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It's odd, the world is the safest and most stable that it has ever been. There has never been a better time to be a human being, and yet, the media and certain

It's odd, the world is the safest and most stable that it has ever been. There has never been a better time to be a human being, and yet, the media and certain politicians would have you believe that there is disaster after disaster, terrorist plots afoot around every corner, feeding your fear day after day. If ever there was an example of the devil at work, then that's it(and I'm not even religious). Uncertainty about the future has always been the same. Don't listen to those devils.

shp0ngle 10y ago
If you are rich and already in the top class, then maybe. But it's not terribly good for the middle class.
- Raphmedia 10y ago
  If you are rich and already in the middle class, then maybe. But it's not terribly good for the poor class. ... Don't let wealth create unneeded divides. When you enter the mindset of "us vs. them" you will always be unhappy. Edit: I grew up in a very poor community and our family yearly income was well under the poverty line (20,209 in Canada). The middle class has always been the richest people in the world for me. Now that I am part of it, I don't feel rich at all. However, I know that I am lucky. It's question of perception. Don't let them divide and conquer you for political gains.
  - FussyZeus 10y ago
    While I agree you should try to be content with what you have, there's nothing wrong with aspiring to more. The middle class is being eroded away leaving us with a much larger group of have nots, and an increasingly hard to enter group of haves. I wouldn't have a problem with this except a lot of the haves are in that group via genetic lottery, nothing that they actually did or earned.
    - greendragon 10y ago
      If genetics determines all, then we should sort people to tasks best suited for their genetics. Ashkenazi Jew? Work on advancing gene therapy and retroviruses so humans now and in the future can be freed from genetic determinism. European? Build civilization. African? Physical labor/sports. East Asian? Also build civilization. To each is given the minimum necessary to do their genetically determined purpose, ignoring any abstract "human" needs for all. Surplus is captured by the State and hoarded, some used to incentivize the Jews to have more children since their problem is the most important. Eventually the Jews will succeed and no one will have any excuses anymore. That's not a world I'd like to live in. But it would solve you having a problem with inequality. Or maybe you just need a different perspective to not put so much into genetic determinism in the first place.
      - Inception 10y ago
        I think the OP was referring to people being born into wealth. ie. trust-fund babies. Also, WTF did I just read
        greendragon 10y ago
        OP said "a lot" of the haves, so I get the impression they think it's actually a lot and justifiable to start imposing corrections to the problem on the lot of haves. My real issue is just the idea that more than a tiny fraction of the "haves" are in that group by genetic determinism, either from the lottery of being born to one's parents (and inheriting their genes, and their money, which they got somehow) or the other lottery of being born to a particular (and perhaps in today's economy, privileged) race. We all have to play the hand we're dealt, but the world and the brain are dynamic enough that there are lots of ways to play even when you have poor initial conditions. Having a problem with seemingly some large amount of people not having to play as hard is odd, especially when it's likely a much smaller set of people than imagined. Mindfuck of the day achieved, back to work...
        Raphmedia 10y ago
- burke 10y ago
  It may not be as good as it was 50 years ago, but there's a case to be made that it's nearly as good as it ever was prior to 1900.
  - sbov 10y ago
    > It may not be as good as it was 50 years ago If you're a white male.
    - zardo 10y ago
      Who wasn't sent to kill or be killed in South East Asia against your will.
    - kr7 10y ago
      Women's self-reported happiness has dropped over the last 50 years [1], so possibly add "women" too. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/opinion/26douthat.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/opinion/26douthat.html
  - sjclemmy 10y ago
    It's better in every way. Racism, sexism, apartheid, LGBT, corporal punishment...
    - AWildDHHAppears 10y ago
      Yes, and despite the best efforts of the Dali Lama, who favors "traditional roles" for women, and is opposed to same-sex marriage.
    - eeeeeeeeeeeee 10y ago
      Exactly. Most of the people I hear that try to make the case that it was better, even a few decades ago, are usually white and/or male.
    - 18972345 10y ago
      If you genuinely think these are the best markers for improvement in society, you must be an extremely lucky person. Having a job, having a job that doesn't completely suck, having enough money to move out of your parents house at the age of 30. These are things that people are facing today. In Australia, there are lots of people that are still living with their parents into their 30s because they simply can't afford rent or a mortgage. Racism and sexism and other terms are used more for political purposes these days then they are for anything of worth. Why didn't you mention the discrimination people with autism face, for example? Autism simply isn't a useful political tool because it doesn't get enough votes. Yet people with autism face more discrimination then the types you have listed. It is politics and nothing more.
- sjclemmy 10y ago
  Yet you have enough food, shelter, health. My comparison is about the whole of human history.
- lifeisstillgood 10y ago
  But it is terribly, terribly good for the middle class. Penicillin, socialised medicine, low violent crime rates (#), no need to hunt our food, no need to build our own shelters or rub sticks together to make fire. The finest actors of this and past generations wait for me in my living room while I pee, something that past kings could not even achieve, I travel vast continents in the time it takes for a long sleep, I was the first of my father's line to go to University as a youth. As a consequence I can read and write (almost coherent sentences). The energy I consume per day would be equal to 40 slaves but I enslave no-one (directly) [##] Maybe we can make an argument that for the current white western male middle class, it is not as good as it was 50 years ago, but perhaps Frank Sinatra would like an iPhone, or modern throat surgery? I do know Sammy Davis Jr would prefer the Civil Rights he would enjoy in Vegas today than in the 50s. Compared to only a hundred and fifty years ago we are amazingly better off in every measurable way, compared to a thousand its almost shameful. If that does not make us happy, that's a different issue. After all we were only promised the pursuit of happiness. [#] See Steven Pinkers "Better Angels of our nature" [##] See Prof. David Mackay - http://www.inference.eng.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/sewtha.pdf http://www.inference.eng.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/sewt...
