How strange it feels now to say "you put into words I've had trouble articulating," since you concluded by saying that words may not be enough. It is a strange moment, and there is a sense, at times, that humanity as a whole is aware of what it needs to do to pivot but is in a sort of collective "freeze" response. Especially in America, where individualism reigns. "What can I do?!" is a common response to climate change. An isolating mental state.
Very much appreciate the effort it takes to formulate these thoughts, present harsh truths and even attempt to make sense of these hyperobjects.
Thanks for articulating these thoughts. It seems obvious to me from reading you for just a few months that you are constitutionally incapable of truly shirking your duties, so please go easy on yourself. I think you're doing a great job.
Charlie, I don't think you are being the least bit hyperbolic. I think 2020 was the last free and fair election in this country until the next revolution and I think Mother Nature is angry enough at us humans that most of it might not matter for very much longer. 😢😢
From my perspective, the hard reality that never seems to be addressed is Capitalism. How to reconcile telling the truth with making a profit? That doesn't seem to be possible. The reality of the damage that carbon and fossil fuels can do has been known for decades. (wasn't it 1987 when Exxon published their research on the effects of carbon emissions on the climate?) Was it ever possible to tell the truth and stay in business?
Thanks for the newsletter. Keep fighting the good fight!
We (Baby Boomers) have certainly made a mess of things
Writing like this makes me feel less alone, so there's that. Which I appreciate.
To add a potentially naïve take ... when I look at all of these hyperobjects & the anxiety they provoke, one thought dominates. Which is the absence of leadership. As long as leaders play only to their base, instead of actually treating supporters & non-supporters as equally valid humans, it will be impossible to find common ground on which to identify problems as problems, let alone find strategic solutions.
The media is, perhaps, merely reflective of that vacuum.
Thank you for stating what should be obvious but which is often left unsaid. Maybe I'm experiencing confirmation bias, but reading your post made me a bit more "comfortable" - odd word, I guess "at peace" might better serve - with the existential dread I have felt over the past many months. W. B. Yeats said it well:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. [from "The Second Coming"]
I've been doing a lot of reading about the periods before both world wars (and I know I'm not supposed to reference historical events because Scary and Overreact), but it's helpful in putting my feelings into context: mainly, that we have to accept not knowing the ultimate outcome of the movements that have been unleashed.
There was massive upheaval before WWI - industrialization, radical ideologies, financial meltdowns, imperial powers running out of lands to conquer -- but nobody knew what the outcome would be. Then there was a war topped by a pandemic and then the old order collapsed. Monarchies fell overnight. Empires ended. Things held until they didn't. I doubt the Hapsburgs thought they would cease to exist, but it happened.
Then before WWII, things were bad in Europe, there was a huge struggle between communists and Nazis and again, nobody knew what the outcome would be. However, there was a strong normalcy bias. Establishment types felt like they could hold it together if they upheld norms and Now I can see why that happened. I can look at England understand "appeasement" was really just hoping the norms would hold out. Because the alternative was that some madman invaded all of Europe? Of course they didn't want to believe that would happen.
Instead, of course, the order collapsed. And none of this means there's going to b a world war, that's not what I'm saying, but parts of the post WWII order are going to fall - be it from right wing movements, climate change, etc. The U.S. is the central actor in this drama, not Europe. We just don't know the outcome.
I look at it as an evolved inability of the human race to manage large societies in accordance with our values. In other words, the attributes that we evolved for survival and the global dominance of our species make it difficult or impossible for us to solve the accompanying global problems.
On the positive side are the things collective humans have accomplished: functioning democracy and relative economic equity crop up in human history once in awhile. The fact that human ethics and altruism even exist is actually kind of amazing. Unfortunately the majority of history's winners, including the ones blithely ignoring all the hyperobjects (or cynically using them for personal gain) demonstrate why the Biblical story of the Fall is still completely relevant today.
