Vox Sentences - Why cynicism is bad for you

If you’re like me, you are rejoicing that we have finally left behind summer — obviously the worst season — to embrace the cool breeze of change that is autumn. (Well, relatively cool.) School is in session, emails no longer bounce back with vacation auto-replies, and the news, if it ever slowed down, is back at its sprinter pace.

For Vox this past week, that has meant covering every angle of Tuesday’s blockbuster presidential debate, from its three winners (and two losers) to Kamala Harris’s highly effective jiu-jitsu strategy against Donald Trump to yet another insane right-wing online conspiracy theory, explained. For Vox’s political junkies, presidential debates are like the Olympics: they happen every four years, a lot of negotiation goes into the rules, and at the end of the day, everyone is complaining about the officiating.

For Vox staffers like me who don’t cover politics on a day-to-day basis, all I can do is sit back and appreciate the deep expertise and passion — and the weeks of planning — that goes into covering what will likely prove one of the most consequential political events of the year. (I also get to enjoy the play-by-play coverage in our company Slack — and if you’re a Vox member, you got a taste of that too this week.)

But while September in a presidential election year may mean all politics all the time, that’s far from the only thing Vox covers. Here are some of the other Vox articles, podcasts, and videos that I enjoyed this week:

—Bryan Walsh, editorial director, Future Perfect, world, tech, and climate

How Republicans became the party of raunch

Ok, this one is technically about politics, but in the best Vox style, it approaches the subject sideways, through the lens of culture. Senior correspondent Constance Grady sifts through the detritus of our culture to trace how the GOP — that staid political party that used to stand for things like “family values” and “compassionate conservatism” — somehow became the political equivalent of one of those terrible Bravo reality shows. Let me also shout out a truly amazing illustration.

Science has a short-term memory problem

Over in Future Perfect, one of the sections I oversee, we try to cover the problems that really matter for the world. And the pace of scientific advancement is one of the most important — if we can’t keep discovering new solutions to the ills we keep making, this whole humanity thing is in trouble. But as Future Perfect fellow (and actual neuroscience PhD) Celia Ford writes, science can’t get out of its own way. Researchers spend far too much of their time filling out grant applications, and far too little doing the science that can change the world.

Can the world stop a massive oil spill in the middle of a war zone?

Have you heard about the oil tanker in the Red Sea that was hit by Houthi missiles from Yemen and may cause an oil spill four times worse than that of the Exxon Valdez? Probably not — unless you read this breaking news piece from senior correspondent Josh Keating. The story is a reminder that the nearly year-old war in Gaza has had knock-on effects far beyond there, and now may even be the indirect cause of a major environmental disaster. 

📹 Exactly how Trump could ban abortion

I come to Vox’s videos for a lot of reasons: the high production quality, the great graphics, even the background music. But what this team really excels at is using video as a platform to cogently answer the questions on our minds. In this case, supervising story editor and producer Adam Freelander breaks down precisely how former President Trump might be able to enact a national abortion ban — something that, despite his labored answers in the debate, is entirely possible should he become president again.

🎧 Why cynicism is bad for you

I don’t have a favorite Vox podcast the same way I don’t have a favorite child. (Okay, I have one child, but the analogy still holds.) But I particularly love when The Gray Area host Sean Illing takes on a question I have: why exactly are we all such cynics? In the first of a three-part series on “Reasons to Be Cheerful” — which couldn’t be better timed — Sean asks psychologist Jamil Zaki about why cynicism is a self-defeating defense mechanism. 

This email was sent to you. Manage your email preferences or unsubscribe. If you value Vox’s unique explanatory journalism, support our work with a one-time or recurring contribution.

View our Privacy Notice and our Terms of Service.

Vox Media, 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Floor 12, Washington, DC 20036.
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved.