3 ms·

How do you know you're not just complaining about reality?

kbutler 8y ago
"on virtually all of the key dimensions of human material well-being—poverty, literacy, health, freedom, and education—the world is an extraordinarily better place than it was just a couple of centuries ago." https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2017/11/30/why-the-world-is-getting-better-why-hardly-anyone-knows-it/#2da495147826 https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2017/11/30/why-the... Lots more examples. But if you primarily get your impression of the "state of the world" from news sources, you get exactly the opposite impression. "If it bleeds, it leads" Or from the Forbes article, "The media does not tell us how the world is changing, it tells us where the world is going wrong. It tends to focus on single events particularly single events that have gone bad. By contrast, positive developments happen slowly with no particular event to promote in a headline. “More people are healthy today than yesterday,” just doesn’t cut it."
- IshKebab 8y ago
  People are much better off. The world (the natural environment) is not. And the effects of its destruction haven't started affecting people too much yet but it will.
- kibwen 8y ago
  Citing that source is a bit tone-deaf considering that it concludes with the following: "Obviously big problems remain. Having 1 out of 10 people living in extreme poverty today is unacceptable. Humanity’s impact on the environment is at a level that is not sustainable and we urgently need to reduce our impact. Continuing threats to our political freedom and liberty must be dealt with." Considering that the NYT articles that get the most traction here are about the environment (such as this very one), poverty/income inequality, and politics, trying to wave away these articles as fearmongering with "don't worry, the world is better!" is particularly counter-productive to actually making the world a better place.
  - kbutler 8y ago
    Yes, every article that describes progress and a good situation has an obligatory disclaimer that problems remain. Articles describing problems do not generally have a recognition of progress made. Recognizing that the world is a much better place than in previous centuries does not imply that everyone is in a good place, or that we have no improvements to make. We've done great things! Now do better!
- revscat 8y ago
  Fine. Show me where insect populations have not been decimated. Find a environment where glaciation is increasing, or record low temperatures are being consistently recorded year over year. Short term gains over medium term doom is hardly something to brag about.
  - arethuza 8y ago
    We moved to a house in the country about 2 years ago and it seems to be in a small oasis of insect life - I suspect that because it's quite rather hilly it is low intensity cow and sheep farming with a lot of scrub and woodland. Going by prevailing winds its probably 15km (mostly over sea) to the nearest areas with more intensive arable farming. It's very noticeable that we have more insects here than surrounding areas. For the avoidance of doubt: I'm not disagreeing with the article!
  - kbutler 8y ago
    The origin of this thread was NY Times emphasis on doom and gloom. The reason is that it sells, even if the world as a whole is getting better. For your specific points: Yes, it looks like overall insect populations are down (and more than just decimated). But note that projections of insects thriving because of global warming are also framed as bad news: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/climate/insects-eating-more-crops.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/climate/insects-eating-mo... https://phys.org/news/2018-08-global-insects-crops.html https://phys.org/news/2018-08-global-insects-crops.html "environment where glaciation is increasing": Greenland 2018 "large net mass gain for the ice sheet in 2018 of 150 billion tons" https://nsidc.org/greenland-today/ https://nsidc.org/greenland-today/ (the exception that proves the rule, if you like). But note that if we start our glacier baseline at the end of the little ice age, we'd expect a lot of glacial retreat simply from reversion to the mean. Record temperatures is really not a good indicator (weather, not climate), especially with the bias of increased urbanization, but the southeast US is getting colder https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/02/20/defying-climate-change-southeast-u-s-is-getting-colder-instead-of-warmer-via-polar-vortex/#77672555f84c https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/02/20/defying-c... and note that the list of coldest temperatures recorded includes many in the 2010s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records#Lowest_temperatures_recorded https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records#Lowest... If you want to frame global warming in a more positive light, the temperature changes in the world up to this point have been overwhelmingly positive. The climate of the 1800s was too cold in much of the breadbasket regions of the world. Temperatures overall have moderated (warmer colds) rather than become more extreme (hotter hots) (which is consistent with CO2-influenced warming). That isn't to say that all warming is beneficial, that future warming will be beneficial, or that CO2 doesn't influence the climate. Just that there's a lot more reporting of the "dooooom" than of the "look how much progress we've made".

