I am ready. Let's go.

I'm Angela Duckworth.

I'm Mike Mon.

And you're listening to No Stupid Questions.

Today on the show, are we becoming more pessimistic as a society?

Yeah, it's really hard to have hope for the world.

Yeah, I really wonder if there's any real purpose to my life.

Mike, I have a question for you and me from somebody who's very special to me, and that is Jason Duckworth.

Oh, I love it.

Hello, Jason.

Fan favorite.

Well, maybe he's my favorite fan.

He's wondering whether we're getting more pessimistic.

And not Jason and Angela.

He means, like, is humanity getting more pessimistic?

He's probably speaking of Americans.

I mean, he's just, I think, asking this question because he thinks there's a lot to be optimistic about these days.

I will say that my immediate reaction to this is, one, I love that Jason is an optimist. Two, I think that

there are trends toward pessimism in society at large. I have a friend in the political arena

who talks all the time about conflict entrepreneurs. Conflict entrepreneurs. What are they?

I mean, think about some of these more

extreme news shows or news channels. Their entrepreneurship, their business is in driving conflict

...