Endless Doom Scroller(endlessdoomscroller.com)
endlessdoomscroller.com
Endless Doom Scroller
https://endlessdoomscroller.com/
117 comments
Right now there are people sitting in their doctor's office, hearing that they have a terminal disease. They only have a small amount of time to live.
This is about as negative as news can get, and it's been happening ever since there have been people and doctor's offices.
This is a horrible thing to have to bear, and many commit suicide or have a terrible time with the news. By and large, however, people go on with their lives, finding hope, arranging their affairs, and getting ready to both fight and enjoy the time they have left.
What they don't do, by and large, is have a continuous public meltdown, even though their life might look as bleak as is possible.
Negative news is great. What's needed and not provided is context. In a world of billions of people, with millions of people able to imagine and prove to various degrees that some horrible thing is about to happen, the amount of negatively-tainted news is for all intents and purposes infinite. It always has been. We've just had shitty communication systems.
People love to consume and share negative news. They love to slow down at the car wrecks to see if they can see bodies. They love to socially-gossip about how bad something might be and how so-and-so might be taking it or not. That's wired into our systems, probably as a survival behavior. Hominids who worry about lions tend not to get eaten by them, whether or not they live near any lions or not.
In this environment and evolutionary configuration, then, some sort of filtering mechanism is required so that the things we're hard-wired to do don't take over most of our life. To admit that isn't to want to live in a pollyannish world, it's simply to grow up and start consuming a media diet instead of a shitstorm firehose. There are real problems, yes. There always have been. To solve them requires precision, emotion-free discernment and slow progress. Most folks aren't getting any of that today. They're just getting the lizard brain stimulus over and over again. Because money.
This is about as negative as news can get, and it's been happening ever since there have been people and doctor's offices.
This is a horrible thing to have to bear, and many commit suicide or have a terrible time with the news. By and large, however, people go on with their lives, finding hope, arranging their affairs, and getting ready to both fight and enjoy the time they have left.
What they don't do, by and large, is have a continuous public meltdown, even though their life might look as bleak as is possible.
Negative news is great. What's needed and not provided is context. In a world of billions of people, with millions of people able to imagine and prove to various degrees that some horrible thing is about to happen, the amount of negatively-tainted news is for all intents and purposes infinite. It always has been. We've just had shitty communication systems.
People love to consume and share negative news. They love to slow down at the car wrecks to see if they can see bodies. They love to socially-gossip about how bad something might be and how so-and-so might be taking it or not. That's wired into our systems, probably as a survival behavior. Hominids who worry about lions tend not to get eaten by them, whether or not they live near any lions or not.
In this environment and evolutionary configuration, then, some sort of filtering mechanism is required so that the things we're hard-wired to do don't take over most of our life. To admit that isn't to want to live in a pollyannish world, it's simply to grow up and start consuming a media diet instead of a shitstorm firehose. There are real problems, yes. There always have been. To solve them requires precision, emotion-free discernment and slow progress. Most folks aren't getting any of that today. They're just getting the lizard brain stimulus over and over again. Because money.
> honestly looking at the world in sober fashion I think most people are probably not scared enough.
I see your comment as the perfect irony. First, you presume that your outlook is sober, but have you considered that the way you perceive the world is just that, the product of your biased (by all the gloom) state of mind? Do you think the world is getting worse? It's been "getting worse" forever.
As for fixing problems, how many problems can you realistically fix from what you're watching? The world has real problems and you could just pick one if you want and focus on it. There's really no need to dwell on negativity days on end. Doom and gloom is just a distraction and contrary to what you may believe, not productive.
My personal advice though, would be to try to retreat for a while and observe that nothing much would have changed when you resurface. It'll be like skipping two seasons of a bad soap opera and picking it up later, without missing a beat and without having wasted hours following circuitous story lines.
I see your comment as the perfect irony. First, you presume that your outlook is sober, but have you considered that the way you perceive the world is just that, the product of your biased (by all the gloom) state of mind? Do you think the world is getting worse? It's been "getting worse" forever.
As for fixing problems, how many problems can you realistically fix from what you're watching? The world has real problems and you could just pick one if you want and focus on it. There's really no need to dwell on negativity days on end. Doom and gloom is just a distraction and contrary to what you may believe, not productive.
My personal advice though, would be to try to retreat for a while and observe that nothing much would have changed when you resurface. It'll be like skipping two seasons of a bad soap opera and picking it up later, without missing a beat and without having wasted hours following circuitous story lines.
Some things like the size of the US National Debt are genuinely getting noticeably worse rather quickly. It’s ~125% of GDP (26.6T) ignoring COVID and likely to get significantly worse over the next year. Interest added up to 383B in 2009 and 574B in 2019 that’s insane. https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.ht...
Plenty of issues do evolve slowly. The Ogallala Aquifer is rather critical to the Midwest and has serious issues. Sure waiting two years isn’t going to make that much difference, but that just means we wasted another two years before doing anything.
Plenty of issues do evolve slowly. The Ogallala Aquifer is rather critical to the Midwest and has serious issues. Sure waiting two years isn’t going to make that much difference, but that just means we wasted another two years before doing anything.
> Some things like the size of the US National Debt are genuinely getting noticeably worse rather quickly.
Without context, this is meaningless. Most people lack the context to understand what National Debt even is, let alone how it works in an economy; for proof of that, look at all the people who are, to all appearances, utterly convinced that China can "repossess" massive tracts of land because it "owns" some of our debt. The utter confusion of ideas required to hold such convictions is beyond me, but such notions are out there, and quite potent in certain circles.
Without context, this is meaningless. Most people lack the context to understand what National Debt even is, let alone how it works in an economy; for proof of that, look at all the people who are, to all appearances, utterly convinced that China can "repossess" massive tracts of land because it "owns" some of our debt. The utter confusion of ideas required to hold such convictions is beyond me, but such notions are out there, and quite potent in certain circles.
Digging in you could learn the actual effects when a country defaults or even makes real effort to avoid defaulting. However, failing to understand the details is not protection. So, the point is you can directly see a major problem getting worse.
Further, that was simply a random example. Substitute the global obesity crisis and the point stands.
Further, that was simply a random example. Substitute the global obesity crisis and the point stands.
> Interest added up to 383B in 2009 and 574B in 2019 that’s insane
Between 2009 and 2019, US GDP grew from $14.45 trillion to $21.43 trillion - growing 48.3%. In that time, according to those figures, our annual interest payments have grown 49.8%. Those numbers are so close natural variability alone could explain the difference.
