The crisis of happiness, robotic companionship, and thirsty A.I.: Weekend reads for March 23, 2024

Some writing worth your attention this weekend

When we talked to Senator Chris Murphy this week, we spent most of our time talking about the ways in which our crisis of democracy is really an emotional crisis — one that the Democratic party hasn’t done anywhere near enough to address.

But this isn’t just an American issue. The 2024 World Happiness Report was released this week to mark the International Day of Happiness on March 20, and its findings are sobering. As young people increasingly report decreased personal happiness, the big democracies have all slipped out of the top 20 in the Report’s annual index of the world’s happiest countries. And around the world, there’s plenty of evidence that loneliness and disconnection are driving people — especially young men — to embrace the authoritarian forces who are tailoring their messages to gain converts in these same nations.

It’s against this backdrop that Donald Trump got back on the campaign trail in earnest this past week, delivering a message drawn straight from the authoritarian playbook and tuned to play on the very anxieties Murphy has pointed to, much as strongmen around the world always have. Those who’d preserve democracy need to counter with a better story.

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In case you missed it

We’ve spent this week digging into the discontents that drive our democratic crisis, with analysis of the threats and some advice from people working to help Americans build stronger connections and communities and save democracy in the process.

• We did a close read of Donald Trump’s Ohio stump speech, highlighting the passages he’s cribbed from the authoritarian playbook.

• We talked to organizer and author Leah Hunt-Hendrix about why solidarity has been left out of the political conversation, and how critical it is to rebuild it. 

• And messaging guru Anat Shenker-Osorio has help for those who still haven’t been able to recognize the authoritarian threat.

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We hope the articles we’ve collected below for our subscribers to read challenge you to see the world in new ways. Thanks, as always, for reading The Ink and continuing to support us (and if you’re not a paid subscriber already, we encourage you to join our community).

The interviews and essays that we share here take research and editing and interviewing and more. We work hard, and we are eager to bring on more writers, more voices. But we need your help to keep this going.

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Repairing a lonely world

What it really takes to rebuild American men

Billhimer hopscotched through more than 10 schools during his journey. Among his memories are a nervous breakdown he suffered on a football field in middle school.

“When you’re 14 or 15 and you’re moving into a house with a new family, it’s hard,” he says. “In school, I’d make friends, and then I’d have to leave. I always had problems with social interactions. It became harder and harder to make new friends at each stop.” [Chronicle of Higher Education]