for weather warnings, cyclone alerts, and disaster management.

Individual HyperActivists on weather forecasting,  don not have any accountability.  People can't  question them, if they fail in their 'forecasts ";  But IMD cannot act or create any sensitive stories. 

Brain and AI : What can it do

 AI is everywhere today it is no longer a question of are you using AI but rather the question is which AI are you using are you on charg are you on Google's Gemini are you using perplexity or claude that's what we are asking each other today and just like any technological revolution that has happened in the past there is a lot of questions around is this going to be helpful is it going to harm us so in today's video I want to take a deep dive into how can AI affect our brains what can we expect AI to be doing to us in the future i'm Dr sidarth Warrior i'm a neurologist and welcome to my YouTube channel where we talk about your brain and your health if you've not subscribed yet do so it means a lot to me and plus you'll see such videos on your timeline so in order to understand how AI will be affecting your brain and it will affect your brain let's look at how has technology affected us in the past so if you look at history technology has always developed with one goal in mind which is to make your brain's life easier so whatever it is that your brain is trying to do technology has evolved so that it can take some of that workload away from the brain so let's look at the brain piece by piece to understand what has technology done to help the brain so if this is your brain there is a part called as the motor cortex now the function of the motor cortex is to act to do action to move things so the first thing that technology did was to help human beings move better now you can also argue that it's not just the motor cortex but rather the entire body the muscles and the bones of your body had the job of moving you and moving other things in your environment machines took over a significant part of our job in movement the next part of the brain that started outsourcing its job to machines was the hippo campus the hippocampus is a small structure in our brain in the shape of a seahorse and it has the job of converting information things that we learn into long-term memory so it stores memory in our brain and as you all know with the use of phones and laptops we no longer remember phone numbers we have trouble remembering addresses because of Google maps a lot of us may not remember the way to reach somewhere all this information at one point would have been stored in our brain but now we have started outsourcing it to technology another interesting brain skill that we once had but now we have outsourced is chronoperception or the awareness of time and this is controlled in a brain part called as the hypothalamus the hypothalamus is responsible for the circadian rhythm which is how your body changes based on whether it is day or night and at one point in time our body was so tuned to this dayight cycle that at any point you would know what time of the day it is in fact you may have noticed even in your house your grandparents might not need to look at the clock as much as you do but again because of our overd dependence on technology we now need to look at a digital device to know what time it is and another thing that we've been outsourcing to technology over the last 50 60 years is entertainment and pleasure and that is decided by the dopamine network in the brain earlier before we all had screens in our pockets in order to find entertainment we would have to put in some effort we may have to leave the house go somewhere watch a play watch theater or at least do something which requires some amount of effort but that started changing once we got television and then mobile phones which means we no longer need to do anything much or go very far to find entertainment so that is the story so far but now comes the tricky bit because if you notice we have only talked about the brain areas in the primitive part of our brain so far that is the lyic system the dopamine network the hippocampus but with the advent of AI we have finally started outsourcing the things that our preffrontal cortex used to do because remember the prefrontal cortex has the job of thinking of planning of calculating things deciding what you want to do in the future in short being a rational human being and this is the job that we are now outsourcing to AI and if you go deeper into this I would say there are two types of thinking one is thinking about how do you want to do something that you know you want for example you want to cook a biryani and you are looking to the internet to figure out how to do it so this is more of an operational kind of thinking so I would say this is a how sort of thinking but there's also a deeper level of thinking which is about what do you want to do in your life and that can be a conceptual sort of thinking and I would say over the last 10 to 20 years we have all been using the internet to figure out how to do things you know what you want to do but the internet will tell you how but today with charge GPT with AI for the first time in history we are turning towards technology to figure out the what what is it that you want to do more and more people are turning to AI and asking AI to tell them what should they do what should they eat what should they wear and this is where I believe we are crossing a very important line because that sort of thinking that critical thinking about our own purpose our own identity that is what makes us human this ability of the prefrontal cortex to think is a very precious one and most animals don't have it and even we as human beings have had it for a very short amount of time the idea of outsourcing this valuable skill to AI seems like a dangerous one to me but now that we are already here and this is already happening let's take a look at what is going to happen what is going to happen next so my prediction is that the next parts of the brain that will get outsourced is the parts that does the seeing and the hearing so already we are talking about AI glasses that can filter whatever it is that you are seeing and only highlight those pieces of information that you need to see we're already talking about AI filters in your earphones that can block out unnecessary sounds and only let those sounds through that the AI thinks that you need to hear in other words if AI can filter out your sight and sound it is filtering out your reality so we are heading towards a world where the AI decides what should you see what should you hear and what should you think and that to me is a dangerous world my hypothesis is that just like how today we all agree that exercise is very important and we all should go to the gym the reason we all say that is because now movement is not taken for granted we can't live a life without moving and we know how dangerous it is that's why we are stressing on exercise similarly I would say that in another 20 to 50 years we will be living in a world where thinking is optional there might even be brain gyms or thinking gyms where people can go and exercise their prefrontal cortex because otherwise they don't really need to ai will take care of all the thinking that is needed and if you think that you don't want to live in such a world that this sounds too dystopian the time to act is now do not give up the practice of thinking do not outsource critical thinking to AI if you want to solve a problem try to solve it roughly by yourself at least have a rough draft of what is it that you're looking for then you can use AI to refine it or look for other ideas but if you outsource the what to AI then it is going to take away the soul of you the core of you i sincerely hope that a lot of the fears that I've expressed in this video are overhyped and it doesn't actually come about but I would still say let's take this video as a warning .

By Sindarth Warrior Nurologist

பழமொழிகள்..

 இன்று  தற்செயலாக ஒரு கன்னட பழமொழியினைக் கேட்க நேர்ந்தது.  "அக்கனு மேலே இஷ்டா; அக்கின மேல துக்கா".  அதாவது, அக்காவின் மேல் அன்பும் ஆசையும  அதிகம்தான். ஆனால் அவளுக்காா உணவு அதிகமாவதால், செலவும் கூடுகிறது " என்று தோராயமாக பொருள் வரும். 

Akka and Akki

In a village by the river wide,Lived Ramu with his heart of pride.One sister dear, his life, his light,Lakshmi Akka, shining bright.

Each time he came, with love she fed,A plantain leaf, the rice it spread.At first a heap, then mountain high,Ramu sighed, but wouldn’t deny.

“Akkanu mele mele ishta,” grew,But rice upon rice, his sorrow too.The more he loved, the more it lay,

A snowy hill of white each day.Sweat on brow, but love in chest,He'd eat and say, “Akka, you're best!”But one fine dawn, with a clever grin,

He hatched a plan to save his skin.“Akka,” he said, “less rice today,Or your Ramu won’t last, I say!”She laughed aloud, her eyes did gleam,And served a laddu, soft with cream.

Since that day the village spoke,Of Ramu’s wit and loving joke.A lesson wrapped in words so fair,Of love and burdens we should bear.Affection grows — let hearts unite,But rice and woes, keep them lig.

Provervs  were built not in libraries, but in fields, kitchens, wellsides, and village gatherings, shaped by real people’s joys, losses, and lessons over centuries.