Hi TOK Society,

  I hope this finds you well. In many ways, 2019 has seen a continuation and deepening of the Age of Confusion, and I remain scared for our future. At the same time, it is also the case that the nature of news and how we pay attention to the larger world deeply shapes our impression of it. (One cognitive science reason for this is that if we pay attention all the time to bad stuff, that means we have many available examples of bad stuff, which means we think it is happening at a much greater rate than it is...this is one of the biases of how we think called the availability heuristic).

  The fact is the world is very complicated and many things are happening at once. The real world is much, much more complicated than our models of it. And it is clearly the case that we need to look at the world via many different lenses. For those who are pessimistic and feeling a bit dismayed, I recommend Nicholas Kristof's annual summary of how the world is improving. Here is his 2019 version.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/opinion/sunday/2019-best-year-poverty.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_191229?campaign_id=2&instance_id=14840&segment_id=19924&user_id=8e4f03af2447d5adeb5069c9fb9bdf47&regi_id=352238941229

I recommend it. I also recommend Ross Douthat's interesting piece on why the 2010s were "psychologically traumatic". Indeed, I think they were. Few things more traumatic to the psyche than profound existential confusion.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/opinion/sunday/2010s-decade-disillusionment.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_191229?campaign_id=2&instance_id=14840&segment_id=19924&user_id=8e4f03af2447d5adeb5069c9fb9bdf47&regi_id=352238941229

Warm regards to all,
Gregg

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