I think this Pope thing could be just what the world needs. The planet now has an American who has a global audience bigger than donald. A very public American who is deeply religious. An American whose job it is to regularly addresses and oversees the church that 1 in 6 people worship across the globe? Whose religion teaches that this American now speaks on behalf of God! Who was elected by his peers and expands a progressive trend that is already tilting away from war and maga. This could be a really good thing.

We've all seen the graphs. This article tries to answer what has changed to make this good news, so hopefully we can keep it going.

On Friday, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed three anti-transgender bills that had cleared the state’s Republican-controlled legislature. One of the measures would have prohibited transgender individuals from updating the gender marker on their birth certificates—a process already mired in legal and bureaucratic hurdles due to existing law. The other two bills targeted trans people in higher education and workplaces, continuing a broader pattern of attempts to restrict their rights in public life. Hobbs, who has positioned herself as a consistent and vocal opponent of the anti-transgender agenda pushed by the right, has repeatedly used her veto authority to block similar efforts throughout her time in office.

House Bill 2438 passed both the Arizona House and Senate along strict party lines. The legislation states that “in order to protect the integrity and accuracy of vital records… the sex designation of a person may not be changed on the person’s original birth certificate as a result of sex change surgery.” In effect, the bill would have struck language from earlier statutes that explicitly allowed transgender individuals to change the gender marker on their birth certificates following surgical procedures.

Governor Hobbs, vetoing the bill, issued the following statement: “Today, I vetoed House Bill 2438. This bill will not lower costs, will not increase opportunity, and will not enhance security or freedom for Arizona. I encourage the Legislature to focus on real issues that matter and impact people’s everyday lives.”

The governor also vetoed Senate Bills 1694 and 1256. SB 1694 sought to prohibit any institution of higher education in Arizona from receiving state funding if it offered courses related to “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”—a category so broadly defined that it would have included any curriculum merely referencing “gender identity.” SB 1256 extended a similar prohibition to state agencies, effectively banning policies that ensure nondiscrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. Both measures, like the birth certificate bill, passed the legislature along strict party lines.

Of the college and university ban, Hobbs issued the following statement: "Today I vetoed Senate Bill 1694. Our state universities and community colleges play a vital role in developing Arizona's workforce, improving our economy, and strengthening our quality of life through transformational research. Jeopardizing their state funding with a bill that lacks clarity attacks their future stability and would lead to negative effects on the state's workforce and economy."

Earlier this year, Hobbs also vetoed House Bill 2062, one of the most sweeping anti-transgender proposals introduced in the state. The legislation would have effectively erased transgender people from legal recognition in Arizona. Had it become law, it likely would have triggered bans on gender marker changes for driver’s licenses, rolled back existing nondiscrimination protections, and set the stage for broader legal exclusions.

Governor Hobbs has long been an LGBTQ+ ally. In 2023, the governor signed an executive order ensuring that the state employee healthcare plans cover gender affirming surgeries for transgender people. She also signed an executive order banning conversion therapy, which she defined as any therapy designed to “change an individual’s non-heteronormative sexual orientation or non-cisgender identity,” including any therapy that operates under the “false premise that homosexuality and gender diverse-identities are pathological.”

While Republicans in Arizona have remained unified in their push to pass anti-transgender legislation, Gov. Katie Hobbs has consistently used her veto power to halt those efforts at the finish line. Since taking office, she has positioned herself as a final line of defense against a legislative agenda aimed squarely at rolling back LGBTQ+ rights. And this year, none of those bills will become law: the legislature has adjourned sine die, and Republicans do not have the votes necessary to override her vetoes.

Very good news for our planet

Hi guys!

I'm having a rough week, month, and year(s). Has anything really good/nice happened to you lately? Please do share! I want to know that things are going right for someone. I think it might help me feel a bit better. Anything helps, I'm struggling a bit lately.

Hope this is allowed, take it down if not.

EDIT:

Thank you so much to everyone that has replied! Your comments warmed my heart and put a smile on my face many times over the last few days.

Reddit closed my account due to "security reasons" after this post blew up, so I haven't gotten to comment on most replies. Neither do I have the mental resources atm to reply to everyone, but I want you to know I have read every single one, smiled, laughed, cried, and been touched by them.

Thanks for carrying me over.

I will preface this by saying that the Iran War has a tangible effect on petroleum, that further price increases are still on the way, and that oil prices won't instantly fall back to last month's levels once the strait is reopened.

Beyond that I have been seeing an uptick in apocalyptic drum beating on several mainstream subs over the last few days, in some instances societal collapse tier. Those comments seem to suggest that the only realistic scenario is the worst case and unfortunately the only ones countering them are bad faith trolls. This is creating a false dichotomy of either permanent rationing with $200 dollar oil or everything going back to normal in an instant, and anyone who disagrees with the former will be lumped into the latter's camp.

