It’s the new year. And we’ve traveled over half a billion miles since the last one. We’ve slogged our way through another year of producing and consuming all that we need to keep our species alive and avert the apocalypse. We’ve rewarded ourselves with virus muted celebrations. We’ve reflected on an endless list of lists to create our near past narratives. And now it’s the day our focus shifts to the future. I like today.
The engines of doom scroll have our dystopian future covered. So I’m going to spend a few hundred words on why we should feel good about things. There are problems with every one of these perspectives. As there are problems with all complex and important perspectives. But it’s fair to say they are at least as likely as any other outcome. Especially when we consider that the engines of human innovation and species preservation is on their side.
On Pandemics
The people who study the history of pandemics and are responsible for the science behind the things that prevent or mitigate them told us the pandemic would take two or three years to pass. They told us the future waves would be worse than the original. They told us that it was going to kill millions of people. They told us that even if we delivered a miracle vaccine (we did) it wouldn’t eradicate the disease. They told us that diseases eradicated by vaccines in the past were the result of decades of behavioral, social and medical treatments for which the vaccine was the final punch to viruses that were common and terrible but weren’t running unchecked through modern societies. They told us that when spread continues among the unvaccinated or the immunocompromised, it accelerates the introduction of variants.
Nearly all of this has been true so far. It’s only unrealistic optimism or denial that’s been disappointed. There’s some important things to consider though that do make me optimistic.
The vaccine arrived ahead of schedule. And it has been as effective as anyone could have hoped. It’s provided an escape door for those who have taken it. It’s not perfect but it has done that thing that denialists insisted has been true from the beginning and that optimists hoped would be one day in their best estimates. The vaccines have turned COVID-19, least it’s current variants, into the flu for the vaccinated. It’s true this may be luck. But it’s given policy makers an opportunity to create an opt in return to normal path. This makes draconian lock down measures politically untenable. Risk of death is low enough for reasonable people to move on. Risk of lockdown is lower as a result.
The pre-COVID world may be dead. But the optimist in me sees a post COVID world that isn’t much different in terms of quality of life. If by mid to late January, the Omicron case and mortality/hospitalization rates continue to diverge, it might be here. If not, this will be wrong. Seasonal vaccines for the variant of the day may be it for 2022 and beyond. And we’ll talk about having lived through this one day.
On Politics
A year ago an angry mob stormed the Capitol and tried to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. And now the prevailing opinion is that American democracy is on the brink. Terms like civil war are being thrown around.
I was dismayed by what happened last January. I’m disappointed that the current political environment didn’t allow us to pave over it as a universally condemned event. And I am not optimistic about the current state of American politics and how it’s made us much weaker as a nation in the face of growing global competition.
So, why the optimism?
They didn’t throw out the election. Angry mob aside, the system held. Moreover, the modern platform focused military isn’t really something one can split up and take sides. It’s not Lee and Stonewall Jackson amassing militias in the field today.
Who gets the SIPRnet servers? Do they do a draft for the satellites? Who keeps the maintenance contracts? Does California get to keep the bases? You get the point. I don’t think civil war is around the corner. Which means that a coup is going to have to be a political one. And I think what’s much more likely than a wholesale political coup is that the continued political tension towards the federal government will drive either structural or political change in how we govern.
I don’t know exactly what the mechanism will be. But it’s reasonable to see a near future where there’s less homogeneity among states. And that there is more reliance on state and local leaders to solve problems and drive political agendas.
I think the reality where either the system is what it is now or there is some form of catastrophe that ends America as we know it forgets much of American and world history. Things, materially, are relatively better than they’ve really ever been. It’s not impossible to burn the thing to the ground over culture and ideology but it’s not likely. The federal government, congress and the presidency have all changed roles throughout the American centuries. It’s this flexibility that preserves us. And I reserve some optimism for us to adapt again. If for no other reason that it’s literally in no one’s best interest to burn it down.
On the Economy
Inflation is here. The pandemic looms. On the latter I’ll reference the above. On the former it’s reasonable to say that we avoided a hard economic pandemic landing at the cost of surging prices. But we’ve been in an environment of negative real interest rates for over a decade (longer really). And we have the fiscal and monetary mechanisms to respond to low interest rate, high inflationary environments. I’m optimistic we can.
We’re likely to see an increase in wages over time. And we’re going to have to have a reckoning about the lack of affordable housing. I don’t know what the answer to housing is. But that’s different than an economic collapse or even a recession.
On Climate
The richest person in the world got that rich making electric cars. When I was a kid everyone wanted to be Gordon Gekko. When I was in college everyone wanted to be Bill Gates. Now, as problematic a personality as he is, people want to be the next Elon Musk. I don’t know how we get to a more sustainable civilization. But it probably helps when the salient leaders of industry aren’t just digging holes in the ground or pushing investment vehicles or shipping bits. The optimist in me sees a corner being turned here. And I think we’ll look to the coming decade as the time when we started this.
On War
Today, we’re not at war in Afghanistan or Iraq. We have been my whole adult life until a few months ago. And while tensions in eastern Europe and between America and China grow, there is some work done by the globalists over the past 40 years that won’t likely be undone. What’s more likely than World War III is a type of integrated global competition where the center of gravity moves eastward. Where regional military conflict may persist but only as a means to an end that does not include occupation or destruction. An end where competition for value chains is the goal. It’s a game America is likely to lose. But it’s a game one can lose and still keep playing to an outcome that benefits us all.
I’m optimistic about all of these things. I’m sure someone will be annoyed that I’m overlooked something or chosen to undervalue something they think will surely undo us. It’s not optimism that makes us take things less seriously though. It’s actually unending pessimism. I’m excited to sprinkle some naive sunshine on it.
We’re carbon based life forms that have evolved from creatures that have converted the energy from a nuclear fusion reactor 91 million miles away into life. We’ve built a civilization on a rock rumbling 67 thousand miles an hour through the abyss of space. We’re not without problems. But context helps a bit. We are improbable. We weren’t inevitable. Yet we’re here. And we are thriving. The problems we have are problems of abundance and consumption. And they are solvable.
Here’s to 2022 and the reality that all that’s left or ever will be will come after.
On Optimism
Sean…..why is there water in my eyes with so many of your posts….I am 54 with twins who will be 10 next week-a decade of being blessed to be a mother. Heartbroken by what has been unfolding in our country and how the hell it’s going to affect them. I have been an eternal optimist, or at the very least, a hopeless idealist. Thanks for providing a hopeful perspective on most of what is chipping away at it. The only thing I might add to this list would be our lack of importance placed on mental health. With it, we can raise children who might be more capable, and more balanced to make better decisions about how our future unfolds. I’m raising my kids to value it, to take precious care of it. But it feels like a pebble thrown into the ocean. I’ll stop here and marinate on the positive now. Happy Happy New Year to you and your family.