3 Books That Reduced My Anxiety & Depression About The State of The World

Maybe things aren’t (quite) as bad as we think

The world is a scary place, and it can feel like it’s getting scarier. So recently I’ve been deliberately seeking out non-fiction that makes me feel slightly less anxious and depressed about the state we’ve gotten ourselves into. Here are a few of the books that have had an impact.

Full disclosure: I’m an Amazon Influencer and affiliate. When I recommend books online, and link to Amazon, I (sometimes) earn a (tiny) commission. Find out more about what that means here.

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About The World — And Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling

Factfulness starts off with a simple quiz that tests readers’ knowledge of the world. Questions address things like poverty, healthcare, and gender equality. The surprise is that almost everybody gets most of the answers wrong, including groups of particularly well-educated people. There are two more vital things to bear in mind about this quiz:

People don’t just get the answers wrong — they get them very wrong

The quiz is multiple choice, with three options per question, so chimpanzees hitting random buttons would score around 33%. Humans do much worse, on almost every question, usually scoring somewhere between 2% and 25%.

The wrong answers are almost always in the same direction

The answers given usually paint a worse view of the world than the current reality. People give pessimistic answers way more often than optimistic ones. In other words, we all think the world is a worse place than it actually is.

I’ve given you a couple of clues as to the right answers, so maybe you’ll do better than the chimps. You can take the quiz online here, or order the book here.

It can’t be coincidence that the whole world thinks things are worse than they are. It must be the media lying to us, right? Well, not exactly. Journalists and film makers also score very badly on the test. So if the latest article you read, or documentary you watched, painted a very pessimistic view of the world, it probably represented the creator’s beliefs, rather than being a deliberate attempt to scare and depress you.

Factfulness both sets the record straight, presenting some of the real figures, and teaches us how to be aware of our own gut instincts and the way they mislead us. It teaches us to look at the facts clearly, and how to compare and contrast the figures to get a more accurate view of the world.

The book doesn’t gloss over the atrocities going on in the world, but it does try to put things in perspective. The author constantly stresses one important fact:

Things can be both bad, and getting better.

Things are bad, all over the globe, but long term, they are (mostly) getting better. We are living at a time where poverty still exists, hunger still exists, gender inequality still exists, and there are still people who can’t access clean water or proper healthcare. But all those things have been improving, for decades now, and projections indicate that they will likely continue to do so.

This is particularly vital to bear in mind if you are someone who tries to make a difference. It’s easy to think your donations to NGOs and charities make no difference. That your volunteer hours or awareness raising doesn’t matter. That you are throwing money (and other resources) at a problem that’s getting worse. But (mostly) you are throwing money at problems that are real, and sad, and heart-breaking, but improving day by day, partly due to your donations.

And sometimes we need to tell ourselves that, firmly and loudly. Things are bad, but they are getting better, and will continue to do so.

Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There by Rutger Bregman

In Utopia for Realists, Bregman takes some extreme-sounding, utopian ideas, deconstructs them, reconstructs them, and presents (compelling) evidence that makes them sound not only a lot less extreme, but ultimately doable, if only we had the political will.

He begins with the idea of a Universal Basic Income: free, non-means-tested, money for everyone. It’s an idea that will have the average, right-wing, advocate of capitalism raging about the crazy, unaffordable ideals of libtard snowflakes, until you crunch the numbers, and look at the history of the concept. It will come as a surprise to many Americans how close they came to a Universal Basic Income becoming policy in the US, and it will no doubt come as more of a surprise that it was Nixon, of all people, who very nearly implemented it.

It’s counter-intuitive, but there is plenty of evidence that lifting people out of poverty saves money overall, in almost every other area of public spending, including (given the link between poverty and crime) the court system and the prison system. Of course, there’s a serious and very concerning hidden agenda behind why saving money by keeping people out of prison is no longer a no-brainer. Nevertheless, the benefits of Universal Basic Income are far-reaching, and cheaper than the numerous interventions needed to combat the effects of poverty over a lifetime.

Another big idea in Bregman’s book is reduced working hours for everyone, and specifically a 15-hour work week. Again the modern-day advocates of capitalism will be up in arms, and again they will be surprised to find out where this idea stemmed from. It is John Maynard Keynes, one of the great capitalist thinkers of the last century, who Bregman cites on this one.

Apparently Keynes predicted that capitalism’s efficiency and productivity would lead to a working week of no more than 15 hours, by around 2030. We might have gotten there, too, were it not for what Bregman refers to as hyper-consumerism. In other words, it is the move away from efficiently producing what we need, towards mindlessly producing what we don’t, that’s to blame for our long working hours.

Bregman’s third utopian goal will have even more people up in arms, particularly in the current climate. It is the simple but controversial idea of open borders. The current narrative is, of course, that open borders will destroy the economy. That we will be inundated with ‘Schrodinger’s Immigrant’ (he’s the one that is simultaneously too lazy to work and stealing your job). But you’ve probably spotted a pattern by now. Bregman proceeds to present evidence that free mobility for workers and capital across borders would potentially raise gross worldwide product by between 67% and 172%, making the world twice as rich as it currently is (while admittedly taking the radical, unpopular-with-the-greedy step of redistributing that wealth more evenly across the globe).

Will Bregman’s ideas ever come to pass? It seems unlikely. It will take politicians willing to look beyond the current false narratives, and make the unthinkable not only thinkable but doable. But I’m still less depressed after reading this book. It clearly shows me that I’m not alone (or insane) in thinking that the current narratives around poverty, capitalism and migration are missing the mark. Many of the world’s scientists, researchers and economists agree with me.

The Optimistic Environmentalist: Progressing Toward a Greener Future by David R Boyd

I’m firmly of the opinion that it’s partially the doom and gloom involved in the discussion of environmental issues that puts people in denial about them. It’s also, of course, the inconvenience. It’s easy for those not well-informed on the topic to assume that the only alternative to environmental destruction is a return to the dark ages. Whereas, in fact, the answers to many of our issues lie in high-tech solutions way more advanced than digging up fossil fuels and converting them to dirty energy.

It’s vital to accept that the solutions to many environmental problems are not beyond us as a society. In The Optimistic Environmentalist, Boyd demonstrates that those solutions are already being found and implemented, every day. In the past 50 years, we’ve already addressed and solved some of the pressing environmental issues facing us, and there is significant progress being made on many others.

While the US president is rambling incoherently about wind power, countless companies are developing ever more efficient technology in the areas of wind, solar and hydro power. As someone who lives in a country where wind power is becoming more common, I can confirm that there are not, as President Trump claims ‘bald eagle graveyards’ under every windmill. Interestingly, bald eagles are one of the species that, as Boyd points out in The Optimistic Environmentalist, have been brought back from the brink of extinction, due to changes in environmental policies.

I’m wary of optimism, when it comes to environmental issues. It can too easily lead to complacency. However, I’m going to take a guess that the type of readers this book will attract are not looking for excuses to be complacent. If I’m an example of a typical reader, they’re looking for reasons to be less anxious about the future, yes, but also for what they can build on. This book highlights some of the solutions we already have, and those that are in the works. For those who are feeling like there’s nothing to be done, it offers hope, and hope is another thing we need if we’re going to avoid complacency.

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Disclosure: I’m an Amazon Influencer and affiliate. When I recommend books online, and link to Amazon, I (sometimes) earn a (tiny) commission. Find out more about what that means here.