This annus horribilis, and what comes next

Last week, I took some time off in an attempt to shake off my frazzled post-election state. While I was washing dishes one day, I caught up on a recent episode of the tech podcast Reply All. (I banned myself from consuming breaking news while I was off.) In the episode, Alex Goldman, one of the show’s hosts, explored the “Hedonometer”—a tool, designed by data scientists at the University of Vermont, that, for the last twelve years, has aimed to quantify collective happiness by running tweets...