"on virtually all of the key dimensions of human material well-being—poverty, literacy, health, freedom, and education—the world is an extraordinarily better place than it was just a couple of centuries ago." https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2017/11/30/why-the-world-is-getting-better-why-hardly-anyone-knows-it/#2da495147826 https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2017/11/30/why-the... Lots more examples. But if you primarily get your impression of the "state of the world" from news sources, you get exactly the opposite impression. "If it bleeds, it leads" Or from the Forbes article, "The media does not tell us how the world is changing, it tells us where the world is going wrong. It tends to focus on single events particularly single events that have gone bad. By contrast, positive developments happen slowly with no particular event to promote in a headline. “More people are healthy today than yesterday,” just doesn’t cut it."

IshKebab 8y ago
People are much better off. The world (the natural environment) is not. And the effects of its destruction haven't started affecting people too much yet but it will.
kibwen 8y ago
Citing that source is a bit tone-deaf considering that it concludes with the following: "Obviously big problems remain. Having 1 out of 10 people living in extreme poverty today is unacceptable. Humanity’s impact on the environment is at a level that is not sustainable and we urgently need to reduce our impact. Continuing threats to our political freedom and liberty must be dealt with." Considering that the NYT articles that get the most traction here are about the environment (such as this very one), poverty/income inequality, and politics, trying to wave away these articles as fearmongering with "don't worry, the world is better!" is particularly counter-productive to actually making the world a better place.
- kbutler 8y ago
  Yes, every article that describes progress and a good situation has an obligatory disclaimer that problems remain. Articles describing problems do not generally have a recognition of progress made. Recognizing that the world is a much better place than in previous centuries does not imply that everyone is in a good place, or that we have no improvements to make. We've done great things! Now do better!
revscat 8y ago
Fine. Show me where insect populations have not been decimated. Find a environment where glaciation is increasing, or record low temperatures are being consistently recorded year over year. Short term gains over medium term doom is hardly something to brag about.
- arethuza 8y ago
  We moved to a house in the country about 2 years ago and it seems to be in a small oasis of insect life - I suspect that because it's quite rather hilly it is low intensity cow and sheep farming with a lot of scrub and woodland. Going by prevailing winds its probably 15km (mostly over sea) to the nearest areas with more intensive arable farming. It's very noticeable that we have more insects here than surrounding areas. For the avoidance of doubt: I'm not disagreeing with the article!
- kbutler 8y ago
  The origin of this thread was NY Times emphasis on doom and gloom. The reason is that it sells, even if the world as a whole is getting better. For your specific points: Yes, it looks like overall insect populations are down (and more than just decimated). But note that projections of insects thriving because of global warming are also framed as bad news: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/climate/insects-eating-more-crops.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/climate/insects-eating-mo... https://phys.org/news/2018-08-global-insects-crops.html https://phys.org/news/2018-08-global-insects-crops.html "environment where glaciation is increasing": Greenland 2018 "large net mass gain for the ice sheet in 2018 of 150 billion tons" https://nsidc.org/greenland-today/ https://nsidc.org/greenland-today/ (the exception that proves the rule, if you like). But note that if we start our glacier baseline at the end of the little ice age, we'd expect a lot of glacial retreat simply from reversion to the mean. Record temperatures is really not a good indicator (weather, not climate), especially with the bias of increased urbanization, but the southeast US is getting colder https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/02/20/defying-climate-change-southeast-u-s-is-getting-colder-instead-of-warmer-via-polar-vortex/#77672555f84c https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/02/20/defying-c... and note that the list of coldest temperatures recorded includes many in the 2010s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records#Lowest_temperatures_recorded https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records#Lowest... If you want to frame global warming in a more positive light, the temperature changes in the world up to this point have been overwhelmingly positive. The climate of the 1800s was too cold in much of the breadbasket regions of the world. Temperatures overall have moderated (warmer colds) rather than become more extreme (hotter hots) (which is consistent with CO2-influenced warming). That isn't to say that all warming is beneficial, that future warming will be beneficial, or that CO2 doesn't influence the climate. Just that there's a lot more reporting of the "dooooom" than of the "look how much progress we've made".