Why is that insane? The US is a mature economy.
Between 2009 and 2019, US GDP grew from $14.45 trillion to $21.43 trillion - growing 48.3%. In that time, according to those figures, our annual interest payments have grown 49.8%. Those numbers are so close natural variability alone could explain the difference.
Why is that insane? The US is a mature economy.
The issue is the US has no cushion for the current crisis let alone the next one. Expecting people to predict COVID is unrealistic, but they very much should expect issues eventually.
Treading water in good years only to fall deeper in bad ones means collapse is unavoidable.
Treading water in good years only to fall deeper in bad ones means collapse is unavoidable.
Because negative news that's not relevant or actionable to the reader is just "feel bad" stories.
* "The governor of $not_my_state thinks that COVID is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse."
* "President famously known for making ignorant and inflammatory statements makes ignorant and inflammatory statements."
* "Climate change is going to kill us all and since you're an individual with no political power or academic clout there's nothing you can do to stop it! Try these 17 green virtue signaling rituals to give you the illusion of control!"
* "Actual act of god is terrible for $city/$town! Feel the pain of their lives being destroyed while sipping your morning coffee."
* "Politician makes obviously misleading statements that you would have never known about except for this article. We spend 10 pages fact checking crazy make you feel good even though this article will never reach the people that will believe it."
Like god damn news is just exhausting. I wish it was empowering instead.
* "The governor of $not_my_state thinks that COVID is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse."
* "President famously known for making ignorant and inflammatory statements makes ignorant and inflammatory statements."
* "Climate change is going to kill us all and since you're an individual with no political power or academic clout there's nothing you can do to stop it! Try these 17 green virtue signaling rituals to give you the illusion of control!"
* "Actual act of god is terrible for $city/$town! Feel the pain of their lives being destroyed while sipping your morning coffee."
* "Politician makes obviously misleading statements that you would have never known about except for this article. We spend 10 pages fact checking crazy make you feel good even though this article will never reach the people that will believe it."
Like god damn news is just exhausting. I wish it was empowering instead.
The old adage is "hope for the best, prepare for the worst". In my opinion, doom and gloom news stories should be handled by calculating the probability of the doom scenario affecting you, figuring out what you should do to prepare given that likehood, doing it, and then cease worrying about it.
Covid-19 surging near you? Make sure you have enough stored food to weather a quarantine, have on hand whatever supplies you think you might need to combat symptoms that are bad but not bad enough to be hospitalized for, and make sure your will is in order if you have a comorbidity. Then go about your business wearing a mask and social distancing and forget about it.
In my opinion, this is the happy medium. Much more positive than constantly being afraid every day scrolling through news stories and much more grounded than just thinking in platitudes.
Covid-19 surging near you? Make sure you have enough stored food to weather a quarantine, have on hand whatever supplies you think you might need to combat symptoms that are bad but not bad enough to be hospitalized for, and make sure your will is in order if you have a comorbidity. Then go about your business wearing a mask and social distancing and forget about it.
In my opinion, this is the happy medium. Much more positive than constantly being afraid every day scrolling through news stories and much more grounded than just thinking in platitudes.
Fully agree. This reminds me of the point Peter Thiel makes about modern life being too internally focused. The distinction between stoicism and indifference is so important. The world is starting to loose faith that we can actually make things better, and that there is such a thing as "objective good". So the only thing popular culture can offer us is to meditate on our attachment, and solute to the sun as life expectancy in the first world stops increasing (and in some places decreases). I think yoga and meditation are valuable, but there is a place for dissatisfaction in the status quo.
> I don't see how you can fix problems if you aren't willing to in the first place look at them, as we've seen in this pandemic the virus doesn't care how optimistic you are.
How can you fix problems by knowing about them? What I mean is: unless you're an expert on the problem, or willing and able to become one as soon as you've learned about it, what difference does it make whether you specifically know how bad something is?
We have institutions to work on things, do we need each individual citizen to be constantly worried about everything that goes wrong, will go wrong, can go wrong or won't go at all?
Does "knowing" about it do anything? Leave aside that you probably don't really know anything if you've read doomsday news, you're just afraid, but the facts are very light and usually styled for effect: everything is always terrible, it's constantly just one minute away from certain destruction etc.
How can you fix problems by knowing about them? What I mean is: unless you're an expert on the problem, or willing and able to become one as soon as you've learned about it, what difference does it make whether you specifically know how bad something is?
We have institutions to work on things, do we need each individual citizen to be constantly worried about everything that goes wrong, will go wrong, can go wrong or won't go at all?
Does "knowing" about it do anything? Leave aside that you probably don't really know anything if you've read doomsday news, you're just afraid, but the facts are very light and usually styled for effect: everything is always terrible, it's constantly just one minute away from certain destruction etc.
> We have institutions to work on things, do we need each individual citizen to be constantly worried about everything that goes wrong, will go wrong, can go wrong or won't go at all?
To give an accompanying reply to the sibling commenter saying "that's why we have democracy, so we can delegate": that's why democracy in its current state works so poorly; a disengaged electorate.
The "we have institutions to work on things" line could only be uttered by someone so disconnected from reality that they actually believe those institutions can be effective without oversight.
To give an accompanying reply to the sibling commenter saying "that's why we have democracy, so we can delegate": that's why democracy in its current state works so poorly; a disengaged electorate.
The "we have institutions to work on things" line could only be uttered by someone so disconnected from reality that they actually believe those institutions can be effective without oversight.
Does each citizen need to become a vigilant member of the general public oversight committee, spending his days and nights making sure that the institutions work correctly, are responding appropriately to the threats etc? Are they qualified to evaluate that? Do they even understand the severity of the threats?
Or are they, in effect, the amplification apparatus for journalists who, by and large, also know very little about the things they write about?
I understand the point, it feels like a noble and important thing, to be informed, have an opinion and be ready to tackle the problem when the White House calls. But they probably won't call, not me, not you, not anyone getting their information about anything from the daily news. They'll call the people who are giving the information to the news.
Or are they, in effect, the amplification apparatus for journalists who, by and large, also know very little about the things they write about?
I understand the point, it feels like a noble and important thing, to be informed, have an opinion and be ready to tackle the problem when the White House calls. But they probably won't call, not me, not you, not anyone getting their information about anything from the daily news. They'll call the people who are giving the information to the news.
