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Comment by jgilias | Hacker News Reader

An interesting effect. It's just that the naming could somehow be better. It feels weird to call a cognitive _distortion_ some collective zeitgeist that apparently correctly identifies a situation when shit has really hit the fan.

I mean, why would it be a 'distortion' to be somewhat fatalistic about the current climate change trend that may actually lead to civilizational collapse and an extinction event.

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I see your point and I used to think this too to an extent but I think it’s worth appreciating that we are looking from the outside in to a highly specialized domain and like most of these domains it has developed its own unique set of language and definitions. And that paper is written for people in that domain / community, not for those outside of it.

Exactly. This article comes with the typical psychiatrist bias that depression is indication of some personal deficit (cognitive distortions or faulty brain chemistry) when in my personal view, given the state of the world there are many good reasons to be depressed.

And there weren’t plenty of reasons in the past? Do you read history at all?

sure I do. as another comment pointed out, the trend roughly tracks the decoupling of wages from productivity in North America. seems as good of a reason for disillusionment as one could find.

> the trend roughly tracks the decoupling of wages from productivity in North America. seems as good of a reason for disillusionment as one could find.

How about famine, war, epidemics wiping out a third of the population, totalitarian oppression, etc.?

Are you aware that humanity developed nuclear weapons, and then proceeded to build tens of thousands of them, in the middle of the 20th century?

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