Mr. Dumas believes in supporting one of the large political coalitions. He sees the sense in every election and every issue becoming nationalized. He takes great comfort when every issue is boiled down to a few slogans that express a clear ideology. And he honestly thinks that if his political party can just win enough elections in a row, the country can be saved from ruin.
Doomer thinks any possible solutions to problems will need to happen through re-localization, starting at his home. He thinks that the politicians of both sides are liars, parasites, and arrogant fools.
Mr. Dumas spends a lot of time online, arguing. He gets real joy pointing out when his opponents are making dumb arguments. He knows his opponents are dumb asses.
Doomer sees these online arguments as a waste of time, and gets mad at himself when he gets sucked into them. He sees the fake binaries and team sports of politics as methods of control, or at least methods of using up time that could be better spent either a) preparing to survive the first few waves of crisis or b) fully living his limited amount of time left.
Mr. Dumas thinks we need growth.
Doomer thinks that’s the definition of a cancer -- too much growth kills any patient.
Mr. Dumas thinks that he is owed at least 80 years of life. He doesn’t really say this to anyone out loud, because he doesn’t want to think about his death at all. So he has just absorbed the expectations expressed around him. Magic healthcare will mean he lives to be at least 80, probably, like, I dunno, 100.
Doomer knows that in many places around the world and in many time periods people have had no expectation of living out the potential human life span. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, people lived meaningful and productive lives. In fact, by all accounts, the lives seemed significantly more meaningful. Doomer wants to have meaning in his time left, not survive for survival's sake.
Mr. Dumas thinks that renewable energies are just around the corner, and so our way of life will not have to change.
Doomer No.
Mr. Dumas is excited about artificial intelligence and robots. He thinks that this could be the ticket to the next great wave of prosperity.
Doomer hopes Dumas is right, and knows some really smart people who see it this way. However, Doomer being a Doomer, thinks that these same technologies could make armies essentially unbeatable by humans, removing any risk to mistreating civilian populations. Also, why would prosperity just start spreading all the sudden?
Mr. Dumas thinks virtually reality is cool.
Doomer thinks virtual reality might be the only way to keep the population pacified while cutting them off from more and more material resources. This kind of world might be among the best realistically possible outcomes.
Mr. Dumas thinks about his food coming from restaurants and grocery stores. He would fight, especially in online arguments, to defend all of those things. It is, after all, his way of life.
Doomer knows his food comes from the soil. He is terrified about how our current industrial agricultural practices deplete the soil, and sees a world where petroleum is drawing down and oil-made fertilizers flushed once through the soil leading to run-off as the death sentence for billions of people. We need radical change. And Doomer is a Doomer because he doesn’t think humanity can get its act together in time.
