Data Versus Uncertainty About Our Future

Matt Yglesias wrote in

Slow Boring

this month about negativity: “Middle class Americans live in the richest country on earth at a time of unprecedented global prosperity and have let online ragebait convince themselves that they are living through awful historical circumstances.”

But I don’t think it’s that simple. Online ragebait driven by (very real) inequality bears some blame, but the other culprit is uncertainty. 

You know that feeling when you’re on a roller coaster and it’s cresting the first big hill? If you take stock of your situation right then near the top of the hill, the view is great, and you are definitely higher than you were at prior points in the timeline of this ride. 

However, what lies ahead when you gaze forward doesn’t look so constant or so smooth. And that’s mostly true for humans more generally right now, no matter what your current perspective: 

• You may be expecting a plummet if you’re anticipating that climate change will worsen dramatically via tipping points or that AI will advance rapidly without sufficient controls. In both cases, our mitigations aren’t where they could or should be.

• You may be expecting a chaotic series of peaks and valleys as we make a rough transition into an unknown future state. Leaving the Holocene era means leaving the stability that opened the way for agriculture and the rise of humanity. Pleistocene temperatures (which preceded the Holocene) were a lot more peak-and-valley-shaped, and early hominids and humans were a lot more nomadic. We have better technology now, so maybe we can adjust to some degree, but it’s uncertain.

• You may anticipate a near-vertical vault upward if you’re expecting AI to solve our current problems without causing catastrophic new ones. This assumes nothing goes catastrophically wrong, and that’s rarely a good assumption over long periods of time, but it’s possible we could get lucky. AI could turn out to solve climate change problems and usher in a new era where we work less, live longer, and have more time for family, friends, and hobbies.

Regardless of where you fall on the optimism-pessimism spectrum, a steep future is a scary future for many people. And I think that’s the missing piece of the discontent puzzle. The butterflies in your stomach, whatever your perspective, are waking up and telling you: things are going to change soon. 

Right-Now Math versus Forward Path

So, yes, the view may be good on paper (and more on that later), but the path ahead is highly uncertain. 

Markets (and thus the people who underlie them) abhor uncertainty, often even more than they hate concrete bad news. Think of the uncertainty in Fall 2008, which was at its worst in the absence of information about which banks were and weren’t solvent. The release of bank stress tests containing that information sparked a recovery because confidence (reduction of uncertainty) turned out to be a leverage point. 

Right now, it’s objectively true that humans on average (not in every location but in many) are doing great compared to most of our ancestors. Life expectancy has been lengthening for centuries until very recently. We’re more educated and possess more material comforts. Our diseases are tending toward diseases of affluence. We are blessed. But we face big uncertainty at a time when trust in the systems that govern our societies is trending low.

An Additional Factor - Increasingly Visible Inequality

Let’s get back to that online ragebait comment for a minute. What drives it? In my view, the success-to-the-successful dynamics that have produced ever-larger concentrations of wealth are distorting the economy in increasingly noticeable ways, putting adequate healthcare, housing, and healthy food out of reach for more people every year. This economy is vastly different than the healthy competition among mostly mid-size firms that preceded it, which offered enough room for small firms to become mid-size and for mid-size firms to grow without blocking the sunlight for all the smaller firms.

No one who is standing on the ground likes to see a few giants blocking all the sunlight—even if the ground is higher than it used to be.

So, on paper, yes, unemployment is low, inflation has moderated, the economy is growing. But people perceive the success-to-the-successful pattern baked into society coupled with high uncertainty about the future direction of almost everything, as it dawns on lots of people simultaneously that the path forward looks less stable than what we experienced before. Feeling disadvantaged at a time of great upheaval…. does not feel good? That combination is driving the “vibecession” malaise.  

How can we deal with it?

One way to deal with uncertainty in the macro world is to increase resilience and certainty in our micro worlds. That means building and strengthening connections with family, friends, acquaintances, and trusted organizations far and especially near. It means getting involved and helping others and being willing to ask for help when we need it. It means rethinking our skills and hedging to increase our personal resilience.  

This is risk management at the personal level, and I don’t think humans will do well without it. The trend of increasing isolation and loneliness is a DEFCON 1 problem. Addressing it may be a leverage point, simultaneously reducing our susceptibility to online ragebait and our uncertainty-driven negativity.

The actions required are simple, even if they feel hard. Go out the door. Meet the neighbors. Do small favors for each other. Share meals and perspectives. Get involved in your community. Whatever future is coming, it’ll be better faced with a stronger foundation. Much like an apparent “overnight success” is often the result of countless small and largely unnoticed earlier steps, seemingly small changes in small systems are often the spark for larger ones in larger systems.