{"id":26533,"date":"2025-12-10T17:29:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T01:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=26533"},"modified":"2025-12-21T13:59:44","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T21:59:44","slug":"human-happiness-and-fonts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/12\/10\/human-happiness-and-fonts\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Happiness, and Fonts"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Sean Illing and Brad DeLong wonder why, with all humanity&#8217;s progress, aren&#8217;t we happier? An eternal question;<\/li>\n<li>Paul Krugman on how Trump thinks people aren&#8217;t properly grateful for his perfect economy;<\/li>\n<li>Marco Rubio defeats a woke font;<\/li>\n<li>Heather Cox Richardson on how ChatGPT finds that modern America contains &#8220;multiple factual impossibilities&#8221;;<\/li>\n<li>John Pavlovitz on how we can&#8217;t change these hateful people, we have to outnumber them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<p>Today&#8217;s think piece.<\/p>\n<p>Is this a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hedonic_treadmill\">hedonic treadmill<\/a> matter? Or something else?<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.vox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/11\/gettyimages-2239260660.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0%2C0.02498750624688%2C100%2C99.950024987506&amp;w=750\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Vox, Sean Illing, Dec 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/podcasts\/471467\/gray-area-brad-delong-progress-abundance\">The world has gotten richer \u2014 so, why aren\u2019t we happier?<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Technological progress and economic growth are preconditions for human happiness, not a guarantee.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Perhaps something else. The article here is an interview with Brad DeLong, author of a 2022 book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Economic-History-Twentieth-Century\/dp\/0465019595\/\"><b>Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century<\/b><\/a>, which I didn&#8217;t notice at the time; it asks the same question as the article title here. This is a central question: what is this &#8220;meaning&#8221; humans seem to need, that is something more than an intuitive application of cause and effect for explaining human existence? (And personally I don&#8217;t find the standard religious claim of needing to worship a creator any more plausible or appealing than a slave\/master relationship.)<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll quote this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><b>Key takeaways:<\/b><\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Growth has allowed humanity to conquer privation and disease \u2013 but discontent remains, and prosperity hasn\u2019t solved the deeper question of what progress is <i>for<\/i>.<br \/>\n\u2022 Abundance doesn\u2019t necessarily lead to a sense of agency; many people still feel that impersonal systems shape their lives without their consent.<br \/>\n\u2022 The 21st century will continue to be defined by growth and prosperity, but the center of gravity will shift to the developing world.<br \/>\n\u2022 The defining question of our era may well be whether humans can direct their attention toward what truly matters in an era when there are increasingly competing claims to it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And the last exchange in the interview:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Give me a word or two that might come to define the 21st century in the way the word \u201cgrowth\u201d defined the 20th century.<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1agbrixi lg8ac51 lg8ac50 xkp0cg1\">I\u2019ll give you two.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1agbrixi lg8ac51 lg8ac50 xkp0cg1\">First, growth, but growth centered in what used to be called the developing world rather than in the old industrial core. The 21st century will still be a century of rising prosperity, but its center of gravity is shifting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1agbrixi lg8ac51 lg8ac50 xkp0cg1\">Second, attention. The defining question of our era is whether human beings can learn to direct their attention toward what truly matters rather than toward whatever powerful actors want them to look at. Reliable information used to be scarce. Now, claims to reliability are so abundant that they overwhelm us.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1agbrixi lg8ac51 lg8ac50 xkp0cg1\">Whether we learn to navigate that environment may be the most important story of the century.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>About the fringe.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!IxcW!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5917ea5b-9034-46d8-8ea6-caee8cebdf87_1100x733.jpeg\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Paul Krugman, 10 Dec 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/paulkrugman.substack.com\/p\/trump-says-that-you-are-the-problem\">Trump Says That You Are the Problem<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Everything is perfect. Why aren\u2019t you grateful?&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Last night Donald Trump gave <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/12\/09\/us\/politics\/trump-affordability-economy-pennsylvania.html\" rel=\"\">an important speech on the economy<\/a> in Pennsylvania \u2014 supposedly in a working-class area, although the actual venue was a luxury casino resort. The event was initially touted as the start of an \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2025\/12\/09\/trump-affordability-pennsylvania\/\" rel=\"\">affordability tour<\/a>,\u201d the first of a series of speeches intended to reverse Trump\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gelliottmorris.com\/p\/data\" rel=\"\">cratering approval<\/a> on his handling of inflation and the economy. A number of news analyses suggested that he would use the occasion to blame Democrats for the economy\u2019s troubles.<\/p>\n<p>That was never going to happen. Trump did, of course, take many swipes at Joe Biden, as well as attacking immigrants, women and windmills. But to blame Democrats for the economy\u2019s problems he would have to admit that the Trump economy <em>has<\/em> problems. And the speech was important because it revealed that he won\u2019t make any such admission, and will continue to gaslight the public.