  - petra 10y ago
    >> If that does not make us happy, that's a different issue. Why ?
    - lifeisstillgood 10y ago
      Fair point. I guess we are socialising our way up Maslow's hierarchy
  - 18972345 10y ago
    No need to hunt for food isn't even a good thing. We are designed to hunt. We actually like doing it. Now, people don't get enough exercise or the right type of exercise and so after our 9 hours of work, we have to go to the gym and simulate physical work. Most people also hate their jobs because we were not designed to sit on a computer all day.
- paulddraper 10y ago
  How many middle-class people had instant access to 90% of the human knowledge and entertainment 30 years ago? How many have instant access right this second? Life is far easier and more convenient than it used to be. Most of the middle-class live as better than kings of past centuries.
  - smacktoward 10y ago
    > How many middle-class people had instant access to 90% of the human knowledge and entertainment 30 years ago? But at the same time as they got that, they lost access to things their parents took for granted like job security and reliable health care and thriving, stable communities. Getting access to Wikipedia is great, but it does not automatically balance that scale.
    - paulddraper 10y ago
      > reliable health care Health care is more available to humanity than at any time in history.
    - Arnt 10y ago
      Let me guess: your parents were WASPs.
- hx87 10y ago
  Not terribly good, but certainly /better/.
- ajkjk 10y ago
  As far as I can tell, the qualify-of-life of the middle class is astoundingly high compared to almost-everyone in almost-all of history.
- MikeHolman 10y ago
  Most people aren't living in abject poverty for the first time in the history of mankind. Sure, it's not all roses, but we're moving in the right direction.
J_eastburn 10y ago
Likely a result of their need to be needed. In a world in which fewer bad things happen and people are bored by the mundane goodness of daily life, why wouldn't a news organization seek those stories 24 hours a day? I think we blame "the media" as if the people doing it are bad, ignoring the real structural challenges to being positive.
narrator 10y ago
I was in Paris a little while ago and people were saying that Americans were canceling because of fear of terrorism because of the recent attacks. That just shows that Americans can't do math, because they have far higher odds of getting in a fatal car accident on vacation then being victims of terrorism. The probability of being a victim of terrorism in France is truly negligible.
- knz 10y ago
  I agree with your sentiment but this is hardly limited to Americans - I've read and heard many Europeans discuss avoiding American all together due to the perceived risk of gang shootings, mass shootings, terrorism, and run in's with the TSA. I suspect that a small percentage of travellers modify their plans due to poor risk assessment skills but there are many reasons tourism may be down in some areas.
- b9 10y ago
  Mr. Narrator, did someone say that fear is or was rational? Aside from that, not going to france in such a case would be an additional perceived risk not an alternative one.
kamac 10y ago
> There has never been a better time to be a human being, and yet, the media and certain politicians would have you believe that there is disaster after disaster, terrorist plots afoot around every corner, feeding your fear day after day Could you point me to a quote from the article that tries to make us believe that there is a disaster after disaster? As far as I know, the article seems to have an objective opinion. It mentions that it's bad, but it's much better than it used to be. Which is basically your point. Or was your opinion unrelated to the article?
wefarrell 10y ago
If you're referring to safety from physical harm you're correct. But I'd argue that the erosion of many social safety nets has left a lot of people less economically secure.
- wyldfire 10y ago
  But "economic security" as relative to their peers at this time is very different from the worst case for all their ancestors. Perhaps even the worst off are much better off now.
- sjclemmy 10y ago
  In a comment thread on a forum I am offering a non-nuanced binary view. How economically secure does a hunter gatherer or subsistence farmer feel, with no medicine, lots of superstitious practices and complete dependence on the crops/weather... etc.
  - smacktoward 10y ago
    The problem is that satisfaction is completely relative. A hunter/gatherer with no medicine and loads of superstitions doesn't feel anxious when everybody else is a hunter/gatherer with no medicine and loads of superstitions too. They feel anxious when they are that way, but they can look over a fence and see other people living in nice houses and living forty years longer than they do. Progress is not uniformly distributed, and even in "advanced" societies there are wide and growing gaps between a small, privileged few and the rest who have to make do with much less. It's completely understandable why that would make people anxious, even if they have access to Netflix.
  - zardo 10y ago
    That depends on the person's beliefs. Whether or not you experience the feeling of security is just as much about your internal representation of the world as it is about the external world.
    - sjclemmy 10y ago
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
I think you are dangerously wrong. Never before has there been a point in time where: -A determined individual with the right equipment could shut down the information network our society almost exclusively relies upon. -Weapons created for war could destroy the conditions for human civilization across the entire planet. -Everyday consumption keeps people complacent while the artificially low costs contribute to and accelerate the pace of climate change, which could be almost as bad as nuclear Armageddon. -The speed and scale of travel is such that a disease could reach every corner of the earth and kill millions if not billions of human beings (or our food!) no matter where they live or where the disease came from. I'm not a pessismist about humanity's future but if you ignore these things you are only fooling yourself.
- sjclemmy 10y ago
  i don't understand your point. I'm not discounting any range of horrific tomorrows. I'm just reading The Periodic Table by Primo Levi (an Auschwitz survivor) and the future that worries me is the rise of fascism. But you are still living in a world that is objectively the safest it has ever been for a human being.
  - polotics 10y ago
    Before the Flood - Full Movie | National Geographic - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90CkXVF-Q8M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90CkXVF-Q8M
agumonkey 10y ago
