Bret Weinstein, on the Dark Horse podcast he does with his wife, mentioned a very interesting study that shows how scarcity causes hyper-sensitivity.
The alleged evolutionary purpose goes something like this. When there are tons of berries, your brain doesn’t have to strain that hard to find berries. You set your perception to a fairly perfect model of a berry. When there are lots, that works fine, but you might overlook some that are small, the wrong color, etc. When berries are scarce, you need to adjust your perception and be willing to get the berries that are farther from the norm. When they get scarcer still, you look even more carefully, and you might mistake a colorful leaf for a berry, because you don’t want to miss something that might possibly be a berry.
The application to modern life ties in to the phenomenon we’ve all seen. When racism (sexism, etc.) is obvious and blatant, you don’t have to be too discerning to find it. As it becomes scarcer, you have to look harder. You start to find it under every rock. You come up with crazy theories to explain how the most innocent things are racist and sexist.
We can also see this when well-fed, healthy, materially successful protesters holding up signs saying “this is an emergency.”
Emergencies are scarce these days. The Hun is not at the door. There is plenty of food at the grocery store. Wolves and Nazis and saber-toothed cats are not prowling the streets. We have it — in historical context — amazingly good.
The scarcity of emergencies is making us find emergencies in ridiculous places.