Doomers, Sentinels & Vanguards in the Age of Agency and Uncertainty
Uncertainty. Do you endure it, bend it to your will, or let it consume you whole? Do you shrink in its presence hoping it'll pass you by and knock on someone else's door?
What about fear, anger, resentment? Does it paralyze you? Freeze you in place? Does resignation whisper in your ear that you’re just a spectator? That your life is predetermined and nothing you do matters? Or do you see the future as emergent, yours to shape?
Do you happen to life, or does life happen to you?
Worldviews in the Age of Agency
As a parent of two twenty-somethings, I spend a lot of time around young people — and thank god for that. They keep me on my toes, plugged into the present — a reminder that the world isn’t just coasting along on nostalgia and old ideas. Spending time with them, you expect to be swept up in the electric energy of possibility. And often, you are. Big dreams? Check. First freedoms? Check. New adventures? Check.
But zoom in a little closer and you also notice something else — something unexpected. Young people today don’t just have different views of the future; they inhabit completely different realities. Some see a lost cause, others an unfolding threat, and still others, a frontier to seize and shape. These divergent visions of the future crystallize young people into three distinct worldviews: Doomer, Sentinel, and Vanguard.
This trifurcation is no accident. It’s deliberate. No one's forcing young people into these worldviews, nor are they aimlessly drifting into them. They are actively choosing them, thus setting the stage for agency as the defining factor separating resignation from resolve. How young people respond to uncertainty and view the world around them shapes not only their lives but, just as crucially, their futures.
At this crossroad lies a defining choice: surrender to the dogma of doomerism, be consumed by sentinel fear or rage, or harness the power of vanguard resourcefulness. Which will you choose?
Let's take a closer look at each of these three worldviews.
Doomers
Doomers believe we are living in the epilogue of civilization rather than in an uncertain moment of potentially unlimited possibility. Their reasons vary — climate change, AI, nuclear war, wealth inequality, the death of the American Dream — but their conclusion is always the same: humanity's fate is sealed. Doomers are not uninformed; if anything, they see the world's dangers more clearly than most. The problem is that instead of using this clarity to inspire action, it breeds resignation. In 2021, Lancet Planetary Health published a study that found an unprecedented 56% of the 10,000 young people surveyed across 10 countries believe "humanity is doomed." But is it really?
History has always felt apocalyptic to those living through it. Watch any documentary on the past 75 years — for example, Netflix's 2024 docu-series Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War, or more recently, American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson — and you'll see plenty of terrifying footage depicting decades of turmoil, violence, and global crises. The world has always been a superbly dangerous place, and yet, we're still here.
When I first started hearing existential doomerism from young people, I was shocked and saddened. How is it even possible that more than half of young people today think "humanity is doomed?" How did we get to such a deeply unsettling and treacherously unprecedented place?
It’s not that I don’t understand — I do. We're living today in an era defined by crisis, constant change, and the looming specter of growing threats. But history has proven time and again that in times of upheaval, creativity flourishes, innovation accelerates, and opportunities multiply. Further, it still baffles me that despite everyone knowing that the media and information industries profit from amplifying our fear and anxiety — deliberately stoking despair — so many still fall for it. These industries don’t just report on chaos; they create it by turning fear into cash flow and anxiety into their bottom line.
This is why I write so often about the extraordinary dangers of mobile phone addiction and social media use, and alternatively, about the increased importance and necessity for personal agency (see Vanguards below).
The doomers attitude of placation and surrender is quintessential low agency. It doesn't matter when and where we're born — we are and always will be responsible for making something of the world we're handed.
Sentinels
Sentinels filter everything in their lives through a lens of fear and anger. Though less nihilistic than doomers, they are significantly more paralyzed. The same 2021 study from above found that a shocking 75% of young people see the future as "frightening." This blew my mind. 75%!
Fear and anger are powerful emotions with deep costs. Both naturally narrow our perception, creating a psychological tunnel vision that distorts reality. Brain scientists have shown that when we're afraid or enraged, our brain's amygdala — the center of threat detection — becomes hyperactive, while our prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for rational thinking and long-term planning, is significantly inhibited. This fuels a destructive feedback loop: heightened vigilance and hostility reinforce a sense of danger, which in turn deepens fear and rage, further shrinking our capacity for nuance, curiosity, and creative problem-solving.
I understand fear. And, I also understand its ruinous appetite. Fear was the feature emotion throughout every challenging and unproductive period of my life. Unchecked fear and anger are prisons of our own making. When we stand still fearfully bracing for impact or angrily exploding in the face of it, moving forward becomes nearly impossible. The more we fixate on threats, the fewer possibilities we see; the more we brace for catastrophe, the less we turn those possibilities into new, stronger realities. And yet, the truth remains: the only way to shape our lives and futures is to refuse to be paralyzed by even our most inevitable and very real human emotions.
Vanguards
Then there are the Vanguards who don't just navigate uncertainty, they count on it, harness it, and use it to their advantage. Rather than seeing volatility, disruption, and unpredictability as crises to manage, they see fuel for growth and scaffolding for opportunity. What sets Vanguards apart is their instinct for high agency — the conviction that their choices, not external forces, determine their future. Vanguards don’t wait for doors to open; they kick them down or build their own.
High-agency people share four defining traits: (1) an unshakable locus of control — a deep belief in their ability to shape fate, (2) a dogmatic intentionalism — a relentless drive to act with purpose, (3) abundant resourcefulness — a knack for turning obstacles into opportunities, and (4) a high bias for action — they refuse to stand still.
In an era of intense disruption and extreme competition, high agency isn’t just an advantage — it is survival. A real-life example of high agency: the second-fastest growing job title among Gen Z graduates is founder. Nearly two-thirds of 18-35 year-olds have either started or plan to start a side gig, with almost half saying they are or will soon be their own boss.
While doomers mourn the future and sentinels fear it or rage against it, it's the vanguards who are busy creating and building it.
How We See the Future Is a CHOICE
Progress has always been defined by the choice to construct rather than retreat. We are undoubtedly living through the most volatile, fast-moving, and unpredictable era in modern history. Predictably, young people are reacting to that volatility in profoundly different ways. Some see obliteration. Some freeze up. Others shrink away. And still others step up, ready to carve their future from the wreckage of the old world.
History doesn’t belong to the first two groups; it’s written by the Vanguards — the ones who reject fear, refuse denial, and, win or lose, take the future into their own hands by building it themselves.