More Oblivious Disconnect

Conservative columnist Ross Douthout was mocking liberal malaise over the state of the planet, claiming we lived in the best of times. His point of reference was WWII, a rather low bar. But even given that horror, can conservatives like Ross be oblivious to what an article in today's Times describes as " a global migration movement driven by tens of millions of people displaced because of war, persecution, climate change, violence and human rights abuses, according to the United Nations?" You might think that plus obscene inequality and mass extinction and government dysfunction and global pandemics and yada yada might be reason for young people to be disillushioned. But for Ross they are whiners who don't appreciate how good they have it. The other striking disconnect was listening to tech guru Sam Altmand of Chat GP fame also saying "we are headed for the best world" one of vast "material abundance",via advanced technology. He saw our species having few issues adapting to the rapid change, given a little sober regulation and an "itterative" process of introducing artificial intelligence, that is, one baby step at a time. But of course "steps" look different to different people. I could not disagree more strongly. An add on the back of Scientific American magazine says: "Our world is trying to tell us something." Some people listen but do not hear, they look but they do not see. They are so inculcated with and embedded in the logics of capital, modernity and progress they can't begin to imagine there might be other logics. They are so convinced they are the smartest people in the room, they ignore the ancient lessons and wisdom. It's called oblivious.