So as Mary-with-the-black-dog points out in the earlier comments, what about Capitalism? The Ideal Media over the decades would have been headlining the auto industry's campaigns against electric cars; the tobacco industry's secrecy about cancer; and most importantly big coal and oil's resistance to anything that would have slowed down climate change. But media is part of collective human nature, where learned survival means amassing as much wealth and power as possible, being tribal, and pretty much allowing these things to corrupt you if you happen to win the jackpot. Even for leaders and oligarchs with consciences, changing the course of massive systems may be impossible. Organizations are pretty much amoral and headless. (Would love to hear valid arguments to the contrary!)
There's nothing I could have done in the past that could have prevented an upcoming severe depopulation of our species, so as a rank-and-file Boomer I'm not going to apologize. (A possible exception might be more personal election activism, beginning with the Reagan years.)
These days my "mission" has been to do whatever I could to reduce polarization in our country, mainly by trying to get my compatriots on the left to quit antagonizing the right. Unfortunately, even people who genuinely believe in working for global sustainability, justice, economic fairness, diversity, tolerance, and "love" still can't resist being hateful to ordinary people who don't share their opinions.
I have heard the term "wicked problem" also used as a.way to describe a hyperobject. That's terms are useful to capture the feeling when you try and comprehend the problems we face. However, these terms stop you from thinking of any way through these challenges. You get stuck contemplating the unknowable.
What we need is a "wicked solution" to these "wicked problems". That is, a solution that remains true no matter what the problem end up being. For me a wicked solution is made up of a multitude of partial solutions. Each partial solution acts at it own scale and by it self is not enough but the gestalt of all the solutions together at all scales is enough. So what we need to do is begin assembling little bits of solution together. For example, solar energy is going to part of the solution to climate change no matter what else is needed. So we should do that. But also choosing to eat vegetarian, and carbon taxes, and all everything else. All these little solution add up and in the end they will be enough.
I think you are correct; we are not ready. On the other hand, I don't think humanity has ever been ready for the next Big Thing. Furthermore, who is right - the person who lives for today enjoying every moment without a worry about tomorrow or their neighbor who studies, plans, saves and prepares for any possible event? If they both sleep well at night they are probably both right and who am I (or anyone else), to tell them they are wrong. Personally, I'm a worrier/planner/saver so I'm with you, brother. I'm definitely worried about what's going on in the world today.
I applaud you for asking the question about the responsible role of journalism in society. I was a reporter in the 1990s, leaving the profession primarily because I was not able to earn enough money to support my family without moving to a major metropolitan area and I prefer the country. That was also about the time that reporters started calling themselves "journalists" and announcing plans to change the way people think and act through their work. My opinion is that is the role of an editorial writer, not a reporter/journalist. I think the job of a reporter/journalist is to investigate topics, find experts and/or witnesses to interview about those topics and report what those knowledgeable folks have to say. They should trust readers to be smart enough to form their own opinion. I read far too many news stories today without source attribution, which I think makes them the opinions of the writer - which makes that writer a commentator, not a reporter/journalist. I think that has a lot to do with why traditional newspapers are dying left and right (pun intended). As reporters evolved into journalists and began telling people what they should think rather than simply reporting on what's going on in the world around them subscribers with differing points of view stopped paying for subscriptions, which, if it's not a hyperobject is at least a really bad trend. American democracy seriously needs more unbiased, news reporting. Instead, for every Tucker Carlson we get a Rachel Maddow.
Thank you for your stimulating writing. I enjoyed it.
P.S. I have subscribed for over 40 years to 3 daily newspapers (1 local, one statewide and one national). Some might say I have a problem. I prefer to think that I'm doing my part to support the free press.
I enjoy your articles, but what should be talked about is not "hyperobjects" but risk for real. Really, when you are talking about dread, fear, or anything else from large macro scale events, what you really need to be talking about is risk and risk is not 1 or 0, its a percentage between and what people generally, and journalists in particular, have trouble with, is how to understand risk in the form of statistics. It is well established that the human mind searches for patterns and will find them even when none exist. Thus, one can look at a series of anecdotal events and find a pattern indicating the end of the world. A different mind, with different biases, can look at the same events and find a pattern of hope. What we should realize is that the future is uncertain, it is always uncertain, and it's likelyhood is also constantly changing.
