nathanielbuildsatesseract | Doom and Gloom (Reply)

I hate to feel this pessimistic about the long-term, but it's hard to be optimistic about the state of America. Between the Afghanistan "withdraw", Republicans continuing to side with pestilence, and Boeing having yet another delay with Starliner, there's not a lot of evidence for the civilizational competence I expect we'll need to survive the 21st century in roughly one piece. A poor night's sleep and the start of fall allergies obviously aren't helping my perception, but these things really are bad.

My personal life is basically fine; I need to wrap up my degree but I've got a decent job and have plans to move out in a few months. But all of this makes me think I should both put serious effort into minimizing potential future downsides (even well out into what I would have previously considered the long tail), as well as put some real effort into trying to construct that civilizational competence that I'm honestly not sure we ever actually had.