Who said we ought to wait to act until the White House calls?
By monitoring the performance of elected officials and institutions, we can influence future policy with our votes and our wallets
No, our institutions are purposefully broken. “Knowing” about ways to reduce exposure to the virus is the difference between life and death.
I'm replying because you're obviously being downvoted for the content of your comment, not the quality. It appears to me that you're contributing to the conversation in good faith with tough questions.
What your questions triggered in me was to reject the notion that the institutions set up around me will solve much. I'm sure most people have lost faith in these institutions at this point, on all sides.
But I agree with the part of your comment that implies that we're being lied to in the process of entertained. It's the end goal, right? Fear drives clicks which drives revenue. I'm sure it's one of the foundational blocks of modern journalism.
What your questions triggered in me was to reject the notion that the institutions set up around me will solve much. I'm sure most people have lost faith in these institutions at this point, on all sides.
But I agree with the part of your comment that implies that we're being lied to in the process of entertained. It's the end goal, right? Fear drives clicks which drives revenue. I'm sure it's one of the foundational blocks of modern journalism.
I believe that "the institutions are broken" is similar to "the youth has no discipline, is rude, and our future is doomed": every generation believes it and it turns out we're okay anyhow. I'm not saying that having institutions is a fire-and-forget solution that you never need to worry about once they're established. But generally, we have institutions so you don't have to worry about it constantly. And it works tremendously well in most areas most of the time. Being individually hyper-aware isn't necessary.
It's also an interesting thing to watch from outside the US: there's a lot of arguments that it's the US institutions specifically that are broken beyond repair, willfully being destroyed etc. That may well be true, but it has nothing to do with the news being what they are, we see the same kind of news coverage pretty much everywhere, the actual circumstances don't matter. And we have the same sentiment in Europe, it's always this close to the edge. In my opinion, it's emotional manipulation, but it's really hard to get out of it once it has become a habit.
I'm not sure it's a modern thing either. Here is Thomas Jefferson on the same issue, albeit writing about knowledge of facts, not so much the psychological cost of constant fear: https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_sp...
It's also an interesting thing to watch from outside the US: there's a lot of arguments that it's the US institutions specifically that are broken beyond repair, willfully being destroyed etc. That may well be true, but it has nothing to do with the news being what they are, we see the same kind of news coverage pretty much everywhere, the actual circumstances don't matter. And we have the same sentiment in Europe, it's always this close to the edge. In my opinion, it's emotional manipulation, but it's really hard to get out of it once it has become a habit.
I'm not sure it's a modern thing either. Here is Thomas Jefferson on the same issue, albeit writing about knowledge of facts, not so much the psychological cost of constant fear: https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_sp...
Obviously the news cycle thrives on panic and style over substance. This does not change the fact that "knowing" about the world is valuable. Effective action to address a threat is nearly impossible without an accurate model of it. People don't need to be experts about everything to become relatively well informed about many things, nor do they need to try to solve every problem at once.
The appeal to institutions as trustworthy problem solvers is also disheartening. Institutions are supra-human intelligences. This does not mean they are necessarily more intelligent than any of their members. They're often less so, and in any case they usually have their own incentive structures which are entirely separate from (and often antagonistic to) people's wellbeing.
The appeal to institutions as trustworthy problem solvers is also disheartening. Institutions are supra-human intelligences. This does not mean they are necessarily more intelligent than any of their members. They're often less so, and in any case they usually have their own incentive structures which are entirely separate from (and often antagonistic to) people's wellbeing.
Not all knowledge is equal in value, and time spent learning one thing has an opportunity cost - it's time you can't spend, say, learning something more useful.
Understanding what went wrong, how it could've been caught, how to prevent it from happening in the future, options and tradeoffs for how to resolve things now that the damage has been done, etc. - this can be extremely useful and empowering. Even if you have no ability to impact the specific problem being discussed, you can draw parallels from those problems to the problems you do face in your own domains where you can have an impact. There may be no perfect solutions, but there may be better solutions, a better understanding of the problem, and an example of moving forward as one is best able to. This isn't exactly a message of "doom" though.
On the flip side, one can see yet another retelling of beating yet another dead horse - be they unpredictable black swan events with no real useful takeaways for planning, no useful nonobvious changes to policy to propose, or yet another deadlocked political quagmire of shouting heads that even the experts can't untangle - or something where the lessons are obvious and spelled out hundreds of hours of content ago and being applied - isn't terribly useful, encouraging, or empowering. Quite the opposite - if anything, they're depressing and disempowering.
To put it another way - flooding our information channels with low quality low content unactionable unrelatable useless unresearched unvetted "the sky is falling" shallow summaries of our inevitable doom displaces useful content about the problems of our world and more in-depth discussions about what we're experimenting with to try and fix them, what seems to be working, what was tried and failed, etc. Framed in this light, much of the news cycle has negative value: while it may let you "know" "more" about the world, you would've spent your time much more wisely by trying to learn from what other people are trying to do to fix things, or by attempting to fix things yourself.
Understanding what went wrong, how it could've been caught, how to prevent it from happening in the future, options and tradeoffs for how to resolve things now that the damage has been done, etc. - this can be extremely useful and empowering. Even if you have no ability to impact the specific problem being discussed, you can draw parallels from those problems to the problems you do face in your own domains where you can have an impact. There may be no perfect solutions, but there may be better solutions, a better understanding of the problem, and an example of moving forward as one is best able to. This isn't exactly a message of "doom" though.
On the flip side, one can see yet another retelling of beating yet another dead horse - be they unpredictable black swan events with no real useful takeaways for planning, no useful nonobvious changes to policy to propose, or yet another deadlocked political quagmire of shouting heads that even the experts can't untangle - or something where the lessons are obvious and spelled out hundreds of hours of content ago and being applied - isn't terribly useful, encouraging, or empowering. Quite the opposite - if anything, they're depressing and disempowering.
To put it another way - flooding our information channels with low quality low content unactionable unrelatable useless unresearched unvetted "the sky is falling" shallow summaries of our inevitable doom displaces useful content about the problems of our world and more in-depth discussions about what we're experimenting with to try and fix them, what seems to be working, what was tried and failed, etc. Framed in this light, much of the news cycle has negative value: while it may let you "know" "more" about the world, you would've spent your time much more wisely by trying to learn from what other people are trying to do to fix things, or by attempting to fix things yourself.
