Posted on 01/28/2024 7:26:13 AM PST by DoodleBob
… In a certain sense, none of this is new. Apocalyptic anxieties are a mainstay of human culture. But they are not a constant. In response to rapid changes in science, technology and geopolitics, they tend to spike into brief but intense extinction panics — periods of acute pessimism about humanity’s future — before quieting again as those developments are metabolized. These days, it can feel as though the existential challenges humanity faces are unprecedented. But a major extinction panic happened 100 years ago, and the similarities are unnerving.
The 1920s were also a period when the public — traumatized by a recent pandemic, a devastating world war and startling technological developments — was gripped by the conviction that humanity might soon shuffle off this mortal coil.
…
Understanding the extinction panic of the 1920s is useful to understanding our tumultuous 2020s and the gloomy mood that pervades the decade… it is crucial to helping us blow away the smoke of age-old alarmism from the very real fires that threaten our civilization.
…
One way to understand extinction panics is as elite panics: fears created and curated by social, political and economic movers and shakers during times of uncertainty and social transition. Extinction panics are, in both the literal and the vernacular senses, reactionary, animated by the elite’s anxiety about maintaining its privilege in the midst of societal change. Today it’s politicians, executives and technologists. A century ago it was eugenicists and right-leaning politicians like Churchill and socialist scientists like Haldane. That ideologically varied constellation of prominent figures shared a basic diagnosis of humanity and its prospects: that our species is fundamentally vicious and selfish and our destiny therefore bends inexorably toward self-destruction.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“ Apocalyptic anxieties are a mainstay of human culture”
I bet they don’t point out the biggest false one - climate change/global warming.
Secular religious apocalyptic dogma.
They didn’t have AI to deal with.
Churchill was an alarmist. Got it.
The extinction of the “ failing New York Times “ is not a prophecy.
It’s imminent.
Churchill was on target and lived in reality; even thrived in it, wins or losses. Many who rejected him just wanted to go back to living in the comforts of their favorite cradle to grave commonwealth benefitted fantasy lives and were tired of war.
Commies..shmommies the US Marshall plan would pay for Europe’s and UK’s rebuild of their infrastructure and their social systems benefits!
Interestingly, or not, considering the source, all the problems came from conservative thought and the answer was more government at the federal and global level.
Thanks for the long but interesting essay. And the author does mention “climate anxiety” in his fourth paragraph. This is a difficult thing to get in an essay appearing in the New York Times. My assumption is that other comments on the climate were edited out forcing readers to read between the lines.
the doomsayers always seem to be selling newsletters and accept credit cards?
The unrepentant should panic.
The Day of God’s wrath will come soon enough (before the end of this century IMO).
That Day begins with the seven-year Wrath of the Lamb (AKA Daniels’s 70th Week AKA the seven-year Tribulation). By the end of those seven years, the whole world of unbelievers will have died.
I'm quite certain that discerning people back then could see world events were heading in a dark direction.
Say No to: Fake News and you won’t miss anything “important.”!
Maybe you’re pissed off by all the fake news, biased media coverage (doesn’t matter if left or right), or the never-ending narrative of we’re all doomed and will die tomorrow.
Is it time to give up on old news?
I Stopped Watching News 6 Years Ago — Here’s Why You Should Quit, Too
No, you won’t miss anything “important.”
Moreno Zugaro Age of Awareness
I never understood why people watched the news.
When I was a kid, they were on every evening after dinner. It was always the same-old, same-old. Some politicians fought about some law, some terrorists wanted to blow up some city, and some natural disaster plagued some country. Yawn.
At one point, I didn’t buy into the hype of the world is ending anymore. It’s completely wrong anyway. If you look at the facts on a global scale, life for humans is better than it has ever been before.
When I moved out, I started an experiment — and stopped watching the news altogether. I sold my TV, blocked websites, ignored newspapers, and unfollowed Instagram accounts. That was six years ago.
You might’ve toyed with the same thought as well.
Maybe you’re pissed off by all the fake news, biased media coverage (doesn’t matter if left or right), or the never-ending narrative of we’re all doomed and will die tomorrow.
There are a bunch of reasons to close the curtain on the whole circus.
Your mood will improve tremendously. You’ll have a lot more time since you won’t be caught up in the negativity spiral, disaster, and constant worries anymore. Overall, your life will get better on almost every conceivable level.
And the best part: You’ll still know what’s going on.
It is not "the news" which is the important part. It is stopping yourself from being programmed by those who run the old media, those who rule us by controlling the information flow.
My life immediately improved. I immediately become much more productive.
When earth’s human population hit 1 billion the intelligentsia claimed it was unsustainable.
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