The Case Against Cynicism | with Greg Jackson & Steven Johnson
About this episode
The episode discusses the cultural doom loop and the psychological and historical roots of society's negative worldview.
Despite record highs in life expectancy and historic lows in violent crime, society remains convinced that everything is completely broken. Steven Johnson (The Infernal Machine) and historian Greg Jackson (host of History That Doesn’t Suck) join Zachary Karabell at the Aspen Ideas Festival to decode our cultural doom loop. Rather than fueling the panic of our daily newsfeeds, the panel zeroes in on the psychological and historical roots of our negative worldview, revealing that our current crisis of faith isn't nearly as unprecedented as it feels. In this episode, we explore: The Negativity Bias: How our natural survival instincts and modern algorithmic media team up to skew reality. The Origins of "Fake News": Why sensationalist journalism is actually a 19th-century invention. The Invisible Arc of Progress: Why true, incremental improvements rarely make the front page—and why choosing human agency over apocalyptic defeatism is our best path forward. What Could Go Right? is produced by The Progress Network and Kaleidoscope. For transcripts, to join the newsletter, and for more information, visit: theprogressnetwork.org Subscribe to our (FREE) Substack newsletter…
People in this episode
Host: Zachary Karabell
Guests: Greg Jackson, Steven Johnson
Topics covered
- cultural pessimism
- negativity bias
- historical perspective
- media influence
- progress
- psychology
Keywords
- cynicism
- life expectancy
- violent crime
- fake news
- sensationalism
- progress
- human agency
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: The Progress Network, History That Doesn’t Suck, Kaleidoscope
Books & works: The Infernal Machine
More episodes of What Could Go Right?
- Opening a Nearly 2,000-Year-Old Treasure + Reviving Eyes for Science and Shark-Spotting Drones
- The Era of Mass Incarceration May Actually Be Ending | with Alex Duran
- Average Joes Making Positive Change
- Can We Please Celebrate America's 250th Without Whitewashing the Past? | with Alexis Coe
- The Race to Catalogue Biodiversity + Brain Implants and Sweating Robots
- How to Read Economic News Without Spiraling | with Alex Mayyasi
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the What Could Go Right? podcast page.