Uncertainty about the future maybe, but our experience and training into dealing with randomness and chaos is near zero. I find the modern world a bit absurd now. The industrial revolutions have diminishing returns since a few years. We're chasing pokemons instead of dealing with the important things (social structures, education, health). Things are done but still at the surface only. Economic and quatifiable indicators might be higher than ever, but I'm not sure existences are better.
johnwheeler 10y ago
I don't know if he's the originator, but Penn Jillette said one of my favorite quotes: "Everyone always thinks the world is getting worse, but the world is always getting better."
- antarrah 10y ago
  Not really in every aspect. Frank Sinatra was replaced by Justin Bieber. How is that better? :)
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    Bieber is there to make this generation feel a void so they can make a new Sinatra in the future.
  - johnwheeler 10y ago
    No, pretty much in every aspect. If you're living in the U.S. or Europe today, your lifestyle likely surpasses that of the royalty and robber barons of 150 years ago.
    - antarrah 10y ago
      I'd also be owning a house or a farm not renting.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    - Amezarak 10y ago
      What does "better" mean? If we mean that to be afforded more technological luxury is to live better, then sure, no people has ever lived better. Are we happier and more fulfilled than ever before? I don't know, but I doubt it. Also, while the royalty and robber barons didn't have the internet or chemotherapy, they had servants to do all the menial chores most of is still have to do today, so in that respect we haven't totally surpassed them.
wozer 10y ago
As the Dalai Lama writes, to feel needed is a basic human need. For more and more people, this need is NOT fulfilled. So, no, this is not the best time to be a human being.
- ajbqq 10y ago
  If that would be the only need, sure.
  - nowayyeah 10y ago
    I don't know why people downvotes you. It's not an obvious thing. To convince you, I gently ask you to see this ted.com video: "What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness" http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good_life_lessons_from_the_longest_study_on_happiness
- taurath 10y ago
  Think about how many more humans there are, and how unlikely one is to be a special snowflake. We can be special and needed by others - not to society. I don't think society will give us a role that we can emotionally engage with anymore and take pride in. The only way we can belong is to our relationships.
  - rfugger 10y ago
    I agree with this, so I feel for the millions who are largely excluded from meaningful relationships because they have issues or are otherwise difficult or imperfect socially. And to be honest, who doesn't have issues or sometimes feel excluded? Or, more importantly, fear exclusion? Social exclusion no longer means death for humans, but our brains are wired to feel that it does, and so there is an epidemic of loneliness, disconnection, and fear. I'm not saying that the old days of completely depending on one's tribe of family and friends for survival was better in objective terms, but it was harmonious with our evolved instincts to be part of a small, mutually-connected group. Economic and social forces in a globalized society tend to act against the sustainability of such groups. So even those who are well-connected aren't as deeply connected, and are always threatened with potential loss of connection for unpredictable, uncontrollable economic or social reasons.
benevol 10y ago
> the devil at work It's just money (power/manipulation/dominance) at work. With increasing intensity, which of course is sick.
blfr 10y ago
That's ignoring risks. It's like being the richest you've ever been in 2007. True but not reassuring. We have nukes, very worrying demographic trends in the west with massive migrations, and a declining hegemon. We're comfortable but fragile. What I want to say is that Taleb seems to have a better handle on things than Pinker.
- Karunamon 10y ago
  But we've always had those things. Every generation has their.. (I don't want to say bogeyman as it's too dismissive, but I don't want to say pressing issue because they're really not all that pressing in the minds of the average person. Let's just go with "long-term hovering externality") ...to deal with. Society has always been remarkably fragile, and we've stepped really close to outright annihilation a few of times, seemingly saved not by the application of the best humanity has to offer, but by what appears to be happenstance. What if someone else had been the Russian negotiator during the Cuban missile crisis? What if a different general that time Russia's radar malfunctioned had thought we were really nuking them? Global annihilation was literally in the hands of this one person's decision! Hell, what if the 1859 CME event were to happen again? We had some near misses a couple years ago. There's a difference I think between ignoring a risk and not devoting 100% of our efforts and mindshare to dealing with it.
- cossatot 10y ago
  What's worrisome about the immigration trends? I personally like them, and feel that they're more stabilizing than not: we're less likely to go to war with a nation of whose ethnicities make up some substantial fraction of our populace, and may be treated better in the case of war (look at German-American vs. Japanese-American treatment in WWII). But these are only my views. You can ask Taleb about his views on Middle Eastern immigration to the West; IIRC he's from Lebanon.
  - droopyEyelids 10y ago
    Worrisome because consequences of climate change have the potential to cause 100s of millions of humans to move in a timeframe that is impossible to deal with.
TearsInTheRain 10y ago
You can be both better off than where you were and not as well off as you could be. Complacency is not the way to respond to stagnation.
patcon 10y ago
Perhaps because the "want of something more" is becoming less and less effective a political motivator, compared to the expedience of action tied to the "fear of something worse"? (I recognize we have an incredible capacity to crave more, but maybe there are diminishing returns of a sort in our psychology.)
- mistermann 10y ago
  As they say in finance, the only emotion more powerful than greed is fear.
  - goldfeld 10y ago
    But is greed more than response from fear? Fear that you won't have opportunity again in the future, that you won't be comfortable, forced lifestyle changes.. in the anxiety of not enjoying what you can use now because you feel the need to stockpile more than that; or to show off abundance. I think of fear as root of all bad, alienating emotions.
edblarney 10y ago
I don't think the issue he is addressing is 'safety and stability' - in the common sense. Families, for example are a lot 'less stable'. So are many communities - at least in the Western world. On the community level - consider a place like Detroit - which is an example of many, smaller cities esp. in the rust belt. That kind of community blight can wear on people.
rokhayakebe 10y ago
There has never been a better time to be a human being Very myopic, first world, privileged view of the world.
- tim333 10y ago
  The non first world is on a roll just now, in terms of wealth and life expectancy at any rate.
- lloeki 10y ago
