Status Updates From Die große Vertrauenskrise: ...

The coping compass is the most important and the weakest part of the book. Lobo tries to give it an optimistic spin when it comes to the individual, pointing to the most unhappy people of society, the ones most lost. Die Reichsbürger. After all, who wants to be unhappy all the time? Of all things, he points to Tiktok for the potential to find positive interaction and trust groups.

The complicated present contributed its share to the confidence crisis. The handling of the corona crisis, deteriorating infrastructure due to fiscal austerity, paid science and representation of minority opinions as equal, the intergenerational contract not holding up. The effect of AI has to be seen yet.

No big surprises in the situation analysis of the loss of confidence. People used to trust institutions. Now they trust peer groups. The possibility of transparency led to demanding it. While distrust to institutions used to be left-wing, it switched massively to the right. Mass media crisis, social media pushing populistic emotional messages and troll factories did contribute. Next: Chinese AI influencing.

I read books by Pynchon or Vollmann. But I often have difficulties understanding Lobo's columns on Spiegel Online. This is easier to understand. The long form seems to help him to give his thoughts the room they need.