Slow Violence

Visibility and time are two attributes that—when scaled dramatically up or down—can be tricky for humans to track.

"Up" or "down," in this context, means scaled to proportions that don't align with human attention- and life-spans, visible ranges or spectrums, or tolerance-levels.

So while it's relatively easy, to the point of being unavoidable in some contexts, to keep tabs on celebrity gossip, local news, and happenings within one's familial and social group or neighborhood, it's more difficult to keep one's finger on the pulse of international geopolitical maneuverings, multi-decade changes in average global climate figures, and the evolution of diseases that are not directly impacting human beings at the moment.

All of these things are arguably important, but not easily perceivable, and thus they tend to fly under our cognitive radar much of the time, unless we're forced by circumstance to pay attention—at which point we might grudgingly do so, but only until we can shove that information back into obscurity (to reclaim room for the more casually attainable stuff).