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Why I'm Worried about 2020

2019-12-27 · letter vlog · Hank · 3:59 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning (also: US politics & society) · mode: Personal essay · tags: timely hook, self promotion

In the last video of the 2010s, Hank says the decade made the world better, yet 2020 feels shakier (climate change, an election year, impeachment, manufactured tension), and argues that worry, done right and paired with hope, is a symptom of caring and a tool; he ends by plugging the January tour.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Last video of the 2010s: no look back at the decade, because Hank is worried about the future; worry gets a bad rap

  • ★★ Hank says he can't look back at the decade because he is too worried about the future, and feels a lot of people are too. — 00:00:10
  • ★★ Hank says the future is worrying because it is unknown and unknowable, but worry gets a bad rap because we do it wrong. — 00:00:15

00:00:24 — The decade made things better, yet now feels shakier: climate change, young people and leaders, an election year, impeachment, manufactured tension

  • ★★★ Hank says that in many ways the world, even just America, got better over the last ten years. — 00:00:25 · progress, United States
  • ★ Hank recalls, with disgust, that he had a Motorola Droid in 2009. (playful) — 00:00:33
  • ★★ Hank notes, as a bigger deal, that back then gay marriage was illegal. — 00:00:33 · United States
  • ★★ Hank says the unemployment rate fell from 10% to 4% over the decade. — 00:00:39 · United States
  • ★★ Yet to Hank now feels a bit shakier than 2009 did, and he is not really sure why. — 00:00:44
  • ★★★ Hank says part of it must be that we are starting to feel the real effects of climate change: the climate is actually changing. — 00:00:50 · climate change
  • ★★ Hank says a growing populace of young people know they will have to solve climate change while their elected leaders don't recognize it exists, which causes tension. — 00:00:58 · climate change
  • ★★ Hank says 2020 is an election year and will be stressful because of it; election years always are. — 00:01:10 · United States presidential election
  • ★★ Hank says the US just impeached its president over his lack of respect for the process, and he is worried about that. — 00:01:14 · Donald Trump, United States
  • ★★★ Hank worries that tension, partly manufactured by leaders, the architecture of the social internet or Russian bot farms, will keep pulling at the bonds of community, as it did over the decade. — 00:01:22

00:01:42 — It could always be worse; science fiction as a way to worry about the future; Parable of the Sower

  • ★★ Against the idea that trashy 2019 means 2020 can't be worse, Hank says it could always be worse. — 00:01:46
  • ★★ Hank likes science fiction because it is a way to worry about the future by playing out scenarios in narrative form. — 00:01:56
  • ★★ Hank calls Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, the first Life's Library book of this year (2019), a great example of science fiction worrying about the future. — 00:02:04
  • ★★ Hank worries that we might worry the wrong ways, but also that we might not worry enough. — 00:02:10

00:02:17 — Worry as a symptom of caring and a tool: the right worries, worry with hope, and we are not powerless

  • ★★★ One of Hank's smartest teachers told him he looks for worry in good leaders: brave and bold, but kept up at night by the possibilities, thinking and fretting. — 00:02:18

  • ★★★ Hank says worry isn't a disease but a symptom of caring, and a tool and survival strategy. — 00:02:35

    “worry isn't a disease; it's a symptom of caring.”

  • ★★ Hank says the ability to think through a situation and assign probabilities to outcomes, however flawed, is a human superpower and the reason we are alive. — 00:02:39

  • ★★★ Hank says not all worry is healthy: we need the right worries, ones that motivate us and are based in reality rather than ideology or blind opposition. — 00:02:51
  • ★★ Hank says worry almost always works best hand in hand with hope. — 00:03:05 · hope
  • ★★ Hank is worried about 2020 because 2020 needs him to be, just as he needs his mom to worry about him. — 00:03:08 · Sydney Green
  • ★★★ Hank says we can feel powerless against people who want other things and have more resources, but we are not: whom we donate to and vote for, our conversations and how we imagine the world build the world. — 00:03:16

00:03:44 — P.S. tour plug: St. Petersburg, Atlanta and Raleigh

  • ★★ Hank invites viewers in St. Petersburg, Atlanta or Raleigh to come to the brothers' little tour; more information is in the description. — 00:03:47

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says the world has moved back on global faith in democracy, a hit from the social internet, rising inequality, and pundits, operatives and TV news wanting people freaked out. — video description · economic inequality, sensationalism

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Worry

Also: People: Donald Trump · Sydney Green

Projects: Life's Library

Works: Parable of the Sower

Concepts: climate change · hope · ideology · political polarization · progress · same-sex marriage · science fiction · Unemployment · Youth

Places: Atlanta · Raleigh, North Carolina · St. Petersburg, Florida · United States

Events: First impeachment of Donald Trump · United States presidential election

Products: Fidget spinner · Motorola Droid

Memes: Planking · The dress

Only in the description or credits: democratic backsliding · economic inequality · Octavia E. Butler · sensationalism

Also centred on Worry: Four Years Ago · I am Grateful for My Worry

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