Dan Shaw

New newsletter: HOW THE 2020s BROKE OUR BRAINS It's the Tragic Twenties, and Americans can't stop feeling like hot garbage. - The UMich consumer sentiment survey is now at its lowest rate on record - The Fed's job satisfaction survey is at its lowest rate on record - Both the General Social Survey and the World Happiness Survey have found that happiness in the US plunged in 2020 and has since been mired at levels significantly below previous decades You shouldn't assume that your favorite pet issue is the main culprit here. Conservatives might point to cultural changes, like the decline of marriage and religiosity, but those have been going on for decades. The left might reach for wage inequality, but that has actually narrowed in the last six years. This can't even primarily be about phones, since what's most clear in the data set is something that changed this decade, not last decade. I spent a long time reading, talking to people, and doing my own research, and I think the most parsimonious explanation I can provide is this: The Pandemic Never Ended. This thesis has three parts. TPNE 1: The biological antagonist of COVID gave way to the economic antagonist of inflation, and after decades of coming to rely on lowflation and meager wage growth for low-income workers, price levels have increased 3x faster this decade than in the previous 40 years, and economists simply have to accept that inflation makes people angrier than it used to. This isn't even a strictly American phenomenon. Around the world, incumbents have lost power faster than any post-WWII period, as affordability concerns bludgeon their electorate. The few countries where happiness levels have increased in the western world in the last 6 years have had some of the lowest levels of inflation. TPNE 2: Institutions down, individualism up: The 2020s have seen trust plummet for practically every institution, along with growing distrust in strangers, and rising alone time and at-home time. At best, community offers a buffer in times of crisis. But today, the absence of community—and the triumph of a tech-enabled, hyper-introverted atomism—makes every crisis feel more existential and unsolvable. And that's a problem bc... TPNE 3: The 2020s have been the permacrisis crisis decade. It's really been one fucking thing after another, hasn't it? Pandemic, inflation, interest rates, Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, AI. Meanwhile, phones give us constant contact with both the scary news cycle and the panic-inducing fears and anxieties of the commentariat. Inflation makes today's life feel harder to live. The news cycle makes tomorrow's world scarier to live through. And the post-pandemic decline of institutions and acceleration of toxic individualism weakens our socio-emotional immune system to deal with all of it. TLDR: The pandemic never ended, and it's left us with the Tragic Twenties.

It's better to be the wisest person in the room than the smartest. People prove their intelligence by showing what they know. They reveal their wisdom by integrating what everyone knows. Intelligence can be used to advance personal agendas. Wisdom guides groups to shared goals.

"When you're offered a seat on a rocket ship. . ."

I’m increasingly convinced the important question to ask is not, “What is true?” But rather, “When is this true?”