The Mind At The End Of The World Dept.

You don't have to dig very deeply to find rank pessimism these days. Between reports of ocean acidification and the melting permafrost, it isn't hard to find people who put very low odds on the human race surviving the century. Maybe even the next few decades are a tough bet.

Confronting this stuff, as a single and relatively powerless human being, is paralyzing and depressing. It reminds you that you are not only merely one person among teeming billions (who pays attention to one grain of sa...