I agree with everything you said.
How is "knowing" about the daily Corona virus data from around the world good for you? I get the basic idea: know to wear a mask, keep your distance, avoid groups of people in areas that aren't well ventilated. But what how does the number of deaths in some city you don't live in or near help you?
> People don't need to be experts about everything to become relatively well informed about many things, nor do they need to try to solve every problem at once.
My impression is that people are generally not well informed on anything. They know some factoids, they can repeat some headlines, but they don't understand half of it. And how could they? Even the journalists don't. Read the daily news about a topic you are an expert on and assume that they're as correct about everything else you're not an expert on.
Kony wasn't stopped by people knowing about him and his crimes and everybody spreading Kony 2012 and other Clicktivism. It doesn't change anything, other than your state of mind, which will be in a much, much worse condition.
If you do something, that's great. But it's obviously not connected to watching the news. Almost everybody watches the news, but almost nobody does anything.
> People don't need to be experts about everything to become relatively well informed about many things, nor do they need to try to solve every problem at once.
My impression is that people are generally not well informed on anything. They know some factoids, they can repeat some headlines, but they don't understand half of it. And how could they? Even the journalists don't. Read the daily news about a topic you are an expert on and assume that they're as correct about everything else you're not an expert on.
Kony wasn't stopped by people knowing about him and his crimes and everybody spreading Kony 2012 and other Clicktivism. It doesn't change anything, other than your state of mind, which will be in a much, much worse condition.
If you do something, that's great. But it's obviously not connected to watching the news. Almost everybody watches the news, but almost nobody does anything.
I think we're talking past each other. I agree with what you're saying here. Maybe I didn't make it clear, but I agree that e.g., watching cable news and skimming headlines will not give one a particularly accurate or useful picture of the world, and may even harm one's mental health.
I'm saying there are better ways, and their value is not diminished by the firehose of low- or negative-value information most people consume.
I'm saying there are better ways, and their value is not diminished by the firehose of low- or negative-value information most people consume.
Fear won’t help, but your larger point strikes me as dead on. There’s just not a lot of ways to put a positive spin on a global pandemic. Don’t worry, be happy is fine in a movie, but if you’ve been laid off, and your unemployment is dwindling, you really need to consider worrying a little bit about getting a job.
> honestly looking at the world in sober fashion I think most people are probably not scared enough.
It's not like the media is not trying to scare everyone though... But as they keep crying wolf for every random issue like every week, it does not work as well once there's a real issue at hand. How surprising.
It's not like the media is not trying to scare everyone though... But as they keep crying wolf for every random issue like every week, it does not work as well once there's a real issue at hand. How surprising.
Being informed is great. Everyone should have enough of an idea to be able to make informed decisions about the world and engage with it usefully.
But that's not what Doomscrolling does for people. If you already know that X is wrong, reading 500 more instances of how X is going on doesn't add to your knowledge. It doesn't allow you to do anything more about it. It doesn't change anything meaningful.
Gather enough knowledge to be useful. Beyond that point it's just going to make you miserable without adding anything to you or the world.
(You probably want to gather a little more than that, to be sure you're not missing anything key. But learn to spot when you're just pointlessly bathing in horror.)
But that's not what Doomscrolling does for people. If you already know that X is wrong, reading 500 more instances of how X is going on doesn't add to your knowledge. It doesn't allow you to do anything more about it. It doesn't change anything meaningful.
Gather enough knowledge to be useful. Beyond that point it's just going to make you miserable without adding anything to you or the world.
(You probably want to gather a little more than that, to be sure you're not missing anything key. But learn to spot when you're just pointlessly bathing in horror.)
I don't think this page is meant to poke fun at the entire "doomer" debate but more so at the people who have become addicted to/complicit with scrolling through doom and gloom on the "front-page" of their news source day after day.
Given the current state of the world, its become much easier for media outlets to write stories on topics like; how far away a vaccine is, what shape the economic recovery will take or what countries are horribly dropping the ball. I think these stories grab people's attention because people are scared and think learning more will help them feel less scared. Unfortunately, many of these articles are open-ended/non-conclusive and this leaves the reader looking for more. If the reader finds more of these same types of articles, in my mind, they've begun doom-scrolling.
I agree most people are probably not scared enough overall but I also think most people are scared about the wrong things. They're scared about what their media of choice is telling them to be scared about, rather than the issues that'll have the biggest impact on their life/society at large.
Given the current state of the world, its become much easier for media outlets to write stories on topics like; how far away a vaccine is, what shape the economic recovery will take or what countries are horribly dropping the ball. I think these stories grab people's attention because people are scared and think learning more will help them feel less scared. Unfortunately, many of these articles are open-ended/non-conclusive and this leaves the reader looking for more. If the reader finds more of these same types of articles, in my mind, they've begun doom-scrolling.
I agree most people are probably not scared enough overall but I also think most people are scared about the wrong things. They're scared about what their media of choice is telling them to be scared about, rather than the issues that'll have the biggest impact on their life/society at large.
It can be both true that the world is facing negative news AND that the doom scrolling histrionic anxiety media environment feeds back in to create more negative news and far less empathy
Whoever said, “the only thing we need to fear is fear itself?”
Markets become bearish because there are more bears, it is a downward spiral and a self fulfilling prophecy. Just like Black Scholes option pricing model is a self fulfilling prophecy if everyone starts using it.
As for funding startups, investors can always object. When things are going up they say they dont want to invest in a startup as they want to get the high returns in the market. When things going down they say they cant invest because they need to wait until things go back up and their positions stabilize. I have heard both things from some investors while others invested.
Arguably, the best thing to invest money in during a downturn is a startup that will spend it on internal development, which needs to get done anyway, even if no outside money is coming in, good labor is more easily coming in, and on better more reliable terms. Microsoft and Apple were both founded in a recession.
Markets become bearish because there are more bears, it is a downward spiral and a self fulfilling prophecy. Just like Black Scholes option pricing model is a self fulfilling prophecy if everyone starts using it.
As for funding startups, investors can always object. When things are going up they say they dont want to invest in a startup as they want to get the high returns in the market. When things going down they say they cant invest because they need to wait until things go back up and their positions stabilize. I have heard both things from some investors while others invested.
Arguably, the best thing to invest money in during a downturn is a startup that will spend it on internal development, which needs to get done anyway, even if no outside money is coming in, good labor is more easily coming in, and on better more reliable terms. Microsoft and Apple were both founded in a recession.
The US news media (left, right and upside down) is sensationalized trash. Fueling hate (stereotypes), outrage and inducing fear..all for profit and their agenda!
I've tuned it all out minus some pertinent local news.
Give me a US media that shows peaceful protests without an agenda (don't watch news anymore but did in May and all I saw was the ugly protests filled with violence.. didnt see any peaceful protests that were surely happening ...now i hear CNN, etc are showing the peaceful protests like in Oregon which are now peaceful because Trump isnt there and so CNN Im sure is now blasting/banging the peaceful protest drum). As for COVID news i just get it directly from my friends who are doctors, nurses and hospital administrators. Forget the media.. i loathe it!
I've tuned it all out minus some pertinent local news.
Give me a US media that shows peaceful protests without an agenda (don't watch news anymore but did in May and all I saw was the ugly protests filled with violence.. didnt see any peaceful protests that were surely happening ...now i hear CNN, etc are showing the peaceful protests like in Oregon which are now peaceful because Trump isnt there and so CNN Im sure is now blasting/banging the peaceful protest drum). As for COVID news i just get it directly from my friends who are doctors, nurses and hospital administrators. Forget the media.. i loathe it!
How are you doing? It's a simple question that's difficult to answer honestly in these trying times. If the relentlessly negative news has you overwhelmed, unable to do anything, and you're a husk of a human being, unable to do anything other than eat, sleep and scroll, then you gotta stop with the doom scrolling and take care of your mental health.
The virus doesn't care about how optimistic you are, but with suicides rates rising, and known factors of that are anxiety and isolation, which are both abundant right now, it's emotionally facile to say thinking happy thoughts is infantile. You can't do anything if you're depressed and stuck on the couch, and in that state no problems can be fixed.
It doesn't no one any good if you're too scared to work on fixing problems. If that means lying to yourself and believing that the only way out of this mess is a vaccine that will arrive in February, just to be able to put pants on to go grocery shopping, then anyone who judges you harshly (including yourself) for that is being an asshole.
The virus doesn't care about how optimistic you are, but with suicides rates rising, and known factors of that are anxiety and isolation, which are both abundant right now, it's emotionally facile to say thinking happy thoughts is infantile. You can't do anything if you're depressed and stuck on the couch, and in that state no problems can be fixed.
It doesn't no one any good if you're too scared to work on fixing problems. If that means lying to yourself and believing that the only way out of this mess is a vaccine that will arrive in February, just to be able to put pants on to go grocery shopping, then anyone who judges you harshly (including yourself) for that is being an asshole.
8.5/10 great comment
I'm well aware we're in a pandemic, and my family and friends are quarantining and going to great lengths in cleaning and wearing masks. I'm well aware that the US and particularly Trump is absolutely mucking up the response. I'm well aware that we're approaching the breaking point of the "Union" part of the United States, as the Federal government and Blue States fight over resources and jurisdiction.
I'm well aware there's a police brutality problem in the US, including brutality against protesters and the US sending Federal troops into cities.
I'm well aware that Biden is the Democrat nominee and there's nothing to be done about it, and that after however much hemming and hawing he's going to make Kamala Harris his VP, and there's not much to be done about that either. That there likely won't be Medicare For All, or a safety net for millions of unemployed people, or any other really popular and obvious change that needs to be needed.
I'm well aware that China, a world away, is trying to stamp out Uyghurs through apartheid and likely soon genocide.
Scrolling Facebook, Twitter, etc just reminds us of these terrible things that are constantly happening, that we have little control over day to day. And yes, we should volunteer, donate, protest, prepare to respond. But day to day, there's not much we can do to fix it. We're instead stressing ourselves to death over things we can't control, at least right now. Don't forget they're problems, help where you can, but don't spend your life hyperfixated on them.
I'm well aware there's a police brutality problem in the US, including brutality against protesters and the US sending Federal troops into cities.
I'm well aware that Biden is the Democrat nominee and there's nothing to be done about it, and that after however much hemming and hawing he's going to make Kamala Harris his VP, and there's not much to be done about that either. That there likely won't be Medicare For All, or a safety net for millions of unemployed people, or any other really popular and obvious change that needs to be needed.
I'm well aware that China, a world away, is trying to stamp out Uyghurs through apartheid and likely soon genocide.
Scrolling Facebook, Twitter, etc just reminds us of these terrible things that are constantly happening, that we have little control over day to day. And yes, we should volunteer, donate, protest, prepare to respond. But day to day, there's not much we can do to fix it. We're instead stressing ourselves to death over things we can't control, at least right now. Don't forget they're problems, help where you can, but don't spend your life hyperfixated on them.
Agreed. It's not that bad news is evil, it's the constant focus on it. Awful things happen every day, especially this year. We can stay aware and active in these situations, but we don't have to spend our entire lives within a Twitter feed of anger. That just leads to an overall sadder life (for me at least). Constant focus on the negative breeds negative energy. Attention and action towards the negative (such as protesting) can breed results, but putting every ounce of your focus on things that are largely out of your hands can't be good for your mental health.
That's why we have democracy, so we can delegate and not care about negative news for the most part
This is a brilliant work of interactive digital art that perfectly captures the zeitgeist.
The artist, one Benjamin Grosser, describes it as follows:
> "Doomscrolling" refers to the ways in which people find themselves regularly—and in some cases, almost involuntarily—scrolling bad news headlines on their phone, often for hours each night in bed when they had meant to be sleeping. Certainly the realities of the pandemic necessitate a level of vigilance for the purposes of personal safety. But doomscrolling isn’t just a natural reaction to the news of the day—it’s the result of a perfect yet evil marriage between a populace stuck online, social media interfaces designed to game and hold our attention, and the realities of an existential global crisis. Yes, it may be hard to look away from bad news in any format, but it’s nearly impossible to avert our eyes when that news is endlessly presented via designed-to-be-addictive social media interfaces that know just what to show us next in order to keep us “engaged.” As an alternative interface, The Endless Doomscroller acts as a lens on our software-enabled collective descent into despair. By distilling the news and social media sites down to their barest most generalized messages and interface conventions, The Endless Doomscroller shows us the mechanism that’s behind our scroll-induced anxiety: interfaces—and corporations—that always want more. More doom (bad news headlines) compels more engagement (via continued liking/sharing/posting) which produces more personal data, thus making possible ever more profit. By stripping away the specifics wrapped up in each headline and minimizing the mechanics behind most interface patterns, The Endless Doomscroller offers up an opportunity for mindfulness about how we’re spending our time online and about who most benefits from our late night scroll sessions. And, if one scrolls as endlessly as the work makes possible, The Endless Doomscroller might even enable a sort of exposure or substitution therapy, a way to escape or replace what these interfaces want from and do to us. In other words, perhaps the only way out of too much doomscrolling is endless doomscrolling.