The problem with contemplating "hyperobjects" (e.g. large threats of low individual current risk) is there are too many of them, and together, all the hyperobjects amount to certainty.
How scared are you of current civilization being wiped out by an asteroid impact? Most people would say its pretty low compared to all the other threats likely to wipe out civilization as we know it (e.g. nuclear war, climate change, future pandemic) and maybe others that are less likely (invasion by hostile aliens, zombie apocalypse, black hole). Yet, asteroid impact is also a hyperobject, one which is (pretty universally) accepted as having happened before (possibly more than once). In fact, every one of the things I mentioned above is a hyperobject. It is a non-zero threat to humanity as a whole. How do you report on all of these "the right way" particularly if you start to see an indication of the threat of one rising.
This is then complicated by what are you talking about the threat being. Why do you fear the asteroid, for example, is it because it will kill you? You are far more likely to die of something other than the asteroid. Further, you are essentially guaranteed to die of something and most (if not all) of those somethings are hyperobjects (e.g. heart disease, cancer, car wreck, war, pandemic) . So, how do you report on the risk of dying of ANY ONE thing "the right way" when the risk of dying of SOME thing is 100% and the risk of ANY ONE thing is small compared to everything else.
Take the following as an example: go get a standard 6 side die out of a board game and roll it. Now realize, that whatever you rolled was less likely than rolling anything else. (you had a 1 in 6 chance to roll what you did and a 5 in 6 chance of rolling something else). Now repeat 100 times, the odds of you rolling the specific pattern of 100 numbers you just rolled is phenomenally unlikely (I believe it's 1 in 6 to the 100th power). The odds of what you just did is probably also enormously LESS likely than you dying by asteroid impact. However, you just did it, so shouldn't you be terrified of dying by asteroid which is so much MORE likely than what you just did.
Now, most people can see the error in the risk calculation here. Because you rolled the die 100 times, you are guaranteed to get ONE pattern of 100 numbers. However, the specific pattern is essentially impossible to guess ahead of time because it's odds are so unlikely. The odds of getting a specific pattern also change each time the die is rolled. Remember the pattern you actually rolled is just as likely as getting the same number 100 times in a row (e.g. 100 6s) which most of us would say is impossible. It's essentially the same phenomenon of how people keep winning Powerball jackpots, even when doing that is so unlikely (it's because there are so many number patterns played EACH ONE is unlikely, but SOME ONE being accurate can become a certainty if enough are played)
Now as a journalist, how should you report on the die rolling? Let's assume that if I happened to roll the die 100 times (once each day) and get a 6 each time, the earth will immediately be destroyed in a massive fireball because an angry all powerful alien decreed this to be the case (and I have no choice but to do it).
I roll the die once and it is a 6, should the populace be scared yet? How about after 10 sixes in a row? The odds of 100 even after 10 are still miniscule, however, after ten sixes, it is also vastly more likely than it was after 1. Should the press report that it is still massively unlikely, or how vastly more likely it now is than it was, or how unlikely it was to even get this far.
What if after 10 rolls of the 6, the alien says that the next remaining rolls will be with a dice that only includes two numbers 1 and 6. The odds of 90 6s just went up a massive amount, but its still enormously unlikely.
Now the alien says that after the first roll, the next 90 will be with a loaded die that will always roll a 6. So we're at 91. Now how scared are you? 9 rolls of six and the world ends, but we are going back to a truly random die at least. If you play games with dice, you've probably gotten 5 rolls that are the same (Yahtzee! anyone). How do you report this? Is it front page news?
The odds (1 in 10 million) are still 40 times smaller than dying by asteroid (1 in 250,000 estimated).
Maybe I'm the only one out here who feels like I've been watching democracy crumble for the past 5 years? I don't think so because I talk to other folks my age who feel the same and we all seem to be fighting serious anxiety. I note how that GOP officials have behaved in outrageous ways with an attitude of impunity, which impressed me as a firm belief that there would be no consequences to pay. And so it seems it has been. Which increases the sinking feeling and dread of the future.
Perhaps where journalists need to go next with climate change is to stop pleading with us little guys to be aware or to make little changes in our lives, and turn to the fact that it is the corporations who are responsible for the vast amount of it and they who must make changes. I suppose that is where funding and employment become an issue? But we little guys really have very little we can do to change anything.
