A quick look at some recent headlines shows that we have problems. The nation sharply and angrily divided along political lines. Rioters in the streets of Los Angeles. A destructive trade war. Debt and deficits at unsustainable levels.
Those are real and serious problems (and not close to an exhaustive list). But the tenor of the public debate—from elected officials to pundits, journalists to public intellectuals—implies that we are living in something approaching the apocalypse. To them, the game is rigged, the system is broken, everything is awful, and life was better decades ago.
That’s mostly bullshit.
Yes, we have real problems. But widen the aperture, and you’ll see that there has never been a better time to be alive than the present day.
If that doesn’t sound like what you’re reading in the newspaper, remember that the news business relies on outraging you.
How many viral social media posts essentially say “all is pretty, pretty good, so let’s just move along”? Of course, just saying “pretty, pretty good” quotes a man who thinks dinner with Hitler and dinner with Trump are six of one half, a sieg heil of another. That kind of poor reality testing is kind of the theme of this essay.
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Author: Clifford S. Asness
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