When you're taking action in the face of uncertainty, you have to make peace with the idea that you're never going to know if you're doing the right thing. This pandemic is one way of remembering what that's going to feel like.
Doomscrolling
Doomscrolling is the act of spending an excessive amount of time on digital content that elicit negative emotions. The concept was coined around 2018, and became more widespread in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) observed that the pandemic was accompanied by widespread misleading information, conspiracy theories, and false reports, which it referred to as an "infodemic".
The Hole In Your Brain That Makes You Doomscroll
Truth in Inconvenience
What do ZIRP, the AI panic, and the meaning crisis have in common?
Opinion | When It Comes to Covid-19, Most of Us Have Risk Exactly Backward (Published 2020)
We aren’t very good at discussing trade-offs, but we need to make some during this pandemic.
Epistemic Vigilance
Humans massively depend on communication with others, but this leaves them open to the risk of being accidentally or intentionally misinformed. To ensure that, despite this risk, communication remain...
here we go again
I feel objectively worse than I did in 2016. We have so much more information about how bad things are going to get now, and the fascists have had eight more years to prepare for how to roll out cruelty en masse on day one. We have so much less slack in ameliorating the worst impacts of climate change, after yet another eight years of inaction. I’m terrified.
We prepared for Ebola — but not this Ebola
“Preparedness cannot mean optimizing every investment for yesterday's epidemic,” write Krutika Kuppalli and Placide Mbala.
First Steps Under Fascism
It's here and you're scared and you don't know what to think and it feels all so completely surreal. You go to work, and you whisper to work friends about how absurd it is, but you get your work done. Some of your colleagues are oblivious. Some might even be excited. You're terrified.
TBM 405: Hope, Context, and Control
This essay is about hope, fear, AI, and the tension between control and collective sensemaking.
Since 9/11, Fear Has Driven Our Politics. Don’t Let It Drive The Next 25 Years.
Twenty-five years ago today I was woken up by a phone call from a close friend, who, like me, grew up in New York and, like me, was now living in California. She told me that something horrible had…
Our Uncertain Uncertainties
Even the experts inventing AI don’t know what will happen next.
Calamity Theory
What are the implications of how we talk about apocalypse? A new philosophical field has emerged. “Existential risk” studies any real or hypothetical hum...
Paranoia: A Beginner's Guide — LessWrong
People sometimes make mistakes. (Citation Needed) …
Managing intrusive thoughts | Lifeline
Dealing with overwhelming and distressing thoughts can be difficult, but knowing how to handle them can make a big difference to how you feel. Learn why you might be experiencing intrusive thoughts and strategies that can help you manage them.
Climate doom may discourage climate action, but there’s a way to counter it
One way to guard against misinformation is to empower people to identify climate doom in the first place.
