On Doomerism

Terence Eden blogs about doomerism:

Are there terrible things which need changing? Absolutely! Are politicians doing everything that you specifically want? Probably not! Are incremental changes happening if you bother looking for the evidence? Yes. […] I guess a nuanced or positive take doesn’t get you as much social media engagement as a childish howl of rage.

It occurred to me that any talk of things getting better falls into that trough of nuance that always comes up in online discourse. Things take time to improve, and never in a straight line. It’s usually harder to find evidence of it happening, and it usually comes with a bunch of caveats.

Much easier to be a doomer about things. It’s a cheap thrill of attention that requires no effort or nuance on your part. It’s also cathartic, giving you the sense that you’re doing something about it when really, it’s probably not to change anything in the grand scheme of things.

Enticing, but ultimately a deal with the devil. I think every doomest post you make slowly adds to your fatalistic outlook that things will never improve. Why would you post something like that if a bit of you, maybe just a tiny bit, didn’t believe it to be so? Are you willing to wrestle with the cognitive dissonance that comes from that?