If you aren’t freaking out about something, then… well, then I’m freaking out that you’re not freaking out. Tell the rest of us: what’s your secret? Because the rest of us are pretty sure the world is going to hell in a flaming handbasket. And not only do we not know why, but we don’t know what to do.

Guy should come to saidit to figure it out... :p

Now, I haven't read any of these books, but I think I'll look into some of them. Anyone who has read any of them, feel free to chime in please!

Democracy for Realists by Christopher Achens and Larry Bartels

Democracy for Realists is an eye-opening and sober look at the data on democracy and what makes it effective/ineffective. Hint: people are stupid. Or as my favorite Winston Churchill quotes goes: “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt and Gregory Lukianoff

Its Explanation for the World Being Fucked: I expected this book to be another, “Let’s all shit on social media together,” party, but it’s not. Social media, of course, does get its own chapter. But most of the book is focused on cultural shifts that have happened over the past couple generations.

Who Owns the Future? by Jaron Lanier

In Who Owns the Future?, Jaron Lanier, one of the internet’s earliest engineers, argues with passion and seemingly endless wit that pretty much all of our problems boil down to one thing: for some reason, at some point, we all decided that information should be free.

The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols

“We are supposed to “agree to disagree,” a phrase now used indiscriminately as little more than a conversational fire extinguisher. And if we insist that not everything is a matter of opinion, that some things are right and others are wrong … well, then we’re just being jerks, apparently.”

Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam

The problem is that modern society requires community engagement to function well. When everyone is just off doing their own thing, a lot of institutions and social necessities begin to fall apart. And it’s in this way that Putnam’s reams of research is startling. It’s not just bowling leagues that are disappearing. Churches, parent-teacher associations, political activists, neighborhood watches, bridge clubs, veterans organizations. You name a community, and it’s likely disappearing.