2021: This Is The Best Time To Be Alive feat. Gregg Easterbrook

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Open any newspaper or website, and there are tons of people decrying the end of this or the decline of that. And even with the pandemic just now falling into our recent rearview mirror, it's actually hard to think of a better time for humanity. So why does Gregg Easterbrook think this is such a great time to be alive?

Gregg is a prolific journalist and author who has written a number of books. Including It's Better Than It Looks: Reasons For Optimism In An Age Of Fear, Sonic Boom: Globalization At Mach Speed, and the most recent, The Blue Age. You might also remember his ESPN column, the Tuesday Morning Quarterback.

We dive into the chaos of the 2016 election, the “golden age of journalism,” claiming membership in the victimhood club and football's place in American culture.

Episode Quotes:

Isn't some negativity just human nature? Or a part of aging?:

Plato was 2,600 years ago. And Plato wrote that the world was "sweetly ordered in his youth, but now it was going to hell in a handbasket. " I can't remember the Greek word for handbasket, but that was his view a long time ago. And, of course by every objective measure, everyone throughout the world lives better than Plato did. Yet he thought things were headed downhill. So some of it is aging.

Why is the news so negative:

I've written for the Atlantic monthly for 40 years now. I think it's the best general interest publication ever from anybody. It has become so alarmist, the issue almost shakes in your hand. Everything's about how horrible everything is. And the reason is, that's what the customer wants. You give the reader what he wants. The Atlantic, the New York Times, the New Yorker have stabilized their financial situations very nicely by going all negative all the time. That's what people are willing to buy. And I guess if it's a free market, if that's what people want to buy, I'm not going to stop them.

Why are we nostalgic for coal mines and farm labor:

Oh boy, those were the good old days. Everybody would nod their heads as if there was some kind of wise command. And the Chinese had taken away this wonderful ability to work in a hot, dangerous steel mill, and to die young when something fell on you. Oh, when the Chinese took that away from us. Its abundance denial. People have torn emotions about all the privileges they enjoy. And rather than saying, yeah I'm living a great life and I want to do things that will help this great life be extended to other people all around the world. No, and they go in for abundance denial and they romanticize coal mines. Farm labor is backbreaking. If you've ever done farm labor, even for one harvest season, you know how hard it is. That stuff should be done by machines, not people.

Show Links:

Guest Profile:

• Gregg Easterbrook’s Website
• Gregg Easterbrook on Twitter
• Gregg Easterbrook on Linkedin
• Speaker Profile on Leading Authorities International

His work:

• Tuesday Morning Quarterback
• The Blue Age: How the US Navy Created Global Prosperity--And Why We're in Danger of Losing It
• It's Better Than It Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear
• The King of Sports: Football's Impact on America
• The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse