Pessimists Archive
All Stories
Cartoons have been turning kids into gay Satan worshipers for a century
Moral panics about the content of children's cartoons and other forms of entertainment have a long history.
Why “Great Replacement” theorists tried to cancel teddy bears
In the early 1900s, some Americans feared that teddy bears would not instill maternal instincts in girls, thereby causing "race suicide."
In 1903, New York Times predicted that airplanes would take 10 million years to develop
Only nine weeks later, the Wright Brothers achieved manned flight. The pathologically cynical always will find a reason to complain.
Chess was once blamed for causing insanity, suicide, and even murder
Chess was once blamed for triggering mental health problems, including suicide and even murder. Today, the same is said of video games.
Fossil fools: How Germany’s fear of nuclear power put Putin in charge of Europe
Germany finds itself once again allowing a murderous dictator to run rampant in Europe, though this time it is due to incompetence and technophobia rather than malice.
GUI: Some doubted, even Woz
Graphical user interfaces are how most of us interact with computers, from iPhones to laptops. But they were once condemned as making students lazy and destroying the art of writing.
Wordle: The New York Times hated crossword puzzles before it embraced them
Long before the Wordle mania, there was the crossword puzzle craze. And newspapers around the world condemned them as an “invasive weed” that caused mental illnesses and even murder.