# Scattered Thoughts on the Worst of All Days  ## Metadata - Author: [[Ian Dunt]] - Full Title: Scattered Thoughts on the Worst of All Days - Category: #articles - Summary: insert summary - My notes: - Summary: It's happened. We're screwed. Here's what comes next. - URL: https://iandunt.substack.com/p/scattered-thoughts-on-the-worst-of - Source File: web-only ## LLM Chats ## NotebookLM ## LLM Audio ## Highlights > Remember that history has no direction. This is reassuring as well as distressing. I was reading a book on Ancient Rome when Brexit happened. I'd never really read about that period before, or anything before 1066 really. I had no idea how developed Rome was, how sophisticated it was in so many ways. And yet it was followed by a period in which progress basically stopped and then reversed. Brexit seemed a version of that in the present day: dreams of reason, international cooperation, freedom of movement all being suddenly paused and then driven backwards. We have to learn this lesson. History has no direction. The arc of the moral universe does not necessarily bend toward justice. The world does not become more just over time. Progress is not guaranteed. But also: this means that there is no inevitable defeat. There is no carved-in-stone law that says that populists must win. The journalists who act like a Trump victory is inevitable are as wrong as the ones who act like a Marine Le Penn victory is inevitable. We can turn back the tide as easily as they have created it. In the immortal words of Sarah Conner: "There's no fate but what we make for ourselves." ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jc3xms4r71qpkwfp981rk95j))