Source: https://bengrosser.com/projects/endless-doomscroller/
The artist, one Benjamin Grosser, describes it as follows:
> "Doomscrolling" refers to the ways in which people find themselves regularly—and in some cases, almost involuntarily—scrolling bad news headlines on their phone, often for hours each night in bed when they had meant to be sleeping. Certainly the realities of the pandemic necessitate a level of vigilance for the purposes of personal safety. But doomscrolling isn’t just a natural reaction to the news of the day—it’s the result of a perfect yet evil marriage between a populace stuck online, social media interfaces designed to game and hold our attention, and the realities of an existential global crisis. Yes, it may be hard to look away from bad news in any format, but it’s nearly impossible to avert our eyes when that news is endlessly presented via designed-to-be-addictive social media interfaces that know just what to show us next in order to keep us “engaged.” As an alternative interface, The Endless Doomscroller acts as a lens on our software-enabled collective descent into despair. By distilling the news and social media sites down to their barest most generalized messages and interface conventions, The Endless Doomscroller shows us the mechanism that’s behind our scroll-induced anxiety: interfaces—and corporations—that always want more. More doom (bad news headlines) compels more engagement (via continued liking/sharing/posting) which produces more personal data, thus making possible ever more profit. By stripping away the specifics wrapped up in each headline and minimizing the mechanics behind most interface patterns, The Endless Doomscroller offers up an opportunity for mindfulness about how we’re spending our time online and about who most benefits from our late night scroll sessions. And, if one scrolls as endlessly as the work makes possible, The Endless Doomscroller might even enable a sort of exposure or substitution therapy, a way to escape or replace what these interfaces want from and do to us. In other words, perhaps the only way out of too much doomscrolling is endless doomscrolling.
Source: https://bengrosser.com/projects/endless-doomscroller/
Yes, the submitted link should have been this instead.
I want to stay informed about the world but I'm unable to read the highly editorialized doom scrollers. I'm tired of the news cheering for the hurricane and I'm tired of pointless feel good stories to bring "happy news" that isn't really news at all.
I've started to read more long-form essays on current events topics. I find they nicely summarize events in a chronological order with all of the benefit of hindsight to go with it. Opinions are generally more nuanced and the writing style assumes that you read all the way through the article.
TV news and late night talk shows are just the worst.
I've started to read more long-form essays on current events topics. I find they nicely summarize events in a chronological order with all of the benefit of hindsight to go with it. Opinions are generally more nuanced and the writing style assumes that you read all the way through the article.
TV news and late night talk shows are just the worst.
"The News" is mostly gossip and things that are interesting because they almost never happen. As a way of learning how the world works, it's pretty awful.
If you want to be informed, spend the news time reading books/essays about important/interesting topics, and you'll be way more enlightened in a year.
If you go all the way in this, you won't be able to participate in the shared culture of society, so I don't get fanatical with it. I'm human, and some gossip is fun.
If you want to be informed, spend the news time reading books/essays about important/interesting topics, and you'll be way more enlightened in a year.
If you go all the way in this, you won't be able to participate in the shared culture of society, so I don't get fanatical with it. I'm human, and some gossip is fun.
I feel similarly. I started subscribing to the monthly magazine "Le Monde Diplomatique" - they focus on in-depth analyses and not the daily or even weekly events.
I would advise the way to beat the anxiety about doom scrolling is to RTFA
Headline: The world is spiraling out of control
Body: X is happening that will impact Y in these specific ways. Z people are working against X and trying tactics A & B...
The Headline is calibrated to maximize your anxiety. The Body is often calibrated to the right level of anxiety and context. I find instead of trying to mentally suppress Headline that freaks me out, and thus subconsciously imagining the worst possible thing, RTFA helps to soften and calibrate the anxiety more appropriately.
Headline: The world is spiraling out of control
Body: X is happening that will impact Y in these specific ways. Z people are working against X and trying tactics A & B...
The Headline is calibrated to maximize your anxiety. The Body is often calibrated to the right level of anxiety and context. I find instead of trying to mentally suppress Headline that freaks me out, and thus subconsciously imagining the worst possible thing, RTFA helps to soften and calibrate the anxiety more appropriately.
The problem with that is we are bombarded with at least 10 times as many headlines as articles can possibly be read. Even within an article, there will be links to other headlines. Look at a news front page and there are enough headlines immediately in view that would take an hour or five to read through. There’s no way to “get ahead” by RTFA, and shaming people for only having seen a misleading headline is attacking the victim, not the perpetrator. (You’re not doing that here, but I often see it done online.)
We MUST start shaming media organizations that publish bullcrap headlines. This is almost entirely the editors’ fault, BTW. The reporters don’t have control over the headline.
We MUST start shaming media organizations that publish bullcrap headlines. This is almost entirely the editors’ fault, BTW. The reporters don’t have control over the headline.
If news media is for profit, news media will naturally use the most engaging headline to beat out competition. There is no solution to this problem unless news is regulated or not for profit. You won't 'shame' an entire industry into changing something they've been doing for centuries.
Beats shaming humans for doing something they’ve been doing since the invention of writing: reading titles before reading books or articlesz
The problem with this approach is that it continues to drives traffic to exaggerated headlines, which merely encourages this same kind of headline in the future.
Does anyone know if there are news sources out there that don't have exaggerated, doom- and anger-filled headlines? If they're there, I'd love to drive traffic to them.
Does anyone know if there are news sources out there that don't have exaggerated, doom- and anger-filled headlines? If they're there, I'd love to drive traffic to them.
We should write a plugin which normalises headlines, essentially a de-click-bater. By training a NN on neutral headlines vs doom/anxiety-inducing/clickbait headlines we can essentially provide the inverse as well.
I actually wrote a half baked version of this to replace the headline with a machine learning generated summary of the article. Headlines wound up being sort of long and clunky but I did like them a lot more than the sort of headlines being discussed here (the reason I wrote it in the first place). Maybe I should finish that.
