People throughout history have complained. It’s a good way to virtue signal and do nothing. The person feels smug and moves on. Social media has made it easier than ever to be armchair activists. Share the news of the day on your Instagram story and that’s your contribution to the cause. If they feel strongly enough, they’ll add a comment to it. New day, new cause. Rinse, repeat.
The whataboutery that goes on in this world is truly astounding. Here’s an example, “Why are we wasting all this money on space travel when it can be used to solve (insert issue of choice - Poverty, hunger, etc?” )
FYI, this does NOTHING to solve the problem that they are complaining about. Guess what, the money and resources that have been earmarked for space travel were NEVER going to go towards the causes you just mentioned. Until billionaires started deeply investing in space travel, how many people actually did more than make a remark about the cause they so deeply cared about? (This isn’t a puff piece for billionaires, I agree no one should have that kind of money in the first place)
This generation’s complainers about wasting resources on space travel are not new. They are the equivalent of our ancestors that complained when cars were introduced. They were also the same ones that complained when airplanes were introduced. It’s easy to complain. It’s always been fashionable and smart to sound negative after all.
Being optimistic actually makes you a contrarian.
Are there bad things happening in the world? YES! Has the world gotten better over time, also YES! Here are a few good things going on in the world:
1. Extreme poverty has fallen.
2. World hunger is falling.
3. Life expectancy is rising. (It’s up 6 years since 1990, to be exact.) And that expectancy is especially rising in poor countries in Africa and Asia.
4. Child mortality has fallen by more than half since 1990.
5. The world is more educated than ever before, with the number of years spent in school increasing in almost every country.
6. More and more people worldwide are getting access to the internet.
7. And renewable energy such as wind and solar power are getting cheaper and more effective.
The net positives outweigh the negatives. Of course, there’s work to be done, there always will be! That’s the journey.
The first successful flight happened in 1903. Look at how far we’ve come technologically in 120 years! We are about to intentionally crash a spacecraft into an asteroid to test whether deflecting a space rock could one day protect Earth from a potentially catastrophic impact. PLANETARY defense! That’s how far we’ve come as a species. We didn’t come this far, only to come this far.
bUt wHAt AbOUt ClImAtE cHAngE? If you read up, you can see there are people ACTUALLY working on making the planet better instead of just posting on social and being an armchair activist. My friend Naman Bajaj does a fantastic job chronicling them in his newsletter ‘Not my Problem’ Reading the newsletter makes me more confident we will figure this out.
It’s easy to give in to the doom and gloom. There is hope. There always has been and there always will be. I am bullish on humanity. The most optimistic people on the planet are working on making our planet better and exploring space travel. We’re in a very exciting phase of human history
Complainers will complain, and builders will build. You can choose which side of history to be on.
