good morning john panics are not that
unusual but they do seem to be all
stacking up on each other this is
partially the fault of the world like
there are some
really real problems out there i think
that this is more than just like a
normal reaction to an imperfect world
seem to be finding it easy to get angry
and scared on a surface level but hard
to get engaged in deeper more helpful
ways now sometimes this is because of
like legitimately awful people who find
it useful to manipulate people into
being scared so that they can get them
to watch their youtube videos or follow
them on twitter or vote for them but
also it seems like it's just how
communication works on the internet
right now it is easier to have simple
takes it is easier to share them it's
easier to make people aware of the
definite obvious clear problem than it
is of the misty vague and uncertain
solutions i think that all of these
things add together to get a lot of
people stuck in a place that i am now
naming it is the sad gap here's how
learning about a new problem works at
first you might know that a problem
exists but you aren't really aware of it
you're not worried about but then as you
earn more you get exposed to the
definite real concrete inexcusable
terrible frightening consequences of
that problem and often you are also
exposed to the people who either create
the problem or are preventing it from
being solved and usually though not
always this is presented in a way that
is oversimplified in order to make you
more likely to engage with content
because if you don't engage with content
then the idea doesn't spread and so now
you have entered into the sad gap here
in the sad gap it seems that there is
quite a lot of evil around evil is what
is creating the problem evil is what is
preventing it from getting solved and
from this perspective it is very
difficult to imagine how you or anyone
else could ever solve this problem so
the sad gap is the place where you mix
together outrage and hopelessness and
that is always a place that is going to
be filled with anxiety and depression
and panic but this is not the sad place
this is the sad gap as you learn more
about a topic you find complexity maybe
you realize that fossil fuel workers
don't imagine themselves as darth
vader's supervillains but as the people
who made it possible for your house to
be warm and your refrigerator cold and
maybe you see that the cost of solar
power keeps going down and that we have
for the first time since the industrial
revolution decoupled economic growth
from carbon emissions you see people
working to solve the problem maybe you
even become a person who is solving the
problem but you can't believe that a
problem is solvable when you're in the
sad gap and you certainly can't help
solving here's an incomplete list of
things that i'm worried about right now
and it is i dare say it too long but
there's also nothing i'd take off of it
and likely quite a lot that should be
added but if i keep adding things it's
very easy to enter the sad gap on all of
them but hard to find the time to move
through it to the other side on any of
them especially because the people who
make content and the people who share
content which is all of us are
encouraged by our minds and by the
structure of an internet that is
designed to always keep us from leaving
it to only add stuff to the list and
never go deeper on anything especially
because going deeper is way more work
and so we have all been driven into the
sad gap on a lot of different topics all
at once and i think that's bad it makes
us depressed anxious and easy to
manipulate and so now i have put you in
a weird place potentially into the sad
gap sad gap you now know about a new
problem and you don't feel like there's
any good solutions out there and it
would have been easy for me to talk
about this in simpler ways and to blame
more people particularly i could have
placed a lot more blame at the feet of
social media platforms than i did i
think that would just be an
oversimplification that would make us
feel like this is being caused by evil
rather than by it just being a problem
that should be solved all i wanted to do
in this video is to outline that this
thing exists that it is too easy to get
to the place and knowledge where you are
sad and angry and too hard to cross the
gap over to being engaged and helped and
there are not always ways across the sad
gap but usually there are but i do not
have time to talk about them in this
video because i'm up on four minutes
here so john i need you to tell me yours
and your video when i see you on tuesday