Some while ago I went through a similar phase in a different context eliminating the last vestiges of a Christian upbringing. That was often not fun - arguing with fundies isn't - but it was a very liberating way of clarifying what I did and didn't believe, and why.

Also, if the doom turns out to be realistic, it's better to deal with it now when the physical situation is still relatively stable, than later when everyone else is trying to deal with it at the same time.

Off-site I've been working towards some projects that might make a difference. I haven't diaried them because they're not ready for prime time yet. But they are - measurably - getting closer to being so.

Is this the end of civilization as we know it? This is what happens when you have unprotected congress with psychology. ;-) One should always wear latex - preferably over the head.

You can't be me, I'm taken

I think a lot of people on this site are constitutionally unhappy or pessimistic. That is not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to analysis (see below) but it is a problem when it comes to action. Often success requires an unreasonable degree of optimism and self-confidence, and the ability to sustain it for long periods of time.

Success is perhaps easier to achieve with an unreasonable degree of optimism and self-confidence, and the ability to sustain it for long periods of time, (Sarkozy won), but it doesn't make success inevitable (Royal lost).

And I don't think the down feelings are entirely constitutional. There's an explanation there that you rightly relate to the myth of individual success in the rat race (ie the overconfident rats are getting screwed by the fat cats - overconfidence doesn't necessarily win 2). Circumstances matter too. Internet may be a new means of communication that allows for encounters and networking that surprise and delight us, it doesn't change the fact that we are atoms, one (or two) people on a terminal with a real life to live and often a fight to do that. The kind of task we see ahead is huge. It certainly calls for optimism (if you're really a pessimist, why bother?), and a degree of self-confidence is a sine qua non (can't do anything without it), but how much more optimism and confidence would we have if we had all the time we needed and the technical and financial means to work together (meaning more physical meeting and collaboration)! Whereas in fact we're each in her/is small corner, and what needs to be understood and thought is so colossal we get despondent.

What will come, will come because we care about it and it occupies our thoughts. It will come by bursts, appearing spontaneously rather than by conscious effort (though that doesn't mean there are no conscious efforts to be made!). There will be plateaus, deserts to plod through, but there'll be leafy oases.

So I wax lyrical. Pessimist, me?

The conundrum to be solved, if the science is right, is how to implement a system that protects people from themselves without at the same time give them precisely that depressing feeling of lack of control.

Education seems like the only reasonable way to do it. Starting to learn statistics and psychology as early as pre-school maybe?

It is no fun to think that a dramatic turnaround is coming. We do not have a fair and obvious warning - but the expanding civilisation did not gave any warnings either. Humanity deserves certain suffering and life loss - it is not possible to avert consequences of self-indulging illusions within the real world. We (progressives) do not really know what is coming and what we can do - but we know attitudes that could have helped to avoid or substantially postpone the trouble. Yet, the same attitudes can help us to go through the singularity of collective stupidity - and keep (or even make) the world as good as possible beyond it. An apocalypse is not a joy, but a privelege nevertheless.

Ok, my thoughts are not exactly uplifting. We ought to relax sometimes with some delight, and then try to do something - whatever you can do with the anticipated problems can be very significant, since no one else would probably do that.

I would argue that a person who is severely depressed is not seeing reality any clearer that an optimistic person...and in fact, would argue that their "reality" is distorted. Sure, a depressed person sees truth too, but from a distinct perspective. I find depression very difficult to work with, because is so damn sure they know what reality is...and they often don't.

Anyway, another world heard from...

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia