[autoexec]

> This is depressing, because there is good news out there!

Good news and amazing things like "Grandpa drives stray dog 1250 miles to surprise grandkids" or "World's Fastest Shoes Invented" don't do much to offset the bad news like "All water on Earth now poisoned and toxic" or "1 billion climate refugees to be displaced by 2050".

Maybe shootings were commonplace in the wild west, and politicians were always shitty, but you can't blame people if they don't want to raise children in the wild west, or a crumbling democracy.

[dahart]

See that’s exactly the kind of frustrating pessimism I’m talking about. You’re choosing to downplay what’s going well and choosing to highlight the bad and frame it as hopeless. I wasn’t talking about fluff stories of good news. There is actual, real good news.

The climate refugees statement has not happened yet, and the problem with treating it as though it has is exactly what you’re seeing in this story and in this thread: people start acting like there’s no nope and nothing we can do about it, when the reality is that we have time! The problem all along has been a lack of motivation, due especially right-wing skepticism and a concerted attack on public trust in science and government. Now that the skepticism is really starting to evaporate, it would be the most massive and incredible shame if we sat around moping even though almost everyone now agrees it’s real, just because everyone decided it was already hopeless and decided to be depressed about it. Some hopeful people are going to work on solutions, and the more we can spread hope, the more people will contribute. This is hopeful framing is still incredibly important right now, if you want the solutions to get funded with tax dollars! Keeping levels of public trust in government actions on climate change and keeping levels of public trust in science is really critical to avoiding the outcome you’re talking about.

Here’s a list of actually amazing things that happened, and this is just the very first Google result I got, the list is very far from complete, there are many more good things happening if you care to look around! https://www.positive.news/society/what-went-right-in-2022-th...

[autoexec]

> You’re choosing to downplay what’s going well and choosing to highlight the bad and frame it as hopeless. I wasn’t talking about fluff stories of good news. There is actual, real good news.

Your list of good news is a very mixed bag

#1 in the list is that the war in Ukraine is bad for fossil fuels - that's a lot of suffering and death for changes that could have happened at any point without the war. Not exactly a net win. They bolster this weak point with a shout out to a recent fusion experiment which was widely panned for being reported over-optimistically to the point of misrepresentation.

Lots of climate legislation listed. It is genuinely good to see anything meaningful being done to address climate change. It's no where near enough, but it's Something even if it's debatable how much good it'll actually do or even if it'll cause more harm than good in the end.

#4 is actually genuinely depressing. It says that research suggests that people have direct influence over 25-27 per cent of the emissions savings needed to avoid climate chaos. What the report actually says is that if everyone gives up owning a car, stops eating meat, limits themselves to only 8 items of clothing and limits replacements to 3 new articles of clothing a year, if they can somehow "avoid all household food waste", limit themselves to 1 short flight every 3 years and 1 long flight every 8 years, keep all appliances and electronics far longer than they are designed and built to last, and do all of those things immediately we'd still be 75% away from preventing global catastrophe and none of that 75% is within people's control. Should I be excited about the idea of raising a child in a world where they can only own 8 items of clothing, have to eat garbage, and can never own a car?

#5 is about Patagonia which was a PR scam to cover that a billionaire will just give money to himself/his family for tax reasons.

There is some genuine good and encouraging news in there too though: a couple endangered species pulled back from the brink of extinction, the Respect for Marriage Act passing, some social movements gaining ground and opinions shifting. Medical advances some of which may or may not amount to anything.

Is it enough to offset all the bad news? hard to say.

> The climate refugees statement has not happened yet,

No, but would-be parents need to look at the past, the present, and the future. When experts say the world will be on fire in 25 years if we keep doing things as we have done and our past and current situation doesn't give us a lot of reason to think things will change soon enough the smart thing to do is prepare for what's expected. You say that the reality is that we have time, but that's not certain. We probably could have time, if we're careful, but we're not being careful.

hopeful framing comes from hope and that hope needs to come from something tangible. When we have demonstrated progress showing a trajectory heading away from disaster and chaos we'll have hope. The best a person can have now is faith that things will improve because faith doesn't require evidence.

Trust in science requires accountability and integrity. Right now corporations pay for fraudulent research, replication isn't being done, and peer review is a rubber stamp. With nothing being done to combat these problems how can there be trust? It's the same for government which routinely lies to the public, acts against the will of the people to favor a small number of wealth elites, and works to minimize the ability of the public to make meaningful changes. How can there be trust? We need transparency and accountability for trust.

I'll admit that there is a lot of pessimism and learned helplessness going around these days, but it's rooted in reality. The deeper you look into things the more hopeless they seem, but if you don't look too hard and accept press releases without question you can end up with lists of "what went right" that are filled with so much that is wrong and uncertain.

[dahart]

> There is some genuine good and encouraging news in there too

I know, right?!

FWIW, it wasn’t my list, it’s just a list, and there are others. There are plenty of bad things to find, when you’re looking for it. (And, ahem, vice-versa.) Wallowing on the bad things, things which you and I both have almost zero first-hand knowledge or experience of, is a pointless and depressing waste of time. Let’s control the things we can, and make the things we control better!

A lot of capitalist interests want us docile, and they spend time designing the news and social media to keep you engaged and dependent on full time consumption. They don’t care if you’re happy or depressed, as long as you stay unmotivated to challenge them, and keep purchasing Xanax and video games. Don’t be a tool of the news outlets, go find some good news, and if you really truly can’t find any, then make some! (But I already know you can find good news, if you take the time to look.)