The Pleasures of Pessimism (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780647530757)

Re: CONSIDERING invites you to look at what's familiar from an unfamiliar angle. To consider how we consider things - and how to do it better.

Pandemic, supervolcano, late capitalism, transhumanism, populism, cancel culture, the post-antibiotic age, the gig economy, the surveillance state, the cascading effects of climate change...

Whatever the specifics, do you ever feel like things are going off the rails-or are just about to?

If you've read the headlines, watched a zombie movie, or gotten into an argument on Twitter lately, the answer is probably yes.

And you're not alone.

We live in an age of deep anxiety about the future. Catastrophe-whether political, technological, environmental or moral-feels not just possible, but probable. In this atmosphere, we've become something of a culture of 'apocaholics': addicted to doomscrolling, captivated by worst-case scenarios, fascinated by collapse. The apocalypse, once the domain of religious prophecy, now dominates our entertainment, our politics, and even our casual conversations.

But what makes the end of the world so strangely compelling? What's so appealing about Armageddon? What are the pleasures - and also the perils of our pessimism?