This was an interesting read b/c Warzel is extremely anxious about political tension, uncertainty, and turmoil, but is unable to identify even one single thing that might have contributed to this from the government, the media, or the left. It's like watching a blind man fumble around in hysterics and you feel bad watching his impotent flailing, until you realize he blinded himself.
There is no need to worry about nuclear war any more.....that was all over when the iron curtain fell back in the '80s. .... and I've got extremely good news for your children and grandchildren...you and they also don't need to worry about any anthropogenic global warming.. The science is wrong. It's all a load of bollocks. Here's the truth of the science (mainly my confrontation with Rick)
"You can argue Carlson is who he has always been, or that his Trump era project of (barely) laundering white nationalist talking points into mainstream political discourse is disingenuous, pandering to viewers for whom he has utter contempt. I don’t care.”
You don’t care b/c ‘mainstream political discourse’ as promulgated by you--from a ‘leftist’ perspective--is your bread and butter and is as vapid, disingenuous, and pandering as Carlson’s. By letting Carlson off the hook, you’re also forgiving yourself. Everybody has to earn a living I guess.
FYI, a few of the reddit comments (*) in rxn to your cautionary Times piece about critical thinking point up how hilariously out of step w/ the reality of the times the character you are paid to portray is. Not for nothing, the Internet is the Information Revolution 2.0. The Gutenberg press was its first iteration. The cat is out of the bag… and has been for a long time.
When #Canadian_journalism, on the front page of some media outlet, presents another food drive as a 'good-news' story about a 'sharing, caring community', I know they are lying to me. They're lying to everyone, and the loneliest feeling in the world because I'm apparently the only one that can see it. They'll do anything to avoid raising disability pensions.
How strange it feels now to say "you put into words I've had trouble articulating," since you concluded by saying that words may not be enough. It is a strange moment, and there is a sense, at times, that humanity as a whole is aware of what it needs to do to pivot but is in a sort of collective "freeze" response. Especially in America, where individualism reigns. "What can I do?!" is a common response to climate change. An isolating mental state.
Very much appreciate the effort it takes to formulate these thoughts, present harsh truths and even attempt to make sense of these hyperobjects.
Thanks for articulating these thoughts. It seems obvious to me from reading you for just a few months that you are constitutionally incapable of truly shirking your duties, so please go easy on yourself. I think you're doing a great job.
Charlie, I don't think you are being the least bit hyperbolic. I think 2020 was the last free and fair election in this country until the next revolution and I think Mother Nature is angry enough at us humans that most of it might not matter for very much longer. 😢😢
From my perspective, the hard reality that never seems to be addressed is Capitalism. How to reconcile telling the truth with making a profit? That doesn't seem to be possible. The reality of the damage that carbon and fossil fuels can do has been known for decades. (wasn't it 1987 when Exxon published their research on the effects of carbon emissions on the climate?) Was it ever possible to tell the truth and stay in business?
Thanks for the newsletter. Keep fighting the good fight!
We (Baby Boomers) have certainly made a mess of things
Writing like this makes me feel less alone, so there's that. Which I appreciate.
To add a potentially naïve take ... when I look at all of these hyperobjects & the anxiety they provoke, one thought dominates. Which is the absence of leadership. As long as leaders play only to their base, instead of actually treating supporters & non-supporters as equally valid humans, it will be impossible to find common ground on which to identify problems as problems, let alone find strategic solutions.
The media is, perhaps, merely reflective of that vacuum.
Charlie, this is very good piece. Thanks for writing it and provoking thought as well as alarm.
Thank you for stating what should be obvious but which is often left unsaid. Maybe I'm experiencing confirmation bias, but reading your post made me a bit more "comfortable" - odd word, I guess "at peace" might better serve - with the existential dread I have felt over the past many months. W. B. Yeats said it well:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. [from "The Second Coming"]
May God or goodness or whatever help us!
