How to rediscover hope during election season

If you feel certain your preferred candidate will lose the presidential election, that AI is coming for your job or that climate change is going to destroy humanity, then you have fallen prey to a cynical mindset, and you’re far from alone. Over the past 50 years, cynicism has spread like a virus across American society, infecting us with the belief that other people can’t be trusted, the world is only getting worse and there’s nothing we can do about it. Being hopeful is not a matter of looking away, it’s a matter of looking more closely and more clearly.” Here Zaki talks about the media’s role in creating a more cynical society, why so many of us mistake cynicism for wisdom and why trusting others isn’t only for the privileged among us. They don’t trust in a variety of contexts, whether it’s strangers, politicians or even family and friends, the way less cynical people do. When I see myself suspecting people, I try my best to to say, “You’re a scientist — what evidence do you have for that claim?” And oftentimes the answer is, “I have no evidence to support this bleak assumption.” Once we have that mindset of being more curious about our own thoughts, we can interrupt the cycle of cynicism.