Lots of good people in the RCMP too

[TylerM4]

I think everyone knows this - they're not all bad apples. Unfortunately, I think this is sometimes clouded with all of the focus on negative news stories/events. One could easily believe "it's mostly a group of thugs".

To counter that perception, wanted to share my observance today. 2 positive stories today about RCMP officers right here in BC and in both cases they were off duty not even getting paid when it happened.

Off Duty Officer saves toddlers life:
https://www.castanet.net/news/BC/345307 ... way#345307

Forever Grateful for rescue:
https://www.castanet.net/news/BC/345273 ... Revelstoke

[MAPearce]

There's good and bad everywhere ...

It's too bad that the bad take the light from the good . Blame the media .

Good on LaForrest .

[the truth]

yup, click bait media, they are not too interested in good news

[Staredintoabyss]

Turn off the news, stop reading shock drivel articles or watching shock drivel.

[Ka-El]

I think everyone knows this - they're not all bad apples. Unfortunately, I think this is sometimes clouded with all of the focus on negative news stories/events. One could easily believe "it's mostly a group of thugs".

This is an interesting psychological mechanism known as the availability heuristic that our brain uses to make decisions faster. An availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method or decision. As follows, people tend to use a readily available fact to base their beliefs about a comparably distant concept. One example of the availability heuristic is the way that people overestimate the probability of dramatic and sensational causes of death, such as shark attacks and terrorism, and underestimate the probability of more mundane causes, such as heart attacks and automobile accidents.

People use it and believe all RCMP are thugs, all lawyers are crooks, etc. Unfortunately, it also fuels stereotyping and racism as people use isolated but sensational incidents to form a generalized opinion. The availability heuristic, assumptions and generalizations do serve an important purpose. For example, it likely only takes one time to see or hear of someone being mauled by a bear in the bush to make the assumption running into a bear in the bush would not be a good thing and would require an immediate decision. It becomes unfortunate when people continue to use this mental shortcut when considering more complex ideas and issues, essentially replacing deliberate thought with automatic thought. Engaging in critical thought is a deliberate choice that requires we acknowledge and examine our biases.