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I wonder why it is so hard for so many people to accept that the world is better than it ever has been, and is still getting better. You see this from every sid

I wonder why it is so hard for so many people to accept that the world is better than it ever has been, and is still getting better. You see this from every side of the political spectrum. Is being super cynical just a bug in our nature?

justaman 8y ago
Personal anecdote here. Socialists seem to reject the idea that capitalism has brought more general prosperity to the world more often than not when speaking in terms of life longevity and food availability. Its as if they don't want to admit the upsides of capitalism at the cost of rationality. I personally haven't seen this from the far right as I have the far left.
- yogthos 8y ago
  That's complete and utter nonsense. Capitalism works on slave labor plain and simple. The reason everything is made in third world countries is because they have no worker protections. Your clothing is made by some kids in Pakistan, your phone parts are made by suicidal workers at Foxconn, and so on. This is slavery in anything but name. Any countries that don't want to play in this system are systematically destroyed by US interventions. Just look at the history of South America as an example. It's a continuous stream of brutal coups and dictatorships instigated by CIA. Even domestically US now has a huge prison labor force that's become its own economy. You likely never experienced any of this personally, and never really wondered about the human cost of your lifestyle. A rational person would understand that a system where 1% of the population owns 99% of the wealth is not working for the common people around the world.
  - jelliclesfarm 8y ago
    You don’t seem to have an understanding of the concept of ‘slavery’. It’s a word that is used willy nilly these days. Collectivism by coercion is likely more apt to be considered slavery than free market capitalism
bogle 8y ago
The opinion piece was pointing out the flaws in the infographic's depiction of poverty, not any other metric. The poverty graph was clearly flawed as it made assumptions about most of the timeline. Recasting the data from 1981 failed to account for China, another point clearly made in the article.
blattimwind 8y ago
People that are 20-30 years old right now have always lived in a world where everyone told them that everything (food, economy, climate, pensions, planet, the middle east, ...) is going to shit and is getting worse and worse, even though this is patently not the case. (Just one example: when you have all these articles about how BAD food today is, consider that today you get clean + nutritious foods for very little money; malnutrition is actually hard to do! I can go out right now in winter and buy vegetables and fruits that prior generations simply did not have at all at this time of year -- but clearly everything's worse now!). This is pretty much the original form of clickbait.
mlthoughts2018 8y ago
The only case I can see is that as material suffering has decreased, psychological suffering has (possibly) increased. I know many people who make a lot of money, have abundant food, access to shelter, medicine, education, entertainment. And their self-reported emotional and psychological experience of life is hellish misery. I’m not disputing that by many metrics the world is much better now. But it does seem that we apply a certain set of assumptions about the subjective importance of some types of suffering vs others. Sometimes that’s justified, sometimes we are noseblind to how modern society foments a hellish introspective existence.
BucketSort 8y ago
Wild expectations driven by a culture of greed. People just want more and more and when they can't get it, everything is terrible. A life of comfort has basically incubated generations of immature childish people that have lost sight of what is really needed in life. I have personally talked to people that are well off but are stressed out because they can't afford to keep paying for an additional property they have. They get so caught up in maintaining what they have and getting more. This is particularly dramatic to me because all I want is a secure place to work and study. I feel very out of touch for not wanting all these things that people around me seem to fight tooth and nail for.
- neolefty 8y ago
  Yes, having wealth and not fretting about it — and finding truly important things to focus on — is a skill too!
lm28469 8y ago
Easier access to data + negative bias[0] = people thinking the world is a shit show (don't get me wrong it probably is in a lot places). That's what happens when you're blasted 24/7 with news about kidnappings / rapes / killings / terrorist attacks / natural disasters happening in far away places and which have 0 impact on your daily life & community. [0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200306/our-brains-negative-bias https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200306/our-brain...
yogthos 8y ago
Our planet is literally dying. We lost over 60% of land animals [1], insects are dying out as well [2], and life in the oceans isn't doing much better [3]. The temperatures keep rising at an accelerating rate. We're about to get a big methane burp once permafrost melts. That's gonna put 25 gigatons of a greenhouse gas that's 4x more powerful than C02 into the atmosphere. Currently there are about 4 gigatons of methane. Complex life on this planet could literally go extinct in the near future. All of this is a direct result of human activity. Thinknig that life around the world is getting better, and everything is fine is the height of idiocy. We're facing an unimaginable climate catastrophe that's going to affect every single person in the world. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/15/hyperalarming-study-shows-massive-insect-loss/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/15/hyperalarm... [3] https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)30772-3 https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)...
- jelliclesfarm 8y ago
  right. I agree with most of what you said. Altho all this is the result of human activity resulting from exponential increase in our population. And hence consumption. It’s not capitalism. It is uncurtailed procreation. Altho’ one might suggest that there is some correlation between capitalism and decrease in crushing poverty(leading to higher survivability) ..which will result in our eventual demise of our species(and others). The planet..however..will carry on.
  - yogthos 8y ago
    It's both though. Growth is the core tent of capitalism, and it promotes consumerism that in turn requires consumers. This ethos is what's killing us. And just to contrast for you. I grew up in USSR, and the focus there was on sustainability. Products were built to last because it cost the state a lot of resources to produce them. There was no drive to make products for the sake of making them, or to introduce insane ideas like planned obsolescence. A lot less resources were devoted to frivolousness as well. So for all its faults it was actually a much better system in this regard. It's also perfectly possible to aim for sustainability and to manage our population. Just look at how China managed to put a stop to its population growth. The problem is that the capitlist economic system is completely at odds with that because it requires constant growth.
douglaswlance 8y ago
Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt are what get clicks. Optimism doesn't spread virally.
iamkroot 8y ago
Seriously, it boggles the mind. Right now is the best time to be alive and it's not even remotely close. 20 years from now it will likely be even better. I mean, like 20 years ago HIV was still a death sentence. Now we have physicians saying they'd rather have HIV than diabetes. Just think about that!

