Obviously, there were plenty of goings-on in the U.S. presidential election campaign in August. I’ve talked about that elsewhere, and everybody else is talking about it, so I’ll give it a rest here.
Most frightening and/or depressing story: Human extinction, and our dysfunctional political system’s seeming lack of concern and even active ramping up the risk. We have forgotten how horrible it was last time (and the only time) nuclear weapons were used on cities. Is there any story that could be more frightening and/or depressing to a human?
Most hopeful story: Drugs targeting “GLP-1 receptors” (one brand name is Ozempic) were developed to treat diabetes and obesity, but they may be effective against stroke, heart disease, kidney disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, alcoholism, and drug addiction. They may even be miracle anti-aging drugs. But really, it seems like the simple story is that most of us in the modern world are just eating too much and moving our bodies too little, and these drugs might let us get some of the benefits of healthier lifestyles without actually making the effort. Making the effort, or making the effort while turbo-charging the benefits with drugs, might be the better option. Nonetheless, saving lives is saving lives.
Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: I did some musing about electric vehicles in August. The hype bubble seems to have burst a bit, as they did not explode onto the international commercial scene as some were hoping/predicting. This is partly because public infrastructure has not kept pace with the private sector due to sheer inertia, but I always detect a whiff of the evil oil/car industry propaganda and political capture behind the scenes. Nonetheless, just as I see happening with computer-driven vehicles, the technology and market will continue to develop after the hype bubble bursts. In a way, this almost starts the clock (5-10-20 years?) for when we can expect the actual commercial transition to occur. It will happen gradually, and one day we will just shrug, accept it, assume we knew it was coming all along, and eventually forget it was any other way. And since I seem to have transportation on the brain, here is a bonus link to my article on high speed trains.