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How Bad of a World Are We Really Living In Right Now?
New submitter Y.A.A.P. writes: Slate has a surprisingly relevant article of the state of the world today. A reasonable number of graphs and statistical comparisons show that our world is more peaceful than it has been for a long time. The article tells us that, despite what most news outlets (and political candidates) tell us, The World Is Not Falling Apart. Well, not from violence, at least.
The fact that the world has been more peaceful than it's been in a long time just means the "correction" is going to be that much worse when it comes. "It is the curse of mankind that they forget" and all that.
The news started with
"these are the 5 worst things that happened in our city"
then it became
"these are the 5 worst things that happened in our state"
then
"these are the 5 worst things that happened in our country"
and now it's
"these are the 5 worst things that happened on the planet"
And every day, somewhere, something really bad happened.
And people have trouble determining how likely that event is going to happen to them anytime soon [normally, a lottery ticket is more likely to hit].
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
"How Bad of a World" really? You'll be reckoning, often times, as you shoot squirrels, playing a banjo as Boss Hog squeals.
What does "bad" mean?
I figure "now" ostensibly means the 21st century.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
The truth is we are living during the safest, most prosperous times in human history.
The media gives us a (false) perception that the world is collapsing under war, civil unrest and terrorism. The reality is that now, more than ever before, people are more likely to die form old age than from a violent death.
Crime is down worldwide. So is hunger, war, rape and genocide.
The world is far from perfect and the Syrian crisis is very real and should not be minimized. But as tragic as things are in the Middle East, what is happening there is the exception, not the rule.
Objectively (or at least as objectively as I can be), no, it's not as bad as the media can make it out to be -- because warm-and-fuzzy news doesn't make for great ratings, death, destruction, violence, disaster, and all things extreme make for great ratings. Speaking of extremes, that's what we're seeing right now: extremes in both directions. One might also opine that some of the extremes on the violent/horrifying/terror end of the scale are being artificially inflated by the perpetrators of said actions (and you know who I'm talking about, so no need to name names that are named way too much these days) by way of propaganda -- not that we can or should completely ignore them, though; we can't afford that luxury. But perception counts, and the perception that I get (and I think I'm not alone in this) is that it's like an inverted Bell curve right now: there are really good things happening at the same time that there are some really extremely horrifying things happening. Historically speaking,and to provide some perspective, it's not the first or last time in Human history that things will be this way, either. Tends to be cyclic.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Global warming.
Gun Violence.
Rape Culture.
Racial genocide.
War.
Terrorists!
We're all gonna die! Even without any of the above, you're gonna die.
I just finished watching the movie Tomorrowland yesterday. It was a bit of a let-down ... good acting, but the story made the movie weaker than it should have been.
But, hidden within it was this very insightful gem:
"In every moment, there is the possibility of a better future. But you people won't believe it. And because you won't believe it, you won't do what is necessary to make it a reality. So you dwell on this all-terrible future and resign yourselves to it for one reason: Because that future doesn't ask anything of you today." -- David Nix / Hugh Laurie
We like being pessimists when it comes to our future. When we imagine a brighter future, then we are responsible for doing what is necessary to create it. But when we imagine a bleaker future, there's nothing we have to do to make it a reality. We can just live as hedonists until our passing.
As a communist luddite, I find your comment offensive. May the full might of social justice warriors(SJW) reign down upon you.
Slashdot is supposed to be a safe place. Savage!
Well, right now "this world is more peaceful" it depends where you live: Go to south america like Venezuela, Brasil, Colombia, Salvador, Mexico see the world there or go to Middle East, specially Siria and around there and see there. Go to africa and visit some countries there and see too. It isn't a "World Peaceful" there too.
So Syrian refugees should stop complaining because "ignition of underwear, and other mundane accidents, kill more Americans than terrorist attacks"? So apparently by "we" they mean Americans only... but how can they write "the world" and mean the USA?
Your perception of how good or bad the world is probably depends most on what's going on inside your home and inside your head.
Despite bad things that happen (which is nothing new, of course) the world is definitely on the good side of the bell curve. Positively above average. Maybe it's the proximity to Thanksgiving, with my family around me and everybody healthy and the Bears beating the Packers, but I feel pretty good about the world now. I can feel pain from all the bad things in the world, have those things diminish me as they do everyone, and still feel like the world is a pretty good place.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Clearly we are getting better at stuff, but for certain things, raw numbers are more important than percentages.
Suppose there was a just a single serial killer out there that killed one person every year for the past 25 years. Population doubles every 23 years or so. So it looks like he has cut his death rate in half, when it has actually stayed the same.
Ignore the politicians that talk about how bad things are. That is a straight out lie. But are things really getting better or are we simply adding more people that don't have the same problems that the oldsters had? That's a different story.
Personally, I think we are actually doing better. But it's not as cut and dried as the story seems to think it is.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
....floor. On the way down, he could be heard to say "so far, so good!"
Forget the comments, should be able to mod the articles.
Keyword is non violent. No jobs and refugee crisis probably won't lead up to good times and peace.
Radicals can't convince the sleepy masses to side with them if everything sounds great; Especially if things are improving under capitalism.
On the other side, reactionaries are always pushing that things were better in the past, even if that past was thousands of years ago.
Lack of War does not necessarily mean Peace.
If you consider that our interpersonal relationships have been on a serious decline since the industrial revolution, the divorce rate is the highest it has ever been, children resort to violence first and diplomacy only when trying to talk themselves out of punishment, I would say we are not, in fact, in a very peaceful time at all.
Sure, we are not fighting overt wars, but the rise of interpersonal micro and macroaggression more than makes up for it IMHO.
"How bad of a world"? Really? Apparently education levels are pretty bad if that grammatical atrocity can be accepted as a headline.
Biggest load of garbage mind-spam ever.
There are proxy wars happening everywhere.
Just because war isn't officially declared, it doesn't mean it isn't happening.
There is cultural war, forced conversions, ethnic cleansing, even multiple genocides and genocide attempts happening at this very moment.
In the middle of world war 3, these retards will say the world is still peaceful.
The amount of communication between human organizations of all levels has increased significantly. As long as we are talking, we are not fighting.
Or are there other interpretations that explain why it *seems* bad?
Enduring and worsening (I don't know about the worsening part) income inequality, with automation and globalization likely to make income inequality even worse, and automation predicated by many to lead to widespread under/unemployment?
The environment getting much worse -- mass deforestation, global warming, declining fresh water supplies, much of it abetted by ever-spiraling population growth?
While it's true we don't actually worry about a US/Soviet nuclear exchange every day, the number of states with nuclear weapons has increased and the newer states that have them or are working on having them are less stable or have chaotic or messianic motivations.
The nature of some of our conflicts seems more intractable due to the lack of state actors involved and in some cases leaving states that are marginally viable or stateless altogether (Libya, parts of subsaharan Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria).
It seems too simple to just dismiss a sense of pessamism as human nature and media styles.
Many charts cover only 30 years which is not really a long period in human history. Therefore, the deductions made on that charts are weak or only valid for that short time period. Beside this overall impression, I want to point out in detail the argument about democracy. There are more democracies now than in 1945 or even in 1988. However, this only looks on the name these states give themselves on paper. Many democracies suffer today from lobbying, like the US, the UK, and Germany, which has a negative impact on participation and limits real democratic processes. Furthermore, most Western democracies have an imbalance in media communication, with the all time low of FoxNews.
And it is even worse when you look at the democracies in east Europe. Especially at Hungary, where the prime minister Orban changed the constitution to limit the power of the supreme court. He also favours a illiberal democracy, which is a democracy with no minority rights. That results at the end in no democracy at all. He is also racist beyond comprehension. And Poland just elected a very very very right wing party and president. The latter already stated that judges which are critical of his doings will face disciplinary actions. So there goes the separation of powers.
Or you could look at Greece. It does not matter which government they elect, the EU commission, the ECB, and the IMF define what happens in Greece. And it looks similar for Portugal, Spain, and Italy.
Therefore, democracy is presently in the West not in a good shape. And I do not know if they counted Russia as democratic country. And the situation in India is also not that positive. So I conclude that their assessment on democracy is not correct at all.
Didya check the date on that article? Dec. 22, 2014.
Watch this: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_and_ola_rosling_how_not_to_be_ignorant_about_the_world?language=en
I will add:
The tropics were the only region to demonstrate forest loss in the last decade. North America _increased_ forestation by 811 square kilometers over the last decade and by 710,000 square kilometers since 1900. https://www.moore.org/newsroom/press-releases/2013/11/14/global-deforestation-trends-mapped-at-fine-scale-for-the-first-time
Income inequality in the USA has increased since 1970 but is far below historically normal levels. The poorest in America are demonstrably better off today than their grandparents ever were. This is true based on housing, sanitation, health care, education, life expectancy, nutrition, entertainment, transportation, clothing, and safety from crime, natural disaster, or accident. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A
But things were even better 20 years ago. Once the pendulum swings back to the Right and we kick all the commies out of office, life will be even better.
it seems a lot worse. Not just because of our news cycle either. Our economy crashed in 2008. It recovered, but virtually all of those gains were gobbled up by the investor class. Education has skyrocketed in cost (again, our investment class, who noticed that there was tons of money to be made on loans and lobbied hard to cut federal subsidies) and food prices are way, way up (there's that investment class again, with deregulation in our commodities market allowing them to skim 10-20% off our food supply).
Contrast that with the 70s, 80s and 90s where apart from an oil scare and a dip when manufacturing moved overseas things were mostly on the up and up.
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All societies are by definition living in the "best of all times".
It is just that the definitions change to fit the times.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The world is a safer place for most people compared to decades ago. I hope that it lasts. History tells us that it never does. We may be experiencing a "peace bubble" that is about to burst as the IS moves out to raise hell among others that don't accept their views as the only valid world view. Too much has happened in the world recently to not be concerned that at any time a single event could trigger a widening war that comes closer and into to the Western world. Pray for peace people, but watch your back at the same time.
any highly irrational person who wants to shout something out to the world. To be heard, you now have to shout louder and 10x more irrationally than everyone else. Rational discourse died with the words "Hello, world".
So, a liberal biased media source analyzed the effects of the recent dominance of liberal ideology on the world and found it to be hunky dory. In turn, a liberal biased forum site agrees. It is important to ignore the numerous stories posted on this site to the contrary.
In other new, a European media source decided that football/soccer was the best sport....
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
Famed statistician, Hans Rosling, has been telling the world or anyone who'll listen for years that the world is getting safer, less violent, and more prosperous. He also says that in populations where they're getting better education, access to healthcare, and especially women's reproductive healthcare, birth-rates are going down (higher infant-mortality and personal insecurity correlate with higher fertility rates). The only bad news here is for the tiny minority of people in organisations and businesses that thrive on fear, uncertainty, conflict, and violence, e.g. the military, police, security services, and the media. They're facing existential threats because of all this peace and happiness breaking out all over the place. How do you suppose they're countering these existential threats?
How the the comments go this far without the cow troll? Of any topic that could use a couple of good Moos, this one sure could. Come on man, where the hell are you? Moo!
See subject: Says it all - no, I don't think it's all bad, lots of good is still going on but the bad stuff is definitely more than I recall a decade or so ago...
APK
P.S.=> Then again, maybe it all just gets reported more now via the internet... apk
life leading up to the great depression was pretty much ass for everyone but a lucky few. When things went pear-shaped in the 2000s we had a lot more people who had something to lose.
If you're on Min-Wage or low wage (which, judging by American Median Income at least half are) prices are nuts. When Min wage was $4/hr I could buy a dozen eggs for $0.80 cents, less if they were on sale. These days the same eggs are $3.20 off sale and $2.60 on. Chicken is the same way. Beef was a bit cheap for a while, but only because they were slaughtering dairy cows to bring milk prices back up after a new technique for selecting sex in mammals led to an over abundance of milk.
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Don't let stories like this make you complacent. We could have things much better. What, are you going to sit there watching TV and saying "we have running water, soap, and food, plus netflix! What more could we want?" Meanwhile tons of people are unemployed, the TSA exists, and assholes want to take away your pension or only let you have it at 75 or 80 now. By all means, keep munching on cheetos.
I like Steven Pinker, and I liked this article when I read it. But it's from December 2014! Not exactly newsfeed worthy anymore, Slashdot.
>In the United States, as late as the 1880s most States set the minimum age at 10-12, (in Delaware it was 7 in 1895).[8] Inspired by the "Maiden Tribute" female reformers in the US initiated their own campaign[9] which petitioned legislators to raise the legal minimum age to at least 16, with the ultimate goal to raise the age to 18. The campaign was successful, with almost all states raising the minimum age to 16-18 years by 1920.
Even though Deuteronomy allows it (Deuteronomy 22 28-29, hebrew)
Capacha: Disallow
The past 10 years have seen the violent death of over 100,000 Venezuelans, on par with Iraq and Syria, at the hands of "revolutionary defense squads" armed by Chávez and Maduro. It's sad to see this report fall for the regime's ploy of denominating these deaths as "caused by random crime" instead of the politically-motivated, population-control mechanism it is. Hopefully it will take less than a few decades to set straight the record.
A particularly egregious example is the hysterical reporting of obscure disease outbreaks like Ebola. Compare with the scourges of influenza (more than 20 million deaths in 1916-1918!), typhus, malaria, etc these truly rare diseases really do not deserve attention.
All comments are going to be from the minority number of people in the world that have internet access.
The past is often misunderstood.
A major reason for this is selection bias. The perspectives that generally survive from the past, are the perspectives of the elites. Impoverished people could not afford to create stories, literature, artifacts which represented their points of view.
So, it is not surprising if one's intuitions about the past, when past on the surviving material, give a very biased view: It can create the impression that people lived relatively well, when really it was just the elites' lives that you're imagining.
Too many people are confusing 'Education' with 'Intelligence'
***Education can never replace Intelligence***
There are so many cases where highly educated people - even Engineers / Surgeons - have joined cults
Many of the 'volunteers' for the Islamic State are highly educated people - no, they are not the ones you see in those gruesome videos, but they joined Islamic State and work as administrators / accountants / planners and keep the bureaucracy running
Another example: The cult of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh back in the 1970's, where they set up a commune in Oregon, USA, attracted a lot of very highly educated folks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
People who are highly educated are not necessarily smart - they may be bookworms and they may even graduate with honor degrees with flying colors, but that does not, in any way, heighten the level of their intelligence at all
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Because things were worse 50 years ago than they are today, it means that they will be just incredibly good in 50 years? Yeah, like we had rain yesterday and today is just a bit cloudy so tomorrow will surely be sunny.
Everybody agrees present days are probably the best humanity ever had. How how close to the apex is it? How will it be in 50 years from now? What's you argument to say it will be better?
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The Slate article is interesting, but it is also almost a year old. Do the editors check anything before accepting submissions?
It's pretty fucking bad!
Peaceful but it's the peace of the subjugated. that's the price you pay in a totalitarian state like Obamaland.
...before it was sacked. Some folks see weakness and irresolution growing in the western world. They see barbarians like ISIS rising up to fill the vacuum left by the west's loss of confidence- and they see dark ages coming again. If nothing is done, the new dark age may be 50 years out, or they may be 20 years out. (And certainly dark times have arrived for real in parts of the middle east.)
Civilizations rise because they have insights, standards and practices that are superior to those around them. Those civilizations fall when they take their position for granted, and think those standards and practices are 'mean' or 'outmoded.'
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
People seem to enjoy this myth that FDR saved us from the Great Depression. Not even close. It was FDR's death that saved us from it, because his authoritarianism was fairly similar to that of his wartime rivals, and he had his own shades of Obamacare planned for after the troops came home. What he left us was an all-powerful Presidency that is so overloaded with improperly-delegated powers of legislation that a fellow mental midget like Obama could wreck any aspect of American society at will. There is no hope until the Constitution is restored, and all of this socialism nonsense is just feudalism and the Divine Right of Kings under new marketing. Technology will make us equal to our governments as surely as guns and household automation made us equal to each other, and then nobody will oppress another ever again, not even under the advice of a student loan-funded leftist quack professor who predicts "climate change" but can't even fucking tell us tomorrow's rain forecast.
...before it was sacked. Some folks see weakness and irresolution growing in the western world. They see barbarians like ISIS rising up to fill the vacuum left by the west's loss of confidence- and they see dark ages coming again. If nothing is done, the new dark age may be 50 years out, or they may be 20 years out. (And certainly dark times have arrived for real in parts of the middle east.)
Civilizations rise because they have insights, standards and practices that are superior to those around them. Those civilizations fall when they take their position for granted, and think those standards and practices are 'mean' or 'outmoded.'
I bet ...
And you would be wrong.
Any student of Roman history can tell you that it did not seem "hunky-dory" in Rome before it was sacked, assuming you're talking about the three sackings in the 400's. Rome wasn't even the capital anymore then, (Ravenna was) and the Eastern Roman empire lasted for centuries more.
For every battle Romans fought with Goths, Vandals, etc, there were 10 battles of Roman army vs Roman Army fighting succession wars. (not secession)
Is the world worse then WWII or WWI or how about the potato famine, the black plague, the French revolution era, the Roman Empire, Genghis Khan. The only difference is that we know instantly what is going on in the world at any given time. The world as it was known in each era has had its problems and they came out of it...eventually.
These clowns manage to opine about the state of the world without mentioning "environment", " climate ", or " species ". It's nice that war and violence are down, but ignoring the fact that overpopulation, habitat destruction, and climate change have brought our home planet to the sixth great extinction event is unforgivable. The world IS falling apart, you deliberately clueless assholes.
=S
Oh, good, so maybe we have a few extra years before before the west falls to barbarians.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
The author makes some statements about declining violence and says: The only sound way to appraise the state of the world is to count. How many violent acts has the world seen compared with the number of opportunities? And is that number going up or down? As Bill Clinton likes to say, “Follow the trend lines, not the headlines.” We will see that the trend lines are more encouraging than a news junkie would guess.
But then - no numbers.
It has some details about declining rates of violence in the US, UK and Mexico. But are those numbers indicative of a worldwide trend? Does every country resemble either the US, or the UK, or Mexico?
The article also says that Worldwide, about five to 10 times as many people die in police-blotter homicides as die in wars. And in most of the world, the rate of homicide has been sinking.
The first is a statistic, not a correlation - there is no reason to think that escalating domestic violence will lead to war, or vice versa. The second statement And in most of the world, the rate of homicide has been sinking. is not evidenced by any numbers. It could be true.