  If you want to be convinced otherwise, just look at some Gates Foundation† reports: non-first world is progressively getting better in basically every possible metric, and the fact that they're not at first-world levels yet is a non-sequitur. † or whatever else report on the situation should you ever hold some disdain about Gates stuff.
lkozma 10y ago
I mostly agree with your view, but I wonder how you can reconcile it with the unfolding environmental disaster and loss of biodiversity across the globe.
- _coldfire 10y ago
  It's never been a better time to be a human. It's never been a worse time to be any other species on earth.
  - lkozma 10y ago
    But even for humans the quality of air/water/etc. has been going down for some time in many places.
    - akvadrako 10y ago
      And everywhere is full of people - it's becoming harder to be able to get lost in nature or to have real adventure.
ZenoArrow 10y ago
> "Uncertainty about the future has always been the same. Don't listen to those devils." You can call me a devil if you wish, but to me this is a classic example of a half truth. If you are already inclined to believe it, then you'll see it as the truth. If you're not inclined to believe it, then you won't see it as the truth. To give some examples of people who are less likely to see it as the truth, go and tell Yemenis and Iraqis and Syrians that life has never been better. I'd imagine you'd be seen as a little bit kooky. Would you do that, would you tell people who are facing famine that life has never been better? I'd suggest you wouldn't, because deep down you know what you're saying is only half true.
- sjclemmy 10y ago
  I agree. There are some really shitty things going on in the world. I'm talking from a Western perspective. However, objectively, and globally, most people, most of the time are way more better off.
facepalm 10y ago
Just because the average has improved, doesn't mean there can't still be people with serious problems.
imaginology 10y ago
> It's odd, the world is the safest and most stable that it has ever been. Tell that to Mother Earth, who is about to show us all who is boss. Climate change is much worse than most people realise. You may also be unaware of what is going on in Syria, and the fact that NATO has ordered the deployment of thousands of troops to Eastern Europe to put pressure on Russia, a nuclear-armed country.
- varjag 10y ago
  NATO put the troops in NATO member countries, at request of those NATO countries. I'm sure that's all was just to irritate Russia for no possible reason at all. After all, it's not like Russia, a nuclear armed country has been undergoing moral and intellectual meltdown last couple of years?
  - alexbecker 10y ago
    I'm not sure the parent is implying that NATO was wrong to deploy said troops. But even if it's the right move, deploying troops to pressure Russia is certainly an unnerving turn of events.
  - zo1 10y ago
    Do you think a small pittance of airbases and troops from NATO would do anything meaningful against a Russian assault or invasion? Let's be honest, it's nothing more than political posturing and pandering to the west so they can get access to the dangling trade-cookies that only "western friendly" nations get to have.
    - varjag 10y ago
      Of course they will do something meaningful: involve the rest of NATO into the conflict immediately, without any further bureaucratic procedure. They are not a treat or even a deterrent to Russia: it's a tripwire.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
johndubchak 10y ago
What/who devils? The Dalai Lama?
hash-set 10y ago
I don't share that optimism. I think there is a normalcy bias at work here. It's going to catch up with us all at once.
pasquinelli 10y ago
it doesn't matter if something is rare if it happens to you. the fact that i can imagine some terrible situation for me personally is all that's required to feel anxious. not listening to my own mind isn't an option, and i can't just choose not to imagine a constant, ever-varied carousel of horrors.
throwaway7312 10y ago
So said the Hittites when the Sea Peoples swept in from the seas in the West and the Kaskians surged down from the mountains in the East. So said the Romans when the Teutons migrated their men, women, and children into Italy and took town after town. So said the Sasanians when the Mohamaddans swept up from their deserts with swords and zealotry. So said the Native Americans when the white man brought more and more of his kin to North America. The Romans averted demographic destruction because they acted before the migrants achieved a sure enough foothold. The Hittites were the mightiest people on Earth at the time (they were the first to work iron). The migrants they took in, first thinking they would prove useful as mercenaries to fight their enemies, destroyed them. The Sasanians ruled the powerful Persian empire. A bunch of fanatical desert nomads relying on brutal Assyrian war strategies wiped them out. Native Americans controlled an entire hemisphere, but ended up all but wiped out of the upper half of that. They had centuries to get rid of their migrants, but instead remained fractured, with parts of them allied with the migrants and others against them. The most racially diverse nations do go to war with outsiders less; yet, they are also the ones with the most internal crime, distrust, suffering, and injustice. India's Untouchables, South Africa's Apartheid (followed by South Africa's through-the-roof black-on-white rapes and murders after the ending of Apartheid), Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Germans and Jews in Germany. If you'd prefer science over history, here are 24 studies in Europe, America, and other places on the effects of ethnic and cultural diversity on group cohesion, trust, strife, civility, and harmony: http://www.truthjustice.net/politics/diversity-proximity-war-the-reference-list/ http://www.truthjustice.net/politics/diversity-proximity-war... It would be nice if we could all just join hands and get along. Unfortunately, humans compete for resources, and cooperate with each other for those resources against other groups. One of the primary ways we divide ourselves is by relatedness (the selfish gene). The more homogeneous the society, the more it trusts and cooperates; the less homogeneous the society, the more it distrusts and divides.
18972345 10y ago
You are assuming that being the safest and most stable is better for humans. Then you make a claim that humans have never had it better, yet you are not millions of years old, so literally have no idea if that is true or not. I understand where you are coming from, because people are brainwashed into "progressive" ideology and globalists "the world always gets better because of globalisation", but they don't really make sense. Human genes don't match modern society, so it is impossible for there to be a better time then when our genes were our closest match to society. This is an idea that will come as a shock to people, but it is true. I don't really care to debate it because it is obvious. Also, if you just want to take less shocking ideas, you can see that developed countries have declined in the last few decades.