I've been doing a lot of reading about the periods before both world wars (and I know I'm not supposed to reference historical events because Scary and Overreact), but it's helpful in putting my feelings into context: mainly, that we have to accept not knowing the ultimate outcome of the movements that have been unleashed.
There was massive upheaval before WWI - industrialization, radical ideologies, financial meltdowns, imperial powers running out of lands to conquer -- but nobody knew what the outcome would be. Then there was a war topped by a pandemic and then the old order collapsed. Monarchies fell overnight. Empires ended. Things held until they didn't. I doubt the Hapsburgs thought they would cease to exist, but it happened.
Then before WWII, things were bad in Europe, there was a huge struggle between communists and Nazis and again, nobody knew what the outcome would be. However, there was a strong normalcy bias. Establishment types felt like they could hold it together if they upheld norms and Now I can see why that happened. I can look at England understand "appeasement" was really just hoping the norms would hold out. Because the alternative was that some madman invaded all of Europe? Of course they didn't want to believe that would happen.
Instead, of course, the order collapsed. And none of this means there's going to b a world war, that's not what I'm saying, but parts of the post WWII order are going to fall - be it from right wing movements, climate change, etc. The U.S. is the central actor in this drama, not Europe. We just don't know the outcome.
I look at it as an evolved inability of the human race to manage large societies in accordance with our values. In other words, the attributes that we evolved for survival and the global dominance of our species make it difficult or impossible for us to solve the accompanying global problems.
On the positive side are the things collective humans have accomplished: functioning democracy and relative economic equity crop up in human history once in awhile. The fact that human ethics and altruism even exist is actually kind of amazing. Unfortunately the majority of history's winners, including the ones blithely ignoring all the hyperobjects (or cynically using them for personal gain) demonstrate why the Biblical story of the Fall is still completely relevant today.
So as Mary-with-the-black-dog points out in the earlier comments, what about Capitalism? The Ideal Media over the decades would have been headlining the auto industry's campaigns against electric cars; the tobacco industry's secrecy about cancer; and most importantly big coal and oil's resistance to anything that would have slowed down climate change. But media is part of collective human nature, where learned survival means amassing as much wealth and power as possible, being tribal, and pretty much allowing these things to corrupt you if you happen to win the jackpot. Even for leaders and oligarchs with consciences, changing the course of massive systems may be impossible. Organizations are pretty much amoral and headless. (Would love to hear valid arguments to the contrary!)
There's nothing I could have done in the past that could have prevented an upcoming severe depopulation of our species, so as a rank-and-file Boomer I'm not going to apologize. (A possible exception might be more personal election activism, beginning with the Reagan years.)
These days my "mission" has been to do whatever I could to reduce polarization in our country, mainly by trying to get my compatriots on the left to quit antagonizing the right. Unfortunately, even people who genuinely believe in working for global sustainability, justice, economic fairness, diversity, tolerance, and "love" still can't resist being hateful to ordinary people who don't share their opinions.
I have heard the term "wicked problem" also used as a.way to describe a hyperobject. That's terms are useful to capture the feeling when you try and comprehend the problems we face. However, these terms stop you from thinking of any way through these challenges. You get stuck contemplating the unknowable.
What we need is a "wicked solution" to these "wicked problems". That is, a solution that remains true no matter what the problem end up being. For me a wicked solution is made up of a multitude of partial solutions. Each partial solution acts at it own scale and by it self is not enough but the gestalt of all the solutions together at all scales is enough. So what we need to do is begin assembling little bits of solution together. For example, solar energy is going to part of the solution to climate change no matter what else is needed. So we should do that. But also choosing to eat vegetarian, and carbon taxes, and all everything else. All these little solution add up and in the end they will be enough.
Dear Charlie:
I think you are correct; we are not ready. On the other hand, I don't think humanity has ever been ready for the next Big Thing. Furthermore, who is right - the person who lives for today enjoying every moment without a worry about tomorrow or their neighbor who studies, plans, saves and prepares for any possible event? If they both sleep well at night they are probably both right and who am I (or anyone else), to tell them they are wrong. Personally, I'm a worrier/planner/saver so I'm with you, brother. I'm definitely worried about what's going on in the world today.
