Rooting for the apocalypse - and other comedic things...

Megan McArdle:

"Of course it is true that if you have spent any significant time studying economic crises, including our own past ones, you cannot help but have a little intellectual thrill of recognition at understanding emotionally a phenomenon that you previously only grasped intellectually--'So this is what it felt like!' But for an adult, it's the same kind of thrill that you get when you finally age enough to grasp the sadness behind all those essays about lost youth. You don't root for cancer to spread just because it gives you a deeper perspective on Keats."