shp0ngle 10y ago

If you are rich and already in the top class, then maybe. But it's not terribly good for the middle class.

Raphmedia 10y ago
If you are rich and already in the middle class, then maybe. But it's not terribly good for the poor class. ... Don't let wealth create unneeded divides. When you enter the mindset of "us vs. them" you will always be unhappy. Edit: I grew up in a very poor community and our family yearly income was well under the poverty line (20,209 in Canada). The middle class has always been the richest people in the world for me. Now that I am part of it, I don't feel rich at all. However, I know that I am lucky. It's question of perception. Don't let them divide and conquer you for political gains.
- FussyZeus 10y ago
  While I agree you should try to be content with what you have, there's nothing wrong with aspiring to more. The middle class is being eroded away leaving us with a much larger group of have nots, and an increasingly hard to enter group of haves. I wouldn't have a problem with this except a lot of the haves are in that group via genetic lottery, nothing that they actually did or earned.
  - greendragon 10y ago
    If genetics determines all, then we should sort people to tasks best suited for their genetics. Ashkenazi Jew? Work on advancing gene therapy and retroviruses so humans now and in the future can be freed from genetic determinism. European? Build civilization. African? Physical labor/sports. East Asian? Also build civilization. To each is given the minimum necessary to do their genetically determined purpose, ignoring any abstract "human" needs for all. Surplus is captured by the State and hoarded, some used to incentivize the Jews to have more children since their problem is the most important. Eventually the Jews will succeed and no one will have any excuses anymore. That's not a world I'd like to live in. But it would solve you having a problem with inequality. Or maybe you just need a different perspective to not put so much into genetic determinism in the first place.
    - Inception 10y ago
      I think the OP was referring to people being born into wealth. ie. trust-fund babies. Also, WTF did I just read
      - greendragon 10y ago
        OP said "a lot" of the haves, so I get the impression they think it's actually a lot and justifiable to start imposing corrections to the problem on the lot of haves. My real issue is just the idea that more than a tiny fraction of the "haves" are in that group by genetic determinism, either from the lottery of being born to one's parents (and inheriting their genes, and their money, which they got somehow) or the other lottery of being born to a particular (and perhaps in today's economy, privileged) race. We all have to play the hand we're dealt, but the world and the brain are dynamic enough that there are lots of ways to play even when you have poor initial conditions. Having a problem with seemingly some large amount of people not having to play as hard is odd, especially when it's likely a much smaller set of people than imagined. Mindfuck of the day achieved, back to work...
        Raphmedia 10y ago
burke 10y ago
It may not be as good as it was 50 years ago, but there's a case to be made that it's nearly as good as it ever was prior to 1900.
- sbov 10y ago
  > It may not be as good as it was 50 years ago If you're a white male.
  - zardo 10y ago
    Who wasn't sent to kill or be killed in South East Asia against your will.
  - kr7 10y ago
    Women's self-reported happiness has dropped over the last 50 years [1], so possibly add "women" too. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/opinion/26douthat.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/opinion/26douthat.html
- sjclemmy 10y ago
  It's better in every way. Racism, sexism, apartheid, LGBT, corporal punishment...
  - AWildDHHAppears 10y ago
    Yes, and despite the best efforts of the Dali Lama, who favors "traditional roles" for women, and is opposed to same-sex marriage.
  - eeeeeeeeeeeee 10y ago
    Exactly. Most of the people I hear that try to make the case that it was better, even a few decades ago, are usually white and/or male.
  - 18972345 10y ago
    If you genuinely think these are the best markers for improvement in society, you must be an extremely lucky person. Having a job, having a job that doesn't completely suck, having enough money to move out of your parents house at the age of 30. These are things that people are facing today. In Australia, there are lots of people that are still living with their parents into their 30s because they simply can't afford rent or a mortgage. Racism and sexism and other terms are used more for political purposes these days then they are for anything of worth. Why didn't you mention the discrimination people with autism face, for example? Autism simply isn't a useful political tool because it doesn't get enough votes. Yet people with autism face more discrimination then the types you have listed. It is politics and nothing more.
sjclemmy 10y ago
Yet you have enough food, shelter, health. My comparison is about the whole of human history.
lifeisstillgood 10y ago
But it is terribly, terribly good for the middle class. Penicillin, socialised medicine, low violent crime rates (#), no need to hunt our food, no need to build our own shelters or rub sticks together to make fire. The finest actors of this and past generations wait for me in my living room while I pee, something that past kings could not even achieve, I travel vast continents in the time it takes for a long sleep, I was the first of my father's line to go to University as a youth. As a consequence I can read and write (almost coherent sentences). The energy I consume per day would be equal to 40 slaves but I enslave no-one (directly) [##] Maybe we can make an argument that for the current white western male middle class, it is not as good as it was 50 years ago, but perhaps Frank Sinatra would like an iPhone, or modern throat surgery? I do know Sammy Davis Jr would prefer the Civil Rights he would enjoy in Vegas today than in the 50s. Compared to only a hundred and fifty years ago we are amazingly better off in every measurable way, compared to a thousand its almost shameful. If that does not make us happy, that's a different issue. After all we were only promised the pursuit of happiness. [#] See Steven Pinkers "Better Angels of our nature" [##] See Prof. David Mackay - http://www.inference.eng.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/sewtha.pdf http://www.inference.eng.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/sewt...
- petra 10y ago
  >> If that does not make us happy, that's a different issue. Why ?
  - lifeisstillgood 10y ago
    Fair point. I guess we are socialising our way up Maslow's hierarchy
- 18972345 10y ago
  No need to hunt for food isn't even a good thing. We are designed to hunt. We actually like doing it. Now, people don't get enough exercise or the right type of exercise and so after our 9 hours of work, we have to go to the gym and simulate physical work. Most people also hate their jobs because we were not designed to sit on a computer all day.
paulddraper 10y ago
How many middle-class people had instant access to 90% of the human knowledge and entertainment 30 years ago? How many have instant access right this second? Life is far easier and more convenient than it used to be. Most of the middle-class live as better than kings of past centuries.
- smacktoward 10y ago
  > How many middle-class people had instant access to 90% of the human knowledge and entertainment 30 years ago? But at the same time as they got that, they lost access to things their parents took for granted like job security and reliable health care and thriving, stable communities. Getting access to Wikipedia is great, but it does not automatically balance that scale.
  - paulddraper 10y ago
    > reliable health care Health care is more available to humanity than at any time in history.
  - Arnt 10y ago
    Let me guess: your parents were WASPs.
hx87 10y ago
Not terribly good, but certainly /better/.
ajkjk 10y ago
As far as I can tell, the qualify-of-life of the middle class is astoundingly high compared to almost-everyone in almost-all of history.
MikeHolman 10y ago
Most people aren't living in abject poverty for the first time in the history of mankind. Sure, it's not all roses, but we're moving in the right direction.

