Everyone agrees the world is ending. The only disagreement is which catastrophe gets top billing.
Starting with Jimmy Carter’s 1979 “crisis of confidence” speech, Sami Shah travels through Bangladesh, Munich, Chile, Watergate, oil shocks, coups, terrorism, information overload and nuclear panic to ask whether the present is uniquely doomed—or whether every generation mistakes its own crisis for the final shape of history.
This is not a cheerful TED Talk claiming everything is secretly better. Gaza, democratic decline, antisemitism, climate change and AI-generated misinformation are real dangers.
But helplessness is the con.
News Weakly is independent, completely ad-free and supported by listeners through Patreon.
","author_name":"Sami Shah"}