Depression and Dread Triggered by the News

"I read the news today, oh boy..."

-John Lennon

I read a news article last night which was so depressing I do not really care to share it at the moment because I don't care to trigger the same reaction in anyone who might one day read this. 

Then again, I am not sure how to proceed in writing about it, and, then again, as of right now this whole blog is meant to function mostly as a diary anyway. So perhaps I will, but, I guess: trigger warning for existential dread.

Yesterday exciting news swept the internets courtesy of NASA. Earth-like planets have been discovered a "mere" 39 light-years away. Bill Nye posted on Facebook about it and hailed "the joy of discovery." Then one of my preferred news sites took the most depressing angle possible: Why the discovery of Earth-like planets could spell doom for humanity. The gist: it seems increasingly likely that there may be "tens of thousands" or more intelligent civilizations in our galaxy. That seems exciting, what would be so depressing about it? Well, if it is so, why haven't we made contact with any of them? Here is the depressing possibility: the reason we haven't made contact is because life fails to evolve to a point where such contact is possible. No matter how advanced civilizations can become, they never make it to a point of such advanced space communication and travel. It raises the possibility that, in getting close to such a point, civilizations instead collapse. In the context of the state of civilization today, given the real risk to the human species faced by various threats, chiefly climate change and nuclear war, it may be that we are at the later stages of human civilization, and we don't have long to go.

A lot of people with knowledge about climate change worry that such a threat is real. If you want to argue that human civilization, and even the entire species, is at real risk this century, you don't have to look hard for evidence to support it. 

How does one think about such topics and go on with life? I have to leave for work in 30 minutes. These are the times. Drink your morning coffee, read the news, contemplate human extinction. 

In some ways it is nothing new. Malthus thought we'd all be dead by now, the world would be incapable of holding a billion people or so. One of my U.S. History professors talked about living through the Cold War and how you just carried on with a belief that your own life would end, as would humanity, in a nuclear blast. For about 25 years we were given a small reprieve from such dread, but any reasonable assessment of the state of the world today has to bring it back. 

In some ways it is something new, climate change is a wholly new problem and humanity seems to be falling behind in the race to contain it. I monitor news on the issue daily and it is a one-step-up, two-steps-back kind of affair. For every story that sounds like we may have taken a promising turn for the better, two stories crop up suggesting we are in deep trouble. In short, we seem to be at least 20 years behind where we want to be in transitioning to a sustainable civilization. 

The challenge always is to remain aware of what is happening without feeling defeated and giving up. It is a major challenge, but, checking out and not participating in trying to build the better world is a small contribution to hastening the worst possible outcomes. We are our only hope and we have to be the people we've been waiting for.