J_eastburn 10y ago

Likely a result of their need to be needed. In a world in which fewer bad things happen and people are bored by the mundane goodness of daily life, why wouldn't a news organization seek those stories 24 hours a day? I think we blame "the media" as if the people doing it are bad, ignoring the real structural challenges to being positive.

narrator 10y ago

I was in Paris a little while ago and people were saying that Americans were canceling because of fear of terrorism because of the recent attacks. That just shows that Americans can't do math, because they have far higher odds of getting in a fatal car accident on vacation then being victims of terrorism. The probability of being a victim of terrorism in France is truly negligible.

knz 10y ago
I agree with your sentiment but this is hardly limited to Americans - I've read and heard many Europeans discuss avoiding American all together due to the perceived risk of gang shootings, mass shootings, terrorism, and run in's with the TSA. I suspect that a small percentage of travellers modify their plans due to poor risk assessment skills but there are many reasons tourism may be down in some areas.
b9 10y ago
Mr. Narrator, did someone say that fear is or was rational? Aside from that, not going to france in such a case would be an additional perceived risk not an alternative one.

kamac 10y ago

> There has never been a better time to be a human being, and yet, the media and certain politicians would have you believe that there is disaster after disaster, terrorist plots afoot around every corner, feeding your fear day after day Could you point me to a quote from the article that tries to make us believe that there is a disaster after disaster? As far as I know, the article seems to have an objective opinion. It mentions that it's bad, but it's much better than it used to be. Which is basically your point. Or was your opinion unrelated to the article?

wefarrell 10y ago

If you're referring to safety from physical harm you're correct. But I'd argue that the erosion of many social safety nets has left a lot of people less economically secure.

wyldfire 10y ago
But "economic security" as relative to their peers at this time is very different from the worst case for all their ancestors. Perhaps even the worst off are much better off now.
sjclemmy 10y ago
In a comment thread on a forum I am offering a non-nuanced binary view. How economically secure does a hunter gatherer or subsistence farmer feel, with no medicine, lots of superstitious practices and complete dependence on the crops/weather... etc.
- smacktoward 10y ago
  The problem is that satisfaction is completely relative. A hunter/gatherer with no medicine and loads of superstitions doesn't feel anxious when everybody else is a hunter/gatherer with no medicine and loads of superstitions too. They feel anxious when they are that way, but they can look over a fence and see other people living in nice houses and living forty years longer than they do. Progress is not uniformly distributed, and even in "advanced" societies there are wide and growing gaps between a small, privileged few and the rest who have to make do with much less. It's completely understandable why that would make people anxious, even if they have access to Netflix.
- zardo 10y ago
  That depends on the person's beliefs. Whether or not you experience the feeling of security is just as much about your internal representation of the world as it is about the external world.
  - sjclemmy 10y ago

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago

I think you are dangerously wrong. Never before has there been a point in time where: -A determined individual with the right equipment could shut down the information network our society almost exclusively relies upon. -Weapons created for war could destroy the conditions for human civilization across the entire planet. -Everyday consumption keeps people complacent while the artificially low costs contribute to and accelerate the pace of climate change, which could be almost as bad as nuclear Armageddon. -The speed and scale of travel is such that a disease could reach every corner of the earth and kill millions if not billions of human beings (or our food!) no matter where they live or where the disease came from. I'm not a pessismist about humanity's future but if you ignore these things you are only fooling yourself.

sjclemmy 10y ago
i don't understand your point. I'm not discounting any range of horrific tomorrows. I'm just reading The Periodic Table by Primo Levi (an Auschwitz survivor) and the future that worries me is the rise of fascism. But you are still living in a world that is objectively the safest it has ever been for a human being.
- polotics 10y ago
  Before the Flood - Full Movie | National Geographic - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90CkXVF-Q8M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90CkXVF-Q8M

agumonkey 10y ago

Uncertainty about the future maybe, but our experience and training into dealing with randomness and chaos is near zero. I find the modern world a bit absurd now. The industrial revolutions have diminishing returns since a few years. We're chasing pokemons instead of dealing with the important things (social structures, education, health). Things are done but still at the surface only. Economic and quatifiable indicators might be higher than ever, but I'm not sure existences are better.