I, too, came for the procedurally generated Doom levels and left disappointed
I thought this was gonna be doom the game
I'm wondering if there's anyone who _didn't_ think this!
I submitted this link, and I also thought it was going to be Doom the game from where I originally saw it!
I've only noticed the term "doom scroller" on twitter, and american twitter at that. And then I forgot about it, although it fits the medium.
I tried clicking on the buttons but nothing happens.
hahaha, the same. I thought it would be running through a corridor in a loop!
Tired of doom scrolling? Try out my infinite scroll website that I promise will not fill you with dread.
https://endlessdonuts.us/
https://endlessdonuts.us/
I spend too much time on HN because my first thought in seeing these was to add more randomness and unique features to the point that the probability of getting an exact donut replica on a page load was near 0
Haha, I love it. I tried that at first, but I had to prevent a bunch of combos from being generated because the colors clashed bad or the icing/sprinkles looked too messy.
I scrolled to the bottom and it said "no end in sight" but it stopped there
> I scrolled to the bottom and it said "no end in sight" but it stopped there
I could not verify your reported result after running this in my web browser console:
I could not verify your reported result after running this in my web browser console:
var scrollToBottom = function() {
window.scrollTo(0,(document.scrollingElement.scrollHeight - window.innerHeight));
setTimeout(function() {
if (window.scrollY < (document.scrollingElement.scrollHeight - window.innerHeight)) {
scrollToBottom();
}
} ,500);
return
}
scrollToBottom();So you think it was the end? Or did is just give up, because there was no end in sight? Or did your browser freeze because Bill Gates was wrong when he claimed that 640K is more memory than anyone will ever need on a computer?
You may not know it but you reached the end of the internet
Elon Musk on avoiding daily news:
“The daily news I find to be a lot of noise. Generally newspapers seem to try to answer the question, ‘What is the worst thing that happened on the Earth today?’”
“The daily news I find to be a lot of noise. Generally newspapers seem to try to answer the question, ‘What is the worst thing that happened on the Earth today?’”
The first time I really lost faith in the news was during the Oslo Peace Accord Talks, when CNN hosted a debate between a Palestinian and Israeli spokesperson. It seemed to me that it was quite a delicate political situation, and that simply reporting on it while leaving the top politicians to discuss would be better, but CNN really wanted a live TV debate about it. Well, it turned out that they'd specifically chosen polar opposites to discuss with one another. Now, since I've been working in media, I know the attendants weren't an accident. They are always carefully chosen. So if CNN really wanted to help the peace talks (they did after all speak highly of it), they would have invited other people, but I gather that would also have made for more "boring" TV. Obviously it was very "entertaining" to watch these two debaters have at each other, but it quickly turned so bad that the host had to intervene. During the debate I remember asking myself, "Is the CNN intentionally trying to disrupt the peace talks by inviting these two idiots to debate each other?" CNN's outreach is big and international, so this would be noticed both in Israel and Palestine. While possibly "entertaining" it did absolutely nothing to help the already bad situation. On the one side, you could perhaps claim that it's not in CNN's interest to "help" anyone (actually a certain level of conflict is what keeps most journalists fed), but in this instance they were clearly firing up people in the worst way, and thus disrupting important peace talks.
I think that captures it quite nicely. When you read the regular news you have to think critically - particularly now that so much traditional journalism has been replaced with thinly veiled opinion pieces.
If you know anyone who gets really depressed or anxious when reading the news there are sites like https://happynews.com/ that can really help them though it can be tough to ween people off the regular news. The constant stream of doom and gloom has an addictive quality I don’t quite comprehend.
If you know anyone who gets really depressed or anxious when reading the news there are sites like https://happynews.com/ that can really help them though it can be tough to ween people off the regular news. The constant stream of doom and gloom has an addictive quality I don’t quite comprehend.
Nassim Taleb, also makes many allusions to this in several of his books.
Particularly jarring is the constant fixation that is going on in the news with Daily COVID-19 data. There is simply too much daily variation that has nothing to do with how the virus is spreading and affecting each location. A huge waste of attention and resources with titles such as "Largest number of new cases in a day since March!"... so what?
Particularly jarring is the constant fixation that is going on in the news with Daily COVID-19 data. There is simply too much daily variation that has nothing to do with how the virus is spreading and affecting each location. A huge waste of attention and resources with titles such as "Largest number of new cases in a day since March!"... so what?
Elon 'Covid will be over by April' Musk?
Yes that Elon Musk. People can say dumb things, and sometimes they can say interesting things. No one is permanently locked into one or the other.
Apparently, instead of avoiding noise, his reading strategy got him into swamp of covid deniers. I guess their opinions felt better.
So it is completely relevant when he is being treated as authority.
So it is completely relevant when he is being treated as authority.
[deleted]
[deleted]
Well, that explains a few things.
I prefer Aaron Swartz’s take:
“[…] they think these are aberrations; that underneath all this, the news is worth saving. I simply go one step further: I think none of it is worthwhile.”
— http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
“[…] they think these are aberrations; that underneath all this, the news is worth saving. I simply go one step further: I think none of it is worthwhile.”
— http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
Musk in particular has been... let's just say somewhat ill-informed about a bunch of recent events, though.
[deleted]
Hey, it’s the Guardian’s front page with less photos!
Is that a meme or something? I checked the current front page, and I think it's only half bad.
> Coronavirus: UN warns of 'catastrophe' over school closures; France says second wave likely
Negative
> US Donald Trump flounders in interview over US Covid-19 death toll
Neutral
> Spain Country speculates over whereabouts of scandal-hit ex-king Juan Carlos
Neutral
> A good sign Sailors stranded on Pacific island saved by giant SOS in sand
Positive
> Climate crisis Rising temperatures will cause more deaths than all infectious diseases – study
Negative
> TikTok China hits out at US 'smash and grab' as tech row deepens China hits out at US 'smash and grab' as tech row deepens
Probably negative
> Thailand Country orders new investigation into Red Bull heir's alleged hit and run
Probably positive
> Brexit Number of UK citizens emigrating to EU has risen 30% since vote on withdrawal
Neutral
> Thailand Protesters openly criticise monarchy in Harry Potter themed rally
Probably positive
> Mexico Giant dam poised to displace indigenous people and flood graves
Negative
So four negatives and three positives.
