Optimism and Contrarianism

I’ve felt a bit pessimistic the past few weeks. Part of it, I think, is that I’m a bit contrarian: now that pundits and analysts are dropping their pessimistic economic forecasts and saying they were wrong, I start to get worried. Not too much yet, just a little bit. Lots of people seem to be caught up in euphoria (and yes, I still believe AI is a real and long-term trend, and there is still widespread underestimation of its potential contribution to GDP over many years, and I’m fortunate to have benefited from the current breathless hype), but I wonder: what are people not seeing or not choosing to look at? What should I be paying attention to?

The sight of stampeding herds—in any direction—makes me edgy. Can the ground withstand that many hooves at once? For a while, maybe.

So, in a respectful way of just honoring what I see and feel, here are the things weighing on my mind. 

• Climate change: It’s winter in the northern hemisphere, and we’re still breaking records. We clearly hit a tipping point in the last couple of years; some combination of factors and dynamics pushed us into another phase. This year is almost certainly going to be the hottest year in recorded history, just like last year. It’s partly El Niño, but it’s also a warning for the future.

• Education: I wrote about The Coming Education Disaster back in summer 2022, when I thought there might be a chance to address pandemic learning losses. Some districts did take action, sometimes to great effect, but in other districts, that didn’t happen, and kids who fell behind not just in math and reading skills, but in social skills that are critical for enjoying and contributing to life and society, have not caught up. Teachers are seeing the fallout now—and they are fleeing. This is a national emergency, and I get that we’re all emergency’ed out, but it’s going to get worse if we do nothing. The kids in school now will be our doctors someday (and sooner than we think). They will be our managers, our accountants, our government bureaucrats. AI may help tremendously with the steadily worsening teacher shortage by giving everyone a personal tutor real soon now, but human kids need human help to re-socialize and re-integrate into society after a traumatic experience.

• US (and some other countries’—ahem UK) healthcare systems: Staffing is tight as nurses are fleeing en masse. An increasing number of doctors are pulling back from patient care or switching fields, switching to concierge medicine to regain control over their business but shutting out some non-affluent patients in the process, or not pursuing medicine in the first place. Shortages and out-of-stocks for medicines and equipment continue. And private equity is encroaching, buying health facilities and practices in transactions that, in my view, should be banned.
  
  Even as the push for profit sharpens, people are getting sicker, all that delayed care during the pandemic catching up with us, Long COVID still very much an unsolved problem, an inconvenient truth that will continue to escalate and affect more people until we acknowledge the ongoing erosion and find better preventive and corrective treatments, environmental pollutants and microplastics adding another insult to stressed bodies. As people get sicker, insurance companies charge more to offset higher expenses. What will happen when you need care but the medicine is out of stock, the hospital is short-staffed, and delays turn an urgent issue into a chronic one, the system groaning under its own poorly designed weight? Increasingly, each of us is on our own to safeguard our own health, until the system sees major reform. Most of us just don’t realize it yet.

• Geopolitical conflicts: The global situation is rough, what’s happened is terrible, and neither the Ukraine-Russia nor Israel-Gaza conflict shows signs of resolution soon. Though I wouldn’t rule out an agreement  happening sometime this year, I can’t imagine how that might look from today’s vantage point. 

• Malaise: People seem angrier in general. Car accidents are way up. “Unruly passenger” incidents on airplanes are still almost double 2019 levels. Almost everything costs more, especially housing. The only good solution for housing inflation is to build much more housing, especially affordable starter homes, and that is not happening fast enough. 

Redefining optimism

So, that’s a lot. It’s heavy. How do I face the world with all that weighing on my mind? I like to think of myself as a realistic optimist. And I am still an optimist: 

• I believe we can still make changes to improve things, that we can start small and plant seeds and they will grow over time. 

• People make changes to improve things all the time, and it sometimes works. 

• The long-term arc over the past century is good: extreme poverty has plummeted worldwide. Life expectancy is up overall, and deaths from diseases are down, despite our current challenges. Education has increased. Literacy is much more widespread.

• Therefore, I think we have a decent chance of solving our current problems over time. It’s a tough road, no denying it. But when in history has it not been a tough road? 

I guess I’m a weird kind of optimist. 

So, I take a deep breath, and do what I can to make headway on issues where I have the capabilities and contacts, and have a cup of tea, and enjoy the good things—creative projects and walks in nature and time spent with loved ones—as I wait to see what will happen next.