johnwheeler 10y ago

I don't know if he's the originator, but Penn Jillette said one of my favorite quotes: "Everyone always thinks the world is getting worse, but the world is always getting better."

antarrah 10y ago
Not really in every aspect. Frank Sinatra was replaced by Justin Bieber. How is that better? :)
- agumonkey 10y ago
  Bieber is there to make this generation feel a void so they can make a new Sinatra in the future.
- johnwheeler 10y ago
  No, pretty much in every aspect. If you're living in the U.S. or Europe today, your lifestyle likely surpasses that of the royalty and robber barons of 150 years ago.
  - antarrah 10y ago
    I'd also be owning a house or a farm not renting.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - Amezarak 10y ago
    What does "better" mean? If we mean that to be afforded more technological luxury is to live better, then sure, no people has ever lived better. Are we happier and more fulfilled than ever before? I don't know, but I doubt it. Also, while the royalty and robber barons didn't have the internet or chemotherapy, they had servants to do all the menial chores most of is still have to do today, so in that respect we haven't totally surpassed them.

wozer 10y ago

As the Dalai Lama writes, to feel needed is a basic human need. For more and more people, this need is NOT fulfilled. So, no, this is not the best time to be a human being.

ajbqq 10y ago
If that would be the only need, sure.
- nowayyeah 10y ago
  I don't know why people downvotes you. It's not an obvious thing. To convince you, I gently ask you to see this ted.com video: "What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness" http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good_life_lessons_from_the_longest_study_on_happiness
taurath 10y ago
Think about how many more humans there are, and how unlikely one is to be a special snowflake. We can be special and needed by others - not to society. I don't think society will give us a role that we can emotionally engage with anymore and take pride in. The only way we can belong is to our relationships.
- rfugger 10y ago
  I agree with this, so I feel for the millions who are largely excluded from meaningful relationships because they have issues or are otherwise difficult or imperfect socially. And to be honest, who doesn't have issues or sometimes feel excluded? Or, more importantly, fear exclusion? Social exclusion no longer means death for humans, but our brains are wired to feel that it does, and so there is an epidemic of loneliness, disconnection, and fear. I'm not saying that the old days of completely depending on one's tribe of family and friends for survival was better in objective terms, but it was harmonious with our evolved instincts to be part of a small, mutually-connected group. Economic and social forces in a globalized society tend to act against the sustainability of such groups. So even those who are well-connected aren't as deeply connected, and are always threatened with potential loss of connection for unpredictable, uncontrollable economic or social reasons.

benevol 10y ago

> the devil at work It's just money (power/manipulation/dominance) at work. With increasing intensity, which of course is sick.

blfr 10y ago

That's ignoring risks. It's like being the richest you've ever been in 2007. True but not reassuring. We have nukes, very worrying demographic trends in the west with massive migrations, and a declining hegemon. We're comfortable but fragile. What I want to say is that Taleb seems to have a better handle on things than Pinker.

Karunamon 10y ago
But we've always had those things. Every generation has their.. (I don't want to say bogeyman as it's too dismissive, but I don't want to say pressing issue because they're really not all that pressing in the minds of the average person. Let's just go with "long-term hovering externality") ...to deal with. Society has always been remarkably fragile, and we've stepped really close to outright annihilation a few of times, seemingly saved not by the application of the best humanity has to offer, but by what appears to be happenstance. What if someone else had been the Russian negotiator during the Cuban missile crisis? What if a different general that time Russia's radar malfunctioned had thought we were really nuking them? Global annihilation was literally in the hands of this one person's decision! Hell, what if the 1859 CME event were to happen again? We had some near misses a couple years ago. There's a difference I think between ignoring a risk and not devoting 100% of our efforts and mindshare to dealing with it.
cossatot 10y ago
What's worrisome about the immigration trends? I personally like them, and feel that they're more stabilizing than not: we're less likely to go to war with a nation of whose ethnicities make up some substantial fraction of our populace, and may be treated better in the case of war (look at German-American vs. Japanese-American treatment in WWII). But these are only my views. You can ask Taleb about his views on Middle Eastern immigration to the West; IIRC he's from Lebanon.
- droopyEyelids 10y ago
  Worrisome because consequences of climate change have the potential to cause 100s of millions of humans to move in a timeframe that is impossible to deal with.

TearsInTheRain 10y ago

You can be both better off than where you were and not as well off as you could be. Complacency is not the way to respond to stagnation.

patcon 10y ago

Perhaps because the "want of something more" is becoming less and less effective a political motivator, compared to the expedience of action tied to the "fear of something worse"? (I recognize we have an incredible capacity to crave more, but maybe there are diminishing returns of a sort in our psychology.)

mistermann 10y ago
As they say in finance, the only emotion more powerful than greed is fear.
- goldfeld 10y ago
  But is greed more than response from fear? Fear that you won't have opportunity again in the future, that you won't be comfortable, forced lifestyle changes.. in the anxiety of not enjoying what you can use now because you feel the need to stockpile more than that; or to show off abundance. I think of fear as root of all bad, alienating emotions.

edblarney 10y ago

I don't think the issue he is addressing is 'safety and stability' - in the common sense. Families, for example are a lot 'less stable'. So are many communities - at least in the Western world. On the community level - consider a place like Detroit - which is an example of many, smaller cities esp. in the rust belt. That kind of community blight can wear on people.

rokhayakebe 10y ago

There has never been a better time to be a human being Very myopic, first world, privileged view of the world.

tim333 10y ago
The non first world is on a roll just now, in terms of wealth and life expectancy at any rate.
lloeki 10y ago
If you want to be convinced otherwise, just look at some Gates Foundation† reports: non-first world is progressively getting better in basically every possible metric, and the fact that they're not at first-world levels yet is a non-sequitur. † or whatever else report on the situation should you ever hold some disdain about Gates stuff.

lkozma 10y ago

I mostly agree with your view, but I wonder how you can reconcile it with the unfolding environmental disaster and loss of biodiversity across the globe.

