We’re Hooked on a Feeling–of Despair

And high on believing that everything is worse than it is.

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290

Hi, 

Greetings from gray and gloomy Fort Lauderdale. It’s cloudy and rainy and so it’s about 100 times better to be here than in frigid D.C. right now. 

You see what I did there? I looked at the bright side of life. 

Cue musical interlude from Monty Python:

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    This is why I’m a member of the Remnant. Maybe we can preempt the natcon clowns and just go ahead and apply the label, “Jonah-Goldberg Conservatives,” to ourselves non-pejoratively so that they can’t pretend that’s an insult.

    The most recent IPCC report was - despite the media hubbub - a BETTER report card for humanity on the future and climate change. By every metric, the report was good news. But people focused on the extreme outlier disaster scenario (the most unlikely scenario according to the IPCC), rather than the fact that The Climate Science was increasingly expressing it bullishness for the planet.

    “ Whales started to rebound when we moved off our dependence on Big Whale Oil.”

    Big Whale Oil did give us one of the great American novels of all time, so we can’t really complain.

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  2. Charles Winters

    I wonder if having 'won' the Cold War, we have turned internally and are now chewing on ourselves because there is no one else to hate/fight with?

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  3. Avatar photo
    Bel Aves

    Doom merchants have always been with us. The Federalists claimed Jefferson was going to bring in the French Terror. Jackson was a master at railing at the elites. In those days life expectancy was 50, and in Jonah's term, the vast majority of American threshed wheat, or picked cotton-millions with no choice. No cars, iphones, indoor plumbing, or anti-biotics. The good old days sucked. Never has a time or place been better for humanity.

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    Blake

    I’ve said this more than a dozen times in the last few months, but this is one of your bests. Keep it up.

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  5. Avatar photo
    Hank West

    Much to like about this analysis. But much to hate about it's great omission.

    Your summary sentence," More importantly, the only thing that can actually ruin this country is believing the people peddling despair to you for their own power or profit." ignores the obvious.

    An armed insurrection last year did and does bring the country to the brink of ruin. The Republican party's characterization of Jan 6 as legitimate political discourse has cast any other interpretation of events as "peddling despair" and political partisanism.

    Your article does much to put our polarized world into perspective. But it gives the purveyors of lies about our last presidential election and it's aftermath safe haven.

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  6. Gary

    Bully!

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  7. Daniel

    Who are these disaster merchants but the media? And a good thing too, or we would all get complacent and convinced that everything is fine and good.

    Enormous progress has been made on a variety of fronts in nearly every field. Enormous work remains to be done.

    I applaud your reminder about being grateful for what we have. Let's just not forget how much better they could be.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Hank West

    Much to like in your analysis. But one huge omission.

    Your closing argument, "More importantly, the only thing that can actually ruin this country is believing the people peddling despair to you for their own power or profit." ignores the most profound threat of ruin to our country.

    There was an armed insurrection last year that did and still does threaten the core of our democracy. Most republicans use your argument of "peddling despair" to ligitamize Jan 6 as some form of political discourse.



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  9. Avatar photo
    Jay Graham

    https://www.warpnews.org/premium-content/david-deutsch-optimism-pessimism-and-cynicism/

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  10. Marthalie S. Thurston

    Straight talk. Another great read for me. Thank you. BTW, Canine Economics in One Lesson, one of your very best, me thinks. Thank you.

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