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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 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!
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!
No, it just means that as education prevails, people are less prone to fall for insane cults. The people who disagree tend to be fundamentalists, communists, and Luddites.
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!
You forgot the fundamental
I'm a communist luddite, you insensitive clod!
Slashdot is supposed to be a place of tradition, which reminds me...
Preemptive Moo!
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Of course, this is all newspeak. It's not fundamentalism when we're talking about western value...
Peaceful means that Slate's editors can get their moka latte every morning at Starbucks without problem. All the supply chain is secured.
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
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.
This is true when compared to the first world, but untrue compared to the way things were even a couple hundred years ago. Dozens of people killed in rioting is not the same thing as one tribe systematically conquering another tribe, killing all the men, adult women, and boys, and taking the girls as sex slaves -- the sort of practice you can read all about (and apparently God approves of, according to ancient Israelite priests) in the Bible (Torah).
Rain. May the full might of the grammar nazis rain down upon you....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Then replace "education" with "empirical education" in my previous post.
whats funny is this is coming from slate, who cant seem to go more than 20 minutes without posting something saying the sky is falling
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I'm sure you mean "education" as the indoctrination of peoples with beliefs that you yourself support of course.
Just basic literacy will help a lot. Most conflicts in the world involve illiterate soldiers on one or both sides. Modern war is very expensive, and very destructive. War almost never makes economic sense. Most countries have market economies, so if your neighbor has resources that you want, you don't need to take it by force, you can just buy it.
No, I think the SJWs would prefer to reign over everyone...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
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.
It rarely makes overall economic sense. But if you're Halliburton or Blackwater ...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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.
There's always some bullshit reason out there why things are getting worse. But since we're talking about the children, I've heard that they've been getting worse since ancient times. Pretty soon, they'll be backtalking and uppity. That's certainly just as bad as killing 70 million people in a world war.
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.
The SJWs are the reason that things are getting better, actually. Did you think the rise of concern over social justice and the decrease of violence in the world at large were just coincidental?
But please, keep being angry as you watch the world slip away from your kind.
Didya check the date on that article? Dec. 22, 2014.
What you seem to be missing is that War is a macro-aggressive, acute failure of society. Microaggression is a stealthy, sinister, chronic failure of society that is far more widespread and far more damaging to the long-term health of humanity than is an acute War that has a beginning and an end.
7 Billion people being nasty to each other is far worse than killing 70 million people in a War.
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.
What you seem to be missing is that War is a macro-aggressive, acute failure of society. Microaggression is a stealthy, sinister, chronic failure of society that is far more widespread and far more damaging to the long-term health of humanity than is an acute War that has a beginning and an end.
What you seem to be missing is that macroaggression is a real thing which kills people. Microaggression is in your head.
no... just no... .superman no here
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
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".
When did people start sticking an "of" into this construction? It should be "How bad a world...?"
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
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.
If you'd actually read the fine article, you might have noticed that the author provides a breakdown of various types of conflicts, mass killings, genocides, and so on.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Do you mean those SJWs that want to repeal the First Amendment?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
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?
No, it just means that as education prevails, people are less prone to fall for insane cults.
The anti-vaccination craze? Fad ketosis dieting? Near-worship of media figures like the Kardashians? Climate change skepticism? I'd go on but that's already more than enough to refute your statement.
The people who disagree tend to be fundamentalists, communists, and Luddites.
Cheap name calling. If this is the best your education can muster, it has obviously failed you.
(Although, it did get you modded highly. Another refutation of your original thesis.)
The anti-vaccination craze?
This is mainly a cultish behavior.
Fad ketosis dieting?
Epilepsy treatment is considered a fad?
Near-worship of media figures like the Kardashians?
Hipsters also behave somewhat cultish. See how the Apple logo triggers brain reactions similar to somebody hearing a religious sermon, for example.
Climate change skepticism?
There can never be too much skepticism. Whether you are for or against, science just doesn't work without skepticism, especially during peer review.
I'd go on but that's already more than enough to refute your statement.
No you didn't. You basically sounded like that news broadcast in V for Vendetta where that guy says "Immigrants, Muslims, homosexuals, terrorists. Disease-ridden degenerates." as if that somehow makes you know why the world sucks unless it has your political enlightenment. It doesn't, and we don't. It would have made even more sense if you would have just argued that most of the world still believes in some kind of god that decides whether you'll stub your toe tomorrow morning or not.
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.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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.
The poorest in America are demonstrably better off today than their grandparents ever were.
That depends how you define "the poorest in America". If you mean, "the poorest 50%", then sure, I'd totally believe they're better off than their grandparents. But if you truly mean, "the very poorest people in America," that's doubtful. The rate of homelessness is much higher today than 50 years ago, largely due to the closing of mental hospitals in the 60s and 70s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The huge growth in income inequality over that time hasn't helped either.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
I'm a communist luddite, you insensitive clod!
I'm an insensitive clod, you communist luddite!
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.
As a communist luddite, I find your comment offensive. May the full might of social justice warriors(SJW) reign down upon you.
As a liberty loving conservative I believe I should have the freedom to silence you communist luddites because highly regarded principles should only work in our favor.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Just basic literacy will help a lot. Most conflicts in the world involve illiterate soldiers on one or both sides. Modern war is very expensive, and very destructive. War almost never makes economic sense. Most countries have market economies, so if your neighbor has resources that you want, you don't need to take it by force, you can just buy it.
Bad for you, worse for the other guy. Don't underestimate how much the stronger player can abuse their position until they go one step too far.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The SJWs are the reason that things are getting better, actually. Did you think the rise of concern over social justice and the decrease of violence in the world at large were just coincidental?
I don't really think so. Of course, this depends on how you define an SJW, but it seems to me that the most ardent social justice supporters tend to themselves become bullies, and when they do they're worse bullies than the classic schoolyard bully. Take for example mass shaming over a single tweet, or getting people fired just because they made a mildly sexist joke. And unlike a typical bully, there's nothing you can do about it. The SJW doesn't care though, just so long as they feel better about themselves for having done it.
There is already somewhat of a precedent that public shaming runs afoul of the 8th amendment. In fact, here's a quote from Benjamin Rush, who was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence:
“Ignominy is universally acknowledged to be a worse punishment than death ... It would seem strange that ignominy should ever have been adopted as a milder punishment than death, did we not know that the human mind seldom arrives at truth upon any subject till it has first reached the extremity of error.”
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 !
You do realise that, 20 years ago, Bill Clinton was in the White House, right?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
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?
Video of some good progressive thrash music
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.
Kind of a mixed bag, isn't it? Historically worse income inequality suggests that whatever present gains we have made are likely to slide back to more historical norms. Given the likely trends in automation globally and trends toward outsourcing to low income nations (which may be an aggregate benefit for global growth, but in the short term tends to undermine gains in developed economies), income inequality is likely to get worse.
And there is some scholarship (http://persquaremile.com/2011/12/16/income-inequality-in-the-roman-empire/) that suggests inequality is as bad as it's ever been -- it's estimated that even ancient Rome had a better GINI coefficient than modern day America.
I've heard economists make similar arguments about *qualitative* improvements that measurements of relative inequality don't represent. Much of material life even for poor people is better than it was 100 years ago -- housing, clothing, food, transportation, are all better made and more durable than they were. Foods that were expensive luxury items even when I was little in the 1970s are commonplace and inexpensive, and compared to 100 years ago it's like a dream -- fresh fruits and vegetables available year round, meat safe, cheap and abundant, including items exotic and unobtainable in many places, like fresh seafood.
No, it just means that as education prevails, people are less prone to fall for insane cults.
The anti-vaccination craze? Fad ketosis dieting? Near-worship of media figures like the Kardashians? Climate change skepticism? I'd go on but that's already more than enough to refute your statement.
You would only be correct, if cults had a smaller membership in the past. I'll note that we've had over the past thirty years a sharp drop in both the membership and severity of communism.That directly improves the lives of about a billion and a half people living today.
The Slate article is interesting, but it is also almost a year old. Do the editors check anything before accepting submissions?
I don't think that the divorce rate is a good indicator for worsening relationships. I think it is more of a consequence of improvement in the standards of living and women empowerment.
Before that, couples stayed together because they had to. To oversimplify, women needed men to make a living and men needed women to take care of the housework and kids. Now, both men an women can make a living by themselves, housework is less time consuming and there are more options for single parents to take care of kids. So when things go wrong, couples simply break up instead of continuing a bad relationship.
Kid rebellion has always been, that's a normal part of getting to adulthood. But at least now, we avoid hitting them in response.
Things are changing, that's for sure but I think that on average interpersonal relationships have improved too.
I wish I had mod points so I could give you a '+1 KO' mod!
Are you referring to the *innovation* known as the US Constitution?
There are certainly any number of things wrong with the US--but having a founding document that clearly spells out rights and freedoms for its citizenry is not among them.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
As evidence piles up there comes a point when you're simply using "scepticism" as an excuse to refuse to believe a conclusion you don't like. For climate change, that point went a long time ago. What ever reasons drive climate change "sceptics", they have nothing to do with science.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
But comrade, through technology we can achieve a true hive-mind.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
The current "refugee crisis" isn't didlley-squat compared to what happened in Europe and the USSR in the 1940s, when tens of millions were relocated to match the new international boundaries. (Or in China and Korea after the Japanese colonies there were disestablished.)
For starters, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
What you seem to be missing is that War is a macro-aggressive, acute failure of society. Microaggression is a stealthy, sinister, chronic failure of society that is far more widespread and far more damaging to the long-term health of humanity than is an acute War that has a beginning and an end.
Others have addressed the first major flaw in this argument, which is that killing people is worse than being mean to them.
But there's another flaw, which is your apparent belief that microaggression is something new. It is definitely not. People have always been nasty to each other, and we're significantly less nasty to each other today than ever before. The notion of microaggression is perhaps the best proof: previous generations didn't even bother thinking about microaggression, because it was just normal. Today, we recognize this subtle form of personal attack and work to expose it and thereby reduce it.
You should read the first few chapters of Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of Our Nature", in which he documents historical evidence of the ways in which people were nasty to each other. He focuses mostly on physical nastiness, violence, but lots of other sorts of nastiness are covered in passing, or obviously implied. Society is much, much better than it used to be. Empathy for strangers is normal today. It wasn't always.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
...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.
Yeah, the AC moron you replied to just wants to invert reality to suit it's political goals. It's done all the time, and "news" continually falls for it because it's dramatic.
The form of his statement makes it clear that he's saying it doesn't make sense for the sides that are fighting. You point vaguely at stuff that contains various truths, but they're not relevant to his point, don't change it any way, and you didn't even attempt to actually add anything.
Are you suggesting that external profiteering means that educated soldiers would NOT want to end a conflict once they understand that it harms their own side, and has no chance to make life better for their families? Or are you just repeating an off-topic cliche in any random position?
I may not believe in all the Christianity/God stuff but "believing themselves to be wise they became fools" comes to mind when you Climate zealots hop on your hobby horses.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
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.
It's also a matter of intent. Intentionally, being a dick is macroaggression. Accidentally being a dick is a microaggression. But this leads to an important secondary matter, that of interpretation. After all, if I'm trying to be a dick, then by my own viewpoint I am macroaggressing. If I'm not trying, then how does anyone know I'm microaggressing? The answer is that someone observes my behavior and decides it is a microaggression.
That leads to the second observation, that microagression is a matter of perception and subjectivity, often by people with chips on their thin-skinned shoulders. It can be an obvious insult, like assuming someone is a drooling idiot because they're a certain ethnicity. But it can also be something pretentious like someone deciding that the word, "niggardly" is an insult against African Americans even though the word doesn't have racist origins (unlike say, "indian summer"). The attitude is particularly pernicious when the person who perceives the insult is acting as an unauthorized proxy acting on the behalf of an apathetic or completely absent group.
All I can say is that I didn't care before microaggression became a thing and the situation hasn't changed now that I've been made aware of this dire threat to humanity. I think it has to do with the fundamental observation that people can choose not to be insulted by non-insults. Thus, anyone who has a serious problem with microaggressions needs to look in a mirror to see who is responsible for fixing that.
"Less" means "not as many as before"; it doesn't mean "none". Also, as long as reality continues to defy the Warmist Cult doomerism, skepticism is the most rational choice. There are three factors lining up right now that could make the climate cool down markedly in the next 5-10 years. If that happens, it will be very entertaining to watch the Warmists explain how the $trillions they bilked from the not-skeptical-enough public was well spent.
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.
So what conclusion am I supposed to draw from your best counter-argument being an unrelated religious quote you don't even believe?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Well, that's the reduction of the surge of violence associated with the introduction of leaded gasoline, but that only lasted a few decades. Meanwhile the falling of violence is a trend that extends far further back in history than that. For example, in the 20th century your chances of dying by violence was less than at any previous time in human history (or prehistory, as determined by weapon-inflicted skeletal damage). And that includes the tens of millions of people that died in WWI and WWII.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
The Magna Carta was an agreement between a king and a group of nobles, guaranteeing the rights of the latter. Not the same thing at all. But thanks for playing.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
You're trying to defend a pejorative by using an absurd caricature as a straw man stand-in for people who actually support justice. It is pretty weak sauce. I mean, think how awesome and powerful Justice must be that you have to pretend it doesn't exist in order to argue against people who support it?
Justice and Social Justice aren't the same thing. One is intended to right a wrong, the other is intended to make everybody the same. While that might sound good, it often results in knocking people down just for the crime of being successful. When taken to an extreme, (such as an SJW) it results in the examples I listed, and instead of bringing down successful people, they come down harshly upon anybody who happens to make an ill conceived but otherwise benign action.
You even throw in a True Scotsman for good measure
Not at all. I very clearly outlined what it is, in my own opinion. To pull a "No True Scottsman" fallacy you have to create a definition that can never truly be met.
Do you even comprehend that you're fighting for perceived social justice in your argument? What is an "SJW?" People who do as you do here, and make a case for social justice. You can't be against bullies, and admit you are, and not be a social justice warrior.
No, that falls under justice; that is, righting a wrong.
That's fuckin rich right there. Oh, wait, you actually believe that? Let me laugh even harder at your stupidity.
That's fuckin rich right there. Oh, wait, you actually believe that? Let me laugh even harder at your stupidity.
I'd be curious what the counter-argument actually is... if I thought there was one.
We have direct democracy where I'm from, and we have however much Justice we want. Sometimes more, sometimes less. And the people fighting for Justice are invariably the "good guys." If you disagreed about the meaning of Justice, you'd still have to agree that Justice is good. Is there a counter-argument? Is it any good?
I'll put it this way, maybe you will understand what I am getting at. We don't call them Social Justice Warriors because they actually fight for justice. We call them that to point out the irony that they are hiding behind the cloak of justice in order to directly benefit themselves at the expense of others. Those "micro aggressions" we keep hearing about are complete bullshit. They are nothing more than a tool for an attention seeking whore to satisfy their enormous urge to be both pitied and feel superior to others at the same time, and in many cases the main purpose is to harm others who disagree with their point of view.
We are not talking about people who are actually discriminated against, we are talking about people who are professional victims who not only do not care about the people who's lives they destroy, but they take a sick and twisted delight in ruining those peoples' lives.
Right, you describe it as a false pejorative that you use pervasively. I say that proves you don't care about Justice. And I advise you that Justice is a positive thing, not a negative thing. The meaning of the word has only changed for you. For others, Justice means what it means; "justice" doesn't mean "false justice."
Can you truly not see how that harms people who are "actually discriminated against," or how it demeans people who are fighting for Justice for people who are "actually discriminated against?"
I didn't expect your mind to be open enough to catch a glimpse of reality, but I am always hopeful that some day you will open your eyes and quit supporting those who are working tirelessly to destroy anything resembling justice.