I applaud you for asking the question about the responsible role of journalism in society. I was a reporter in the 1990s, leaving the profession primarily because I was not able to earn enough money to support my family without moving to a major metropolitan area and I prefer the country. That was also about the time that reporters started calling themselves "journalists" and announcing plans to change the way people think and act through their work. My opinion is that is the role of an editorial writer, not a reporter/journalist. I think the job of a reporter/journalist is to investigate topics, find experts and/or witnesses to interview about those topics and report what those knowledgeable folks have to say. They should trust readers to be smart enough to form their own opinion. I read far too many news stories today without source attribution, which I think makes them the opinions of the writer - which makes that writer a commentator, not a reporter/journalist. I think that has a lot to do with why traditional newspapers are dying left and right (pun intended). As reporters evolved into journalists and began telling people what they should think rather than simply reporting on what's going on in the world around them subscribers with differing points of view stopped paying for subscriptions, which, if it's not a hyperobject is at least a really bad trend. American democracy seriously needs more unbiased, news reporting. Instead, for every Tucker Carlson we get a Rachel Maddow.
Thank you for your stimulating writing. I enjoyed it.
P.S. I have subscribed for over 40 years to 3 daily newspapers (1 local, one statewide and one national). Some might say I have a problem. I prefer to think that I'm doing my part to support the free press.
I enjoy your articles, but what should be talked about is not "hyperobjects" but risk for real. Really, when you are talking about dread, fear, or anything else from large macro scale events, what you really need to be talking about is risk and risk is not 1 or 0, its a percentage between and what people generally, and journalists in particular, have trouble with, is how to understand risk in the form of statistics. It is well established that the human mind searches for patterns and will find them even when none exist. Thus, one can look at a series of anecdotal events and find a pattern indicating the end of the world. A different mind, with different biases, can look at the same events and find a pattern of hope. What we should realize is that the future is uncertain, it is always uncertain, and it's likelyhood is also constantly changing.
The problem with contemplating "hyperobjects" (e.g. large threats of low individual current risk) is there are too many of them, and together, all the hyperobjects amount to certainty.
How scared are you of current civilization being wiped out by an asteroid impact? Most people would say its pretty low compared to all the other threats likely to wipe out civilization as we know it (e.g. nuclear war, climate change, future pandemic) and maybe others that are less likely (invasion by hostile aliens, zombie apocalypse, black hole). Yet, asteroid impact is also a hyperobject, one which is (pretty universally) accepted as having happened before (possibly more than once). In fact, every one of the things I mentioned above is a hyperobject. It is a non-zero threat to humanity as a whole. How do you report on all of these "the right way" particularly if you start to see an indication of the threat of one rising.
This is then complicated by what are you talking about the threat being. Why do you fear the asteroid, for example, is it because it will kill you? You are far more likely to die of something other than the asteroid. Further, you are essentially guaranteed to die of something and most (if not all) of those somethings are hyperobjects (e.g. heart disease, cancer, car wreck, war, pandemic) . So, how do you report on the risk of dying of ANY ONE thing "the right way" when the risk of dying of SOME thing is 100% and the risk of ANY ONE thing is small compared to everything else.
Take the following as an example: go get a standard 6 side die out of a board game and roll it. Now realize, that whatever you rolled was less likely than rolling anything else. (you had a 1 in 6 chance to roll what you did and a 5 in 6 chance of rolling something else). Now repeat 100 times, the odds of you rolling the specific pattern of 100 numbers you just rolled is phenomenally unlikely (I believe it's 1 in 6 to the 100th power). The odds of what you just did is probably also enormously LESS likely than you dying by asteroid impact. However, you just did it, so shouldn't you be terrified of dying by asteroid which is so much MORE likely than what you just did.