Maybe people just focus too much on the negatives?
> Coronavirus: UN warns of 'catastrophe' over school closures; France says second wave likely
Negative
> US Donald Trump flounders in interview over US Covid-19 death toll
Neutral
> Spain Country speculates over whereabouts of scandal-hit ex-king Juan Carlos
Neutral
> A good sign Sailors stranded on Pacific island saved by giant SOS in sand
Positive
> Climate crisis Rising temperatures will cause more deaths than all infectious diseases – study
Negative
> TikTok China hits out at US 'smash and grab' as tech row deepens China hits out at US 'smash and grab' as tech row deepens
Probably negative
> Thailand Country orders new investigation into Red Bull heir's alleged hit and run
Probably positive
> Brexit Number of UK citizens emigrating to EU has risen 30% since vote on withdrawal
Neutral
> Thailand Protesters openly criticise monarchy in Harry Potter themed rally
Probably positive
> Mexico Giant dam poised to displace indigenous people and flood graves
Negative
So four negatives and three positives.
Maybe people just focus too much on the negatives?
> Maybe people just focus too much on the negatives ?
Basically, yes.
Source: Wikipedia [1], and, also, every newspaper since pretty much forever [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
Basically, yes.
Source: Wikipedia [1], and, also, every newspaper since pretty much forever [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
I half expected this to just redirect to twitter.
Another thing to mitigate doom scrolling - read History
What we're experiencing now is part of a broad, generational change. Regardless of your country or the outcome of any one election or news cycle, the far right is emerging as a strong force. It will remain so in most Western countries, maybe for decades.
Understand the broader sweeps and landscape. Understand that you're probably like a drop in the ocean. If you see a part of it that's your duty, do your duty. But do, or do not...
History shows us broad strokes oscillations of political winds, how often things have seemed absolutely terrible, how things swing back often unexpectedly. How even the most influential have little control over affairs...
What we're experiencing now is part of a broad, generational change. Regardless of your country or the outcome of any one election or news cycle, the far right is emerging as a strong force. It will remain so in most Western countries, maybe for decades.
Understand the broader sweeps and landscape. Understand that you're probably like a drop in the ocean. If you see a part of it that's your duty, do your duty. But do, or do not...
History shows us broad strokes oscillations of political winds, how often things have seemed absolutely terrible, how things swing back often unexpectedly. How even the most influential have little control over affairs...
> the far right is emerging as a strong force.
As a response to the far left. Not that I condone either.
As a response to the far left. Not that I condone either.
I admire people who love to create useless unique things! That “luxury” of nonsense! Great!
This is basically the news we’re reading and theres no end in sight
YOU DON’T NEED TO WATCH THAT MUCH NEWS You will never have the political power to do something about all the terrifying problems we wave at you. The human brain just isn’t designed to take in a whole world’s worth of disturbing news. Most of us have enough trouble with the more mundane problems of finding inner peace and securing happiness for our loved ones. We know this, but keep winding you up anyway. In fact, the tension between the sheer quantity of horrifying news and your real-world impotence to do much about it is part of our consumer strategy.
#We create the illusion that being informed is a kind of action in itself#.
So to wash that guilt out—to eliminate the shame and discomfort you feel over doing nothing as the world goes mad—you’ll keep tuning in. The “You don’t actually need to be watching this all day” rule would be true even if news stories were sorted logically and according to social importance. They aren’t:
Taibbi, Matt. Hate Inc. (p. 137). OR Books. Kindle Edition.
#We create the illusion that being informed is a kind of action in itself#.
So to wash that guilt out—to eliminate the shame and discomfort you feel over doing nothing as the world goes mad—you’ll keep tuning in. The “You don’t actually need to be watching this all day” rule would be true even if news stories were sorted logically and according to social importance. They aren’t:
Taibbi, Matt. Hate Inc. (p. 137). OR Books. Kindle Edition.
Something similar: https://badnewsfirst.co/
I expected more instances of the word "grim". Seems like every headline author cannot not use that word lately.
It feels like Doom Scroller at the time, was created to enhance user experience and it is not pushed to drive further increases in profitability to the point where it is a detriment to society.
I am curious to see if society will move towards providing a tick-box setting to give users control over Doom Scrolling. Only time will tell.
I am curious to see if society will move towards providing a tick-box setting to give users control over Doom Scrolling. Only time will tell.
so, /r/politics
In cognitive behavioral therapy this akin to “catastrophizing”.
Here are all 338 headlines if scrolling isn't your thing.
https://pastebin.com/1J0N8iLg
https://pastebin.com/1J0N8iLg
Is the list being looped? Considering the site is titled 'Endless'.
so not endless after all?
Nicely done
There was also "some good news" briefly, but that was purchased by ViacomCbs.
Maybe this OP is also looking for a media deal.
Maybe this OP is also looking for a media deal.
How about adding a circular loader? Why not inserting some void into the user's head before the doom continues?
If this were formatted to look a little more like a contemporary news site it would be perfect
338 different doom messages are not endless but depressing non the less...
There are two kinds of doomer news in 2020. The first is “the virus is going to kill us all”. The second is “the things we’re all doing because of the virus will kill us all”.
The former is fear-mongering, but the latter is true.
The former is fear-mongering, but the latter is true.
Woah, wait til you guys see what the last one was!
It's interesting that they chose precisely the same typeface used by the New York Times for their wordmark.
Ha! I found a:
“This Is Not the End”
Hope in the endless doom!
“This Is Not the End”
Hope in the endless doom!
Repetition detected..
Was expecting a procedurally-generated Doom sidescroller conversion.
I was nonetheless quite amused.
I was nonetheless quite amused.
In case anyone hasn't seen it: Linear Doom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM50BifVRHA
It's Doom, but if it were just a single, linear hallway.
It's Doom, but if it were just a single, linear hallway.
Also 2D Doom: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=puoB-ofLF98
thats amazing! It's like the modern day on rails shooters!
I was also expecting a doom side scroller. Was hoping it would be similar to the old 2d duke nukem stuff.
I also was.
It seems to me sort of like the 'three-wise-monkeys', just think happy thoughts and the world gets better or something. It seems infantile. I don't see how you can fix problems if you aren't willing to in the first place look at them, as we've seen in this pandemic the virus doesn't care how optimistic you are.
The prevailing opinion these days seems to be that people are too negative, honestly looking at the world in sober fashion I think most people are probably not scared enough.