Hello again, I'm Warren Alney. On this last episode of our To The Point podcast, The State of the World, with pandemics, climate change, and nuclear weapons, Are things really as bad as they seem? Or are

we all just programmed with a cognitive bias in favor of bad news? We'll talk with Nicholas

Christoph, who's looking for good news. And as the population ages in California, Steve

Lopez is calling his LA Times column The Golden Years.

We'll hear about his extensive research into possible options for a happy, even constructive

retirement.

First, Nicholas Christoph, a journalist with experience all over the world, and a one-time

prospective candidate for governor of Oregon.

Now back to his New York Times column on human rights,

women's rights, health, and global affairs. Hey, Christoph, welcome. Great to be with you, Warren.

You have been writing every year a column saying that, hey, this was the best year in human history.

Now you say last year, you couldn't quite say that anymore.

Why couldn't you say that anymore?

And why do you want to say it in the first place?

So, I mean, COVID, the pandemic definitely sent the world into a loop.

You know, it lowered education standards,

it initially lifted poverty, global poverty. And so it was a, it was definitely a setback.

But the reason I want to make the point is that I think that the world is way better off than we tend to think it is. And I think that that is

partly because of a cognitive bias and the part of the public toward, you know, towards threats,

toward bad news. And I think it's partly a bias in how we and the journalism world cover the

news and how nonprofits call attention to problems. You know, there's a crisis, and I fly off to cover it,

and nonprofits are warning about the danger,

...