_coldfire 10y ago
It's never been a better time to be a human. It's never been a worse time to be any other species on earth.
- lkozma 10y ago
  But even for humans the quality of air/water/etc. has been going down for some time in many places.
  - akvadrako 10y ago
    And everywhere is full of people - it's becoming harder to be able to get lost in nature or to have real adventure.

ZenoArrow 10y ago

> "Uncertainty about the future has always been the same. Don't listen to those devils." You can call me a devil if you wish, but to me this is a classic example of a half truth. If you are already inclined to believe it, then you'll see it as the truth. If you're not inclined to believe it, then you won't see it as the truth. To give some examples of people who are less likely to see it as the truth, go and tell Yemenis and Iraqis and Syrians that life has never been better. I'd imagine you'd be seen as a little bit kooky. Would you do that, would you tell people who are facing famine that life has never been better? I'd suggest you wouldn't, because deep down you know what you're saying is only half true.

sjclemmy 10y ago
I agree. There are some really shitty things going on in the world. I'm talking from a Western perspective. However, objectively, and globally, most people, most of the time are way more better off.

facepalm 10y ago

Just because the average has improved, doesn't mean there can't still be people with serious problems.

imaginology 10y ago

> It's odd, the world is the safest and most stable that it has ever been. Tell that to Mother Earth, who is about to show us all who is boss. Climate change is much worse than most people realise. You may also be unaware of what is going on in Syria, and the fact that NATO has ordered the deployment of thousands of troops to Eastern Europe to put pressure on Russia, a nuclear-armed country.

varjag 10y ago
NATO put the troops in NATO member countries, at request of those NATO countries. I'm sure that's all was just to irritate Russia for no possible reason at all. After all, it's not like Russia, a nuclear armed country has been undergoing moral and intellectual meltdown last couple of years?
- alexbecker 10y ago
  I'm not sure the parent is implying that NATO was wrong to deploy said troops. But even if it's the right move, deploying troops to pressure Russia is certainly an unnerving turn of events.
- zo1 10y ago
  Do you think a small pittance of airbases and troops from NATO would do anything meaningful against a Russian assault or invasion? Let's be honest, it's nothing more than political posturing and pandering to the west so they can get access to the dangling trade-cookies that only "western friendly" nations get to have.
  - varjag 10y ago
    Of course they will do something meaningful: involve the rest of NATO into the conflict immediately, without any further bureaucratic procedure. They are not a treat or even a deterrent to Russia: it's a tripwire.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

johndubchak 10y ago

What/who devils? The Dalai Lama?

hash-set 10y ago

I don't share that optimism. I think there is a normalcy bias at work here. It's going to catch up with us all at once.

pasquinelli 10y ago

it doesn't matter if something is rare if it happens to you. the fact that i can imagine some terrible situation for me personally is all that's required to feel anxious. not listening to my own mind isn't an option, and i can't just choose not to imagine a constant, ever-varied carousel of horrors.

throwaway7312 10y ago

So said the Hittites when the Sea Peoples swept in from the seas in the West and the Kaskians surged down from the mountains in the East. So said the Romans when the Teutons migrated their men, women, and children into Italy and took town after town. So said the Sasanians when the Mohamaddans swept up from their deserts with swords and zealotry. So said the Native Americans when the white man brought more and more of his kin to North America. The Romans averted demographic destruction because they acted before the migrants achieved a sure enough foothold. The Hittites were the mightiest people on Earth at the time (they were the first to work iron). The migrants they took in, first thinking they would prove useful as mercenaries to fight their enemies, destroyed them. The Sasanians ruled the powerful Persian empire. A bunch of fanatical desert nomads relying on brutal Assyrian war strategies wiped them out. Native Americans controlled an entire hemisphere, but ended up all but wiped out of the upper half of that. They had centuries to get rid of their migrants, but instead remained fractured, with parts of them allied with the migrants and others against them. The most racially diverse nations do go to war with outsiders less; yet, they are also the ones with the most internal crime, distrust, suffering, and injustice. India's Untouchables, South Africa's Apartheid (followed by South Africa's through-the-roof black-on-white rapes and murders after the ending of Apartheid), Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Germans and Jews in Germany. If you'd prefer science over history, here are 24 studies in Europe, America, and other places on the effects of ethnic and cultural diversity on group cohesion, trust, strife, civility, and harmony: http://www.truthjustice.net/politics/diversity-proximity-war-the-reference-list/ http://www.truthjustice.net/politics/diversity-proximity-war... It would be nice if we could all just join hands and get along. Unfortunately, humans compete for resources, and cooperate with each other for those resources against other groups. One of the primary ways we divide ourselves is by relatedness (the selfish gene). The more homogeneous the society, the more it trusts and cooperates; the less homogeneous the society, the more it distrusts and divides.

18972345 10y ago

You are assuming that being the safest and most stable is better for humans. Then you make a claim that humans have never had it better, yet you are not millions of years old, so literally have no idea if that is true or not. I understand where you are coming from, because people are brainwashed into "progressive" ideology and globalists "the world always gets better because of globalisation", but they don't really make sense. Human genes don't match modern society, so it is impossible for there to be a better time then when our genes were our closest match to society. This is an idea that will come as a shock to people, but it is true. I don't really care to debate it because it is obvious. Also, if you just want to take less shocking ideas, you can see that developed countries have declined in the last few decades.