[ExI] the disconnect

[Dan TheBookMan]

On May 16, 2016, at 11:22 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> We are far ahead of China and Japan - our economy is larger than theirs combined.  Poverty, according to the World Bank, is around 10% worldwide as opposed to 37% in 1990.  We lead the world in engineering and science and business innovation.  Even the arts (if you can stand to call what's on TV 'art'.)
> 
> Pollution, discrimination, crime and most diseases are in a steady decline.
> 
> There's a lot more.  See link below.
> 
> So why are our politicians telling everyone that we are going to hell?  Because people just aren't getting the good messages (they don't sell magazines and papers and TV time, apparently) and because fear is much stronger than optimism.
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/opinion/sunday/when-did-optimism-become-uncool.html?_r=0
> 
> It's hard, reading all of that, not to believe that we are in the best times the USA and the world, has even seen.

Because pessimistic bias is pervasive (see Bryan Caplan on this). And also, especially for politicians, you don't get elected to fix critical problems if there are no severe critical to fix. So there's a perverse incentive for them to sell the view that the world is on the edge of an abyss.

Regards,

Dan
  Sample my Kindle books via:
http://author.to/DanUst
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