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/12\/09\/donald-trump-full-interview-transcript-00681693\" rel=\"\">Politico<\/a> interviewed Trump, asking him, among other things, what grade he would give the current economy. His answer: \u201cA-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In fact, until very recently Trump wouldn\u2019t even accept the reality that ordinary Americans don\u2019t share his triumphalism. When Fox News\u2019s Laura Ingraham asked him a month ago why people are anxious about the economy, Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/www.morningstar.com\/news\/marketwatch\/2025111118\/trump-says-polls-are-fake-after-ingraham-says-people-are-anxious-over-economy-what-the-data-says\" rel=\"\">replied<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I don\u2019t know they are saying that. The polls are fake. We have the greatest economy we\u2019ve ever had.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Since then Trump and his minions seem to have come around to admitting that Americans are, in fact, unhappy with the state of the economy. But if the economy is A+++++, why don\u2019t people see it? The problem can\u2019t possibly lie with him \u2014 so it must lie with you. \u201cThe American people don\u2019t know how good they have it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In fact, economists like Krugman repeatedly noticed how well the economy was doing under Biden, and in fact, the actual statistics don&#8217;t show much improvement of the economy under Trump. But never let facts get in the way of ideology.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Searching out and defeating woke: anything that makes life better for some people. Because some people find sans-serif fonts easier to read.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/12\/09\/multimedia\/09dc-state-font-mpjq\/09dc-state-font-mpjq-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, 9 Dec 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/12\/09\/us\/politics\/rubio-state-department-font.html\">At State Dept., a Typeface Falls Victim in the War Against Woke<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Biden-era move to the sans serif typeface &#8216;wasteful,&#8217; casting the return to Times New Roman as part of a push to stamp out diversity efforts.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Maybe ChatGPT is pretty smart after all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/heathercoxrichardson.substack.com\/p\/december-9-2025\">December 9, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When G. Elliott Morris of <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gelliottmorris.com\/p\/how-cable-news-fueled-the-culture\">Strength in Numbers<\/a><\/em> asked ChatGPT to fact-check an article for him yesterday, the chatbot couldn\u2019t get its head around modern America. It told him there were \u201cmultiple factual impossibilities\u201d in his article, including his statements that \u201c[t]he current Secretary of Defense is a former talk show host for Fox News,\u201d \u201c[t]he Deputy Director of the FBI used to guest-host Sean Hannity\u2019s show,\u201d and \u201cJeanine Pirro is the U.S. District Attorney for DC.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince none of these statements are true,\u201d it told Morris, \u201cthey undermine credibility unless signposted as <em>hyperbole<\/em>, <em>fiction<\/em>, or <em>satire<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But of course, Morris\u2019s statements were not \u201cfactual impossibilities.\u201d In the United States of America under President Donald J. Trump, they are true.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>No comment.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Some of us are getting tired of trying to understand, trying to be nice. (My take: it&#8217;s about a base part of human nature that we can never overcome, despite the institutions set up in recent centuries to overcome it. Including the US Constitution.)<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!Ml8M!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F60ae4e85-a9b0-4915-847f-9d55b7bb665b_1110x624.jpeg\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>John Pavlovitz, 8 Dec 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/johnpavlovitz.substack.com\/p\/we-cant-change-these-hateful-people\">We Can&#8217;t Change These Hateful People, America. We Have to Outnumber Them.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll quote about the first third:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>These people cannot be helped.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve tried for ten years now.<br \/>\nWe\u2019ve tried to understand them.<br \/>\nWe\u2019ve tried to listen to them.<br \/>\nWe\u2019ve given them the benefit of the doubt.<br \/>\nWe\u2019ve tried not to assign motive to them, not to speculate as to why they voted the way they voted, not to believe they consented to every cruel thing their vote birthed and has enabled.<br \/>\nWe\u2019ve tried not to caricaturize them; not to make them into one-dimensional stereotypes, not to treat them as some fictional other whose presence posed a threat.<br \/>\nWe\u2019ve tried appealing to their sense of decency, to their capacity for compassion, to their faith in Jesus.<br \/>\nWe\u2019ve quietly endured thousands of their racist outbursts and homophobic rants on social media and at neighborhood picnics and across the Thanksgiving dinner table, in the hopes that I could find some vulnerable place beneath their fear to access later.<br \/>\nWe\u2019ve tried buoying pep talks and firm tough love and expressions of kindness and straight-talking challenge and attempts at affirmation.<br \/>\nWe\u2019ve tried discussing theology, sharing stories of oppressed communities, offering facts in the face of a million lies generated by their President, and reminding them of the lessons History has already taught us about the steep slope we\u2019re currently sliding precipitously down.<\/p>\n<p>They have all failed to reach fertile ground.<br \/>\nNothing has worked.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s all been fruitless.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And I saw another brilliant take on the Trump administration on Facebook this morning, from someone I&#8217;ve never heard of but who seems to have a following&#8230; but neglected to save it. And of course I can&#8217;t find it again. That&#8217;s how Facebook works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sean Illing and Brad DeLong wonder why, with all humanity&#8217;s progress, aren&#8217;t we happier? An eternal question; Paul Krugman on how Trump thinks people aren&#8217;t properly grateful for his perfect economy; Marco Rubio defeats a woke font; Heather Cox Richardson &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/12\/10\/human-happiness-and-fonts\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,96,54,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservative-resistance","category-human-nature","category-politics","category-progress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26533"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26630,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26533\/revisions\/26630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}