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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!
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.
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.
And I figure "now" means 2015. Since we won't know much about how things are in 2075 for another 60 years....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
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"
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.
If you have a single serial killer and your population doubles you are doing better, because statistically society should have produced a second serial killer. Each person's odds of being killed by a serial killer have dropped by 50%. I'm not sure in what way you think that's a bad thing.
In things like disease, things are getting better, as a percentage and absolute numbers. Polio has dropped from hundred of thousands to hundreds of cases in 20 years. Of course cancer and diabetes in the US is up, and HIV did not exist 50 years ago, but many ailments that cursed our civilization for known history have become much less virulent. I would also say percentages do matter. The black death eliminated half the population of major cities, but the total number of probable dead was only half the population of the current US. Likewise the mortality rate at birth in the US is not that bad in absolute numbers, but as a percentage the US is below the level of developing country. The serial killer example is very aprospro. It is information, and the inability to scale and rationalize that information, that drives out perception of a dangerous world. If someone were to ride a horse from town to town, and kill a person secretly, no one would like know that such a thing were happening. Most would just think that an accident got them, and no one. This may be one reason why the term serial killer did not appear until the 20th century. The point is it would be hard to compare the murder rate of the 21st century, to anything 100 years ago when we had no idea who simply disappeared and who was murdered. I would say that the fact that we actively count and respond to murders is an indication that the world is a better place.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
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.
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
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.
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.)
Does the phrase "Great Depression" mean anything to you? That one took WW2 to work its way out of the economy.
Interestingly, WW2 brought us the GI Bill and the notion that pretty much anyone could go to college. Before that, it was the upper class and the very best of the commoners.
As to "food prices are way up", there are about as many indications that "real" (adjusted for inflation) food prices are down as up. Just depends on what you're buying...
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
And I figure "now" means 2015. Since we won't know much about how things are in 2075 for another 60 years....
Now is 2014. TFA is almost a year old.
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/
The environment getting much worse -- mass deforestation, global warming, declining fresh water supplies, much of it abetted by ever-spiraling population growth?
The environment is getting better. You should have seen how bad the air pollution was in the 70s, for example. Rivers have been cleaned up and come back to life since then.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I'm a communist luddite, you insensitive clod!
I'm an insensitive clod, you communist luddite!
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 !
unbridled capitalism
Here's the problem. There's no such thing in the world today as unbridled capitalism except in black markets and a few MMOs like Eve Online.
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.
"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.