I think part of it is that if things suck it’s an excuse to not do much, things are going to shit and I’m just trying to keep my head up nothing really matters anyway we’re all doomed… Compared to things are getting better, the future is looking positive, I’m not really doing much though.
It’s why people are so upset at every positive new development in anything and instantly start exaggerating flaws or just refusing to acknowledge it. Post an article backed by real science that mentions we’re doing well transitioning away from Carbon and you’ll get a couple of doubtful comments and a few votes then post a random guy on the street saying ‘i don’t really know anything about it but we’re probably doomed’ and it’ll be front page for days
Another example is the sheer amount of people who claim they can’t think of a single good use for natural language computing, they’ve read a hundred articles/memes about ai bad but not a single one mentioned any of the ways it could save lives, improve life style and productivity, etc…