Now, most people can see the error in the risk calculation here. Because you rolled the die 100 times, you are guaranteed to get ONE pattern of 100 numbers. However, the specific pattern is essentially impossible to guess ahead of time because it's odds are so unlikely. The odds of getting a specific pattern also change each time the die is rolled. Remember the pattern you actually rolled is just as likely as getting the same number 100 times in a row (e.g. 100 6s) which most of us would say is impossible. It's essentially the same phenomenon of how people keep winning Powerball jackpots, even when doing that is so unlikely (it's because there are so many number patterns played EACH ONE is unlikely, but SOME ONE being accurate can become a certainty if enough are played)
Now as a journalist, how should you report on the die rolling? Let's assume that if I happened to roll the die 100 times (once each day) and get a 6 each time, the earth will immediately be destroyed in a massive fireball because an angry all powerful alien decreed this to be the case (and I have no choice but to do it).
I roll the die once and it is a 6, should the populace be scared yet? How about after 10 sixes in a row? The odds of 100 even after 10 are still miniscule, however, after ten sixes, it is also vastly more likely than it was after 1. Should the press report that it is still massively unlikely, or how vastly more likely it now is than it was, or how unlikely it was to even get this far.
What if after 10 rolls of the 6, the alien says that the next remaining rolls will be with a dice that only includes two numbers 1 and 6. The odds of 90 6s just went up a massive amount, but its still enormously unlikely.
Now the alien says that after the first roll, the next 90 will be with a loaded die that will always roll a 6. So we're at 91. Now how scared are you? 9 rolls of six and the world ends, but we are going back to a truly random die at least. If you play games with dice, you've probably gotten 5 rolls that are the same (Yahtzee! anyone). How do you report this? Is it front page news?
The odds (1 in 10 million) are still 40 times smaller than dying by asteroid (1 in 250,000 estimated).
Maybe I'm the only one out here who feels like I've been watching democracy crumble for the past 5 years? I don't think so because I talk to other folks my age who feel the same and we all seem to be fighting serious anxiety. I note how that GOP officials have behaved in outrageous ways with an attitude of impunity, which impressed me as a firm belief that there would be no consequences to pay. And so it seems it has been. Which increases the sinking feeling and dread of the future.
Perhaps where journalists need to go next with climate change is to stop pleading with us little guys to be aware or to make little changes in our lives, and turn to the fact that it is the corporations who are responsible for the vast amount of it and they who must make changes. I suppose that is where funding and employment become an issue? But we little guys really have very little we can do to change anything.
This was an interesting read b/c Warzel is extremely anxious about political tension, uncertainty, and turmoil, but is unable to identify even one single thing that might have contributed to this from the government, the media, or the left. It's like watching a blind man fumble around in hysterics and you feel bad watching his impotent flailing, until you realize he blinded himself.
Dear Charlie,
There is no need to worry about nuclear war any more.....that was all over when the iron curtain fell back in the '80s. .... and I've got extremely good news for your children and grandchildren...you and they also don't need to worry about any anthropogenic global warming.. The science is wrong. It's all a load of bollocks. Here's the truth of the science (mainly my confrontation with Rick)
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2021/02/science-says-change-the-weather-and-break-the-countrys-heart/
Best for your future,
Mack.
Sky Dragon Slayers Chief Public Relations Officer
"You can argue Carlson is who he has always been, or that his Trump era project of (barely) laundering white nationalist talking points into mainstream political discourse is disingenuous, pandering to viewers for whom he has utter contempt. I don’t care.”
You don’t care b/c ‘mainstream political discourse’ as promulgated by you--from a ‘leftist’ perspective--is your bread and butter and is as vapid, disingenuous, and pandering as Carlson’s. By letting Carlson off the hook, you’re also forgiving yourself. Everybody has to earn a living I guess.
FYI, a few of the reddit comments (*) in rxn to your cautionary Times piece about critical thinking point up how hilariously out of step w/ the reality of the times the character you are paid to portray is. Not for nothing, the Internet is the Information Revolution 2.0. The Gutenberg press was its first iteration. The cat is out of the bag… and has been for a long time.
(*)https://www.rareddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/lo2l89/new_york_times_warns_us_dont_go_down_the_rabbit/
When #Canadian_journalism, on the front page of some media outlet, presents another food drive as a 'good-news' story about a 'sharing, caring community', I know they are lying to me. They're lying to everyone, and the loneliest feeling in the world because I'm apparently the only one that can see it. They'll do anything to avoid raising disability pensions.