I really want to ask the question: Why do people think that doom is inevitable or that things usually get worse, not better? Is it actually founded on reality, or is a lot of the doomerism psychological and social?
I also understand that outside view 1 entirely, given voters have very bad moods about both the economy and inflation, when they’re actually doing okayish.
I’d guess a lot of it is an evolved defense mechanism to use learned helplessness to avoid confronting difficult situations more directly. Basically the same just-so explanation as the one behind the “rank theory of depression”, where people who lose a lot of status fights become depressed so they don’t keep losing them.
I think it varies with the merits of the underlying argument! But at the very least we should suppose there’s an irrational presumption toward doom: for whatever reason(s), maybe evopsych or maybe purely memetic, doomy ideas have some kind of selection advantage that’s worth offsetting.
I really want to ask the question: Why do people think that doom is inevitable or that things usually get worse, not better? Is it actually founded on reality, or is a lot of the doomerism psychological and social?
I also understand that outside view 1 entirely, given voters have very bad moods about both the economy and inflation, when they’re actually doing okayish.
I’d guess a lot of it is an evolved defense mechanism to use learned helplessness to avoid confronting difficult situations more directly. Basically the same just-so explanation as the one behind the “rank theory of depression”, where people who lose a lot of status fights become depressed so they don’t keep losing them.
I think it varies with the merits of the underlying argument! But at the very least we should suppose there’s an irrational presumption toward doom: for whatever reason(s), maybe evopsych or maybe purely memetic, doomy ideas have some kind of selection advantage that’s worth offsetting.