justaman 8y ago

Personal anecdote here. Socialists seem to reject the idea that capitalism has brought more general prosperity to the world more often than not when speaking in terms of life longevity and food availability. Its as if they don't want to admit the upsides of capitalism at the cost of rationality. I personally haven't seen this from the far right as I have the far left.

yogthos 8y ago
That's complete and utter nonsense. Capitalism works on slave labor plain and simple. The reason everything is made in third world countries is because they have no worker protections. Your clothing is made by some kids in Pakistan, your phone parts are made by suicidal workers at Foxconn, and so on. This is slavery in anything but name. Any countries that don't want to play in this system are systematically destroyed by US interventions. Just look at the history of South America as an example. It's a continuous stream of brutal coups and dictatorships instigated by CIA. Even domestically US now has a huge prison labor force that's become its own economy. You likely never experienced any of this personally, and never really wondered about the human cost of your lifestyle. A rational person would understand that a system where 1% of the population owns 99% of the wealth is not working for the common people around the world.
- jelliclesfarm 8y ago
  You don’t seem to have an understanding of the concept of ‘slavery’. It’s a word that is used willy nilly these days. Collectivism by coercion is likely more apt to be considered slavery than free market capitalism

bogle 8y ago

The opinion piece was pointing out the flaws in the infographic's depiction of poverty, not any other metric. The poverty graph was clearly flawed as it made assumptions about most of the timeline. Recasting the data from 1981 failed to account for China, another point clearly made in the article.

blattimwind 8y ago

People that are 20-30 years old right now have always lived in a world where everyone told them that everything (food, economy, climate, pensions, planet, the middle east, ...) is going to shit and is getting worse and worse, even though this is patently not the case. (Just one example: when you have all these articles about how BAD food today is, consider that today you get clean + nutritious foods for very little money; malnutrition is actually hard to do! I can go out right now in winter and buy vegetables and fruits that prior generations simply did not have at all at this time of year -- but clearly everything's worse now!). This is pretty much the original form of clickbait.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

