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The World Is Not Falling Apart
An anonymous reader writes: As much as we like complaining, and as much as the big media stations like to focus on the most horrible news of the day, the world is actually becoming a better place. Stephen Pinker and Andrew Mack have an article in Slate going through many of the statistics for things like homicide rates, child abuse, wars, and even autocracy vs. democracy. They're all trending in the right direction. Maybe not fast, or even fast enough, but it's getting better.
They say, "Too much of our impression of the world comes from a misleading formula of journalistic narration. Reporters give lavish coverage to gun bursts, explosions, and viral videos, oblivious to how representative they are and apparently innocent of the fact that many were contrived as journalist bait. Then come sound bites from "experts" with vested interests in maximizing the impression of mayhem: generals, politicians, security officials, moral activists. The talking heads on cable news filibuster about the event, desperately hoping to avoid dead air. Newspaper columnists instruct their readers on what emotions to feel. There is a better way to understand the world. ... An evidence-based mindset on the state of the world would bring many benefits."
They say, "Too much of our impression of the world comes from a misleading formula of journalistic narration. Reporters give lavish coverage to gun bursts, explosions, and viral videos, oblivious to how representative they are and apparently innocent of the fact that many were contrived as journalist bait. Then come sound bites from "experts" with vested interests in maximizing the impression of mayhem: generals, politicians, security officials, moral activists. The talking heads on cable news filibuster about the event, desperately hoping to avoid dead air. Newspaper columnists instruct their readers on what emotions to feel. There is a better way to understand the world. ... An evidence-based mindset on the state of the world would bring many benefits."
World not falling apart my ass!
Sensationalism sells, and nothing is sensational like the end of the world. Ergo, all news is about the end of the world.
"An evidence-based mindset on the state of the world would bring many benefits."
Perhaps evidence can be gathered to support that hypothesis.
The big thing that is worse, I think, is economic inequality, and I do think that is something that needs to be worked on. However, the world has less racism, less homophobia, better medicine, cheap and fast global communications, inexpensive computing devices that can perform amazing computations, and put the shoe phone from "Get Smart" to shame,. Not to mention that violent crime and rape are at their lowest level since the 70's. The world is an awesome place now.
That's a very interesting perspective.
I'd say that the fundamental, defining difference between conservative thinking vs progressive is that while progressives say "let's change things for the better" conservatives say "don't throw the baby out with the bath water". Conservatives think America is basically pretty good, progressives think it needs it be "fundamentally transformed", as Obama put it. Progressives say "we need to do something" (and proposal X is something, so we need to do it). Conservatives think we shouldn't lose sight of the principles that once made this the greatest country on earth.
If you belief, based on the news you see, that the place is falling apart, then indeed "we need to do something" (liberalism) is a reasonable response. If you believe life is pretty good, and slowly getting better, then you should stick with what's been working (conservatism). So I'd come to the opposite conclusion as you.
If having more women in nursing and more men in programming is a terrible, horrible thing, then we have to do something about it. If black people can never succeed, if it's unimaginable that any black person could ever be a judge, a mayor, or a senator, then we need to do something about that. On the other hand, if black people can be judges, mayors, senators, and even president of the United States, then all the liberal progressivism is unnecessary, and indeed their complaints of being "kept down by the man" are just whining, excuses. If the society isn't basically racist, then Al Sharpton is out of a job. Progressivism REQUIRES big problems. If you don't believe there are big problems everywhere you look, you have no interest in liberals' big "solutions".
Personally, I think some things could be improved. Liberals do a pretty good job at identifying the problems. However, they all-too-often fall into the trap of "we have to do something, and proposal X is something, so we have to do proposal X". Conservatives are hesitant to change things, so they don't screw things up. Perhaps the ideal would be for liberals to set the agenda of which problems we want to solve this year, then for conservatives beancounters to get out their calculators and figure out which proposed solutions have worked well elsewhere or in the past, and which ones are economically feasible. So the liberals force the conservatives to do SOMETHING, and the conservatives ensure that the SOMETHING has a reasonable chance of working, and without making us bankrupt.
real-world policies are designed to entrap those foilks into dependency on the Glorious Liberal State,
Right on brother, the proven ulterior motives of heathcare, unemployment benefits, etc of this administration that hates america are the worst of all time. Things have never been this bad....wait what was this story about again? Something about sensationalism in the media making things look awful when they're really the best in history?
One thing I'm sure you (should) agree with is that today's conspiracy theory's are some of the best ever.
Aaron Sorkin, The Newsroom, and the greatest country in the world
For all the later melodramatic histrionics that did not work, Aaron Srokin hit this subject in the opening of The Newsroom, where just ignoring the evidence for ratings doesn't do anybody any kind of justice.
Transcript and comments from Sorkin:
http://www.gq.com/entertainmen...
"Fine. [to the liberal panelist] Sharon, the NEA is a loser. Yeah, it accounts for a penny out of our paychecks, but he [gesturing to the conservative panelist] gets to hit you with it anytime he wants. It doesn't cost money, it costs votes. It costs airtime and column inches. You know why people don't like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so fuckin' smart, how come they lose so GODDAM ALWAYS!
And [to the conservative panelist] with a straight face, you're going to tell students that America's so star spangled awesome that we're the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom, Japan has freedom, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium has freedom. Two hundred seven sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom.
And you, sorority girl, yeah, just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there are some things you should know, and one of them is that there is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we're the greatest country in the world. We're seventh in literacy, twenty seventh in math, twenty second in science, forty ninth in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, third in median household income, number four in labor force, and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty six countries combined, twenty five of whom are allies. None of this is the fault of a 20 year old college student, but you, nonetheless, are without a doubt, a member of the WORST period GENERATION period EVER period, so when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about?! Yosemite?!!!
We sure used to be. We stood up for what was right! We fought for moral reasons, we passed and struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chest. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and cultivated the world's greatest artists and the world's greatest economy. We reached for the stars, and we acted like men. We aspired to intelligence; we didn't belittle it; it didn't make us feel inferior. We didn't identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn't scare so easy. And we were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed. By great men, men who were revered. The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one, America is not the greatest country in the world anymore."