> Now I'm an adult, watching this kind of thing play out on a global scale every single day with the collapse of public health, the collapse of our democracies, the collapse of global industrial civilization, and the collapse of our ecosystems.
I must have missed the memo on this situation.
But more seriously, there’s such a thing as constructive criticism, and there’s such a thing as fatalism. And there are people who burn their own reputation by complaining more than is useful.
Sure, it's wrong to shoot the messenger. But sometimes the messenger is wrong.
I think that real solutions to complex problems only arise from analysis and thinking carefully. They don't come from application of simple heuristics.
1. the only way a messanger is wrong is if they send the wrong message. Hence the adage.
2. It's all an interpretation of a complex situation, it may not be "right", but it's nearly impossible to find the objective truth. In the abscence of truth, no subjective take can truly be "wrong".
>I think that real solutions to complex problems only arise from analysis and thinking carefully.
And the fatalism comes from the realization that modern societies in an alarming number of sectors simply aren't even trying to solve the problem. they are playing a prisoners dilemma and they are more than happy to defect.
> the only way a messanger is wrong is if they send the wrong message.
Well, if a messenger carries a message that he or she knows or should know is incorrect, illegal, or lacks crucial context or qualification, there's a problem there.
The message might be "correct" in that it is an accurate word-for-word transmission of what the message's author said, but the message could still "wrong" in other senses of the word.
Sometimes we just want accurate transmission of content, e.g., with a phone call. In other contexts (scientific, legal, journalistic, political) we expect broadcasters of messages to exercise some responsibility over what and how they say things.
> no subjective take can truly be "wrong"
No one wants to live in a world where everyone believes this. Have you ever been mugged? I have. Being tackled and having my wallet stolen was "truly wrong." I am not interested in political or sociological arguments to the contrary.
Degrading public institutions is not the conclusion of the article, it's an objective fact. The conclusion of the article is that public don't want to do anything about it because people don't like bad news and prefer to shoot all the messengers.
So, that commenter was just wrong, and his wrong assumptions are perfectly explained by the article.
Except it's not an objective fact. It's a widely held opinion, with a fair amount of strong evidence behind it, but there's nothing objective about measuring the strength of public institutions.
There's folks who profit off panic, and prophets of doom should be treated skeptically like anyone else.
Half of my country is destroyed and showered with hundreds of thousands of dead humans and who knows of how many dead animals, while half of US politicum support the invaders and destroyers.
Everything may look as an "opinion" to you, but only until facts start hitting you literally.
>prophets of doom should be treated skeptically like anyone else.
the only difference between a cold truth and a prophet of doom is the lens you view it in. In other words, the opinions of the ones receiving the news.
Skepticism is good to have, but this article wasn't about an anthology of 2000's to 2020's unfettered capitalism. The audience of such an article needs to have some awareness of the modern economic situation to get the most out of this.
yeah, after explaining the whole psychology and telling story of her mom's schizophrenia, then BAM she hits you with a huge dose of, as you said, fatalism.
there's a very odd similarity between her mothers' delusion about cat 4 hurricanes and her own example of people being "blown out of their apartments by typhoon-strength winds". having disasters like that thrown in your face constantly by every conceivable media source probably doesn't help.
fwiw, other essays: "Panic. It's Good For You.", "They Want Us All To Die", etc.
I must have missed the memo on this situation.
But more seriously, there’s such a thing as constructive criticism, and there’s such a thing as fatalism. And there are people who burn their own reputation by complaining more than is useful.