The only case I can see is that as material suffering has decreased, psychological suffering has (possibly) increased. I know many people who make a lot of money, have abundant food, access to shelter, medicine, education, entertainment. And their self-reported emotional and psychological experience of life is hellish misery. I’m not disputing that by many metrics the world is much better now. But it does seem that we apply a certain set of assumptions about the subjective importance of some types of suffering vs others. Sometimes that’s justified, sometimes we are noseblind to how modern society foments a hellish introspective existence.

BucketSort 8y ago

Wild expectations driven by a culture of greed. People just want more and more and when they can't get it, everything is terrible. A life of comfort has basically incubated generations of immature childish people that have lost sight of what is really needed in life. I have personally talked to people that are well off but are stressed out because they can't afford to keep paying for an additional property they have. They get so caught up in maintaining what they have and getting more. This is particularly dramatic to me because all I want is a secure place to work and study. I feel very out of touch for not wanting all these things that people around me seem to fight tooth and nail for.

neolefty 8y ago
Yes, having wealth and not fretting about it — and finding truly important things to focus on — is a skill too!

lm28469 8y ago

Easier access to data + negative bias[0] = people thinking the world is a shit show (don't get me wrong it probably is in a lot places). That's what happens when you're blasted 24/7 with news about kidnappings / rapes / killings / terrorist attacks / natural disasters happening in far away places and which have 0 impact on your daily life & community. [0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200306/our-brains-negative-bias https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200306/our-brain...

yogthos 8y ago

Our planet is literally dying. We lost over 60% of land animals [1], insects are dying out as well [2], and life in the oceans isn't doing much better [3]. The temperatures keep rising at an accelerating rate. We're about to get a big methane burp once permafrost melts. That's gonna put 25 gigatons of a greenhouse gas that's 4x more powerful than C02 into the atmosphere. Currently there are about 4 gigatons of methane. Complex life on this planet could literally go extinct in the near future. All of this is a direct result of human activity. Thinknig that life around the world is getting better, and everything is fine is the height of idiocy. We're facing an unimaginable climate catastrophe that's going to affect every single person in the world. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/15/hyperalarming-study-shows-massive-insect-loss/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/15/hyperalarm... [3] https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)30772-3 https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)...

jelliclesfarm 8y ago
right. I agree with most of what you said. Altho all this is the result of human activity resulting from exponential increase in our population. And hence consumption. It’s not capitalism. It is uncurtailed procreation. Altho’ one might suggest that there is some correlation between capitalism and decrease in crushing poverty(leading to higher survivability) ..which will result in our eventual demise of our species(and others). The planet..however..will carry on.
- yogthos 8y ago
  It's both though. Growth is the core tent of capitalism, and it promotes consumerism that in turn requires consumers. This ethos is what's killing us. And just to contrast for you. I grew up in USSR, and the focus there was on sustainability. Products were built to last because it cost the state a lot of resources to produce them. There was no drive to make products for the sake of making them, or to introduce insane ideas like planned obsolescence. A lot less resources were devoted to frivolousness as well. So for all its faults it was actually a much better system in this regard. It's also perfectly possible to aim for sustainability and to manage our population. Just look at how China managed to put a stop to its population growth. The problem is that the capitlist economic system is completely at odds with that because it requires constant growth.

douglaswlance 8y ago

Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt are what get clicks. Optimism doesn't spread virally.

iamkroot 8y ago

Seriously, it boggles the mind. Right now is the best time to be alive and it's not even remotely close. 20 years from now it will likely be even better. I mean, like 20 years ago HIV was still a death sentence. Now we have physicians saying they'd rather have HIV than diabetes. Just think about that!