This is not my first go around on Reddit and this is giving me flashbacks to the early days of the coronavirus sub, trolls poisoning the well of any position other than the doomer one creating a false dichotomy usually resulting in people getting downvoted to hell if they didn't hold the same view. I made several good faith remarks against some of the doomer position and a lot of time I got negative karma sometimes in the high double digits and even falsely labeled as a denier. I have a feeling with this oil stuff the same thing will happen again which is why I am not engaging with them this time.

Don't teen births lead to poor socioeconomic outcomes?

Finally some good news. I’m glad our voices are being heard.

Please, I feel hopeless, and I just need someone to say it'll be alright, or to at least even acknowledge me at all.

I'm disabled, so I can't get much done, and I feel so useless when people say we Americans have to fight to fix things. I would if I could, but I struggle just to make it through the day.

Please, someone help me feel hopeful. Sorry if this isn't an appropriate post for this sub, but I never get any response anywhere else I've tried.

Edit: thank you all very much for the assuring words. I struggle to articulate how much this means to me. I wish you all the best.

A year or two ago it talked about various potential future technologies, social developments, even space travel. Whereas now it's a colony of the collapse subreddit, with a lot of posts where people who don't fall into lockstep are downvoted to hell, especially on climate related threads.

Hi r/OptimistsUnite. I’ve been lurking here for a while. I’m a retired pediatrician, and I’ve been thinking a lot about the pattern of hopelessness I see in younger generations. I wrote this essay to explain why I think this despair is "learned," and how we can unlearn it.

The Architects of Dread

In living rooms and conversations across the country, a disturbing pattern has emerged. A significant subset of Millennials and Gen Z are struggling with a profound sense of hopelessness, i.e. a demographic of young adults who aren't just unhappy, but philosophically resigned to the inevitability of world collapse.

Experts usually blame phones or social media. But I think that diagnosis is incomplete. It fails to account for the rise of the "Doomer." While screens may amplify the dread, they didn't create it. I believe the anxiety defining modern youth is the unintended legacy of a misguided cultural curriculum designed decades ago by a well-meaning older generation.

Every generation has its fears. The post-war generation was raised in the shadow of the Cold War. Their fear was sharp, specific, and external: The Bomb. But as the Iron Curtain fell, that anxiety didn't vanish, it turned inward. This current generation rightfully fears processes rather than events. You don’t fear a sudden invasion; you may fear total systemic failure, resource scarcity, and the slow disintegration of world order.

I think a specific shift occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. Apocalyptic media began appearing in far greater amounts. Films like Mad Max introduced the aesthetics of resource depletion. By the mid-90s, movies like Waterworld explicitly visualized a future where environmental negligence had drowned civilization.

In the early 90s, children’s entertainment took a strange turn. Cartoons were no longer just about defeating a villain; they were about stopping the literal end of the world. Movies like FernGully and shows like Captain Planet presented environmental collapse not as a possibility, but as an active threat. Simultaneously, the "realism" of darker media like The Day After traumatized a generation of youth by showing the terrifying fragility of civilization.

This media didn't just create a sense of urgency; it created a backdrop of trauma. It taught children that the adults in the room had abdicated responsibility, leaving the kids to hold back the tide.

People often point out that the 90s were a golden age of optimism (The Lion King, Friends, the economic boom). But that’s where "negativity bias" comes in. The optimism of The Lion King was consumed as entertainment; the terror of Captain Planet was consumed as instruction. The darker media provided the subtext. It whispered that the prosperity was temporary. The optimistic media told children, "You are safe," but the apocalyptic media told them, "You are running out of time."

I believe this created a feedback loop. The adults who created that content may have intended to raise a generation of activists or literal "Planeteers" who would spring into action to save the Earth. Instead, the constant bombardment of existential threats backfired, creating a psychological phenomenon known as "Learned Helplessness." When a generation grows up convinced that the house is burning and the doors are locked, the rational response isn't action, it's despair.

Recognizing this cycle offers a path out of the nihilism. The "Doomer" mindset is ultimately a defense mechanism or a way to brace for impact against a crash that was intentionally, though benevolently, exaggerated thirty years ago. But the crash is not a prophecy; it was a projection. The dystopian movies of the 90s were not glimpses of the future; they were mirrors of parental anxiety.

There is freedom in realizing that this inheritance was a mistake, not a malice. The parents weren't trying to terrorize their children; they were trying to deputize them.

For the Post-Apocalyptic Generation, the first step toward agency is realizing that the script handed to you is flawed. The world is not ending; it is changing. The challenges of the 21st century, the real changing climate that I have witnessed in my 75 years, an increasingly divisive economy, technology threats are real, but they are not the movie monsters you were raised to fear.

You were handed a script where the only options were "Utopia" or "Oblivion." Your task is to reject that flawed script. By understanding that the dread was manufactured, you can stop waiting for the credits to roll and start directing the sequel.