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The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better
- johngossman 3y agoGood article. I agree with the sentiment. It is easy to be pessimistic, and it is dangerous to be complacent. Recognizing that progress is occurring should motivate future actions, whereas believing the world is inevitably getting worse, or that it will get better on its own, can lead one to give up or withdraw from the world. I caveat this praise with my now instinctive skepticism of all of these EA projects coming out of Oxford. It feels like an overfunded set of charities.
- phrotoma 3y agohow is this article dated 2018 using statistics dated 2021?
- dang 3y agoRelated: The world is awful, the world is much better, the world can be much better - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32173146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32173146 - July 2022 (121 comments)
- BadHumans 3y agoThe world is awful. Millions of children die each year. The world is much better. Even though children die, we don't have nearly as many as we used to. The world can be much better. Most of these child deaths are preventable. This is how I view the world and it is why it upsets me when people voice concern about crime in a city or something like that and people respond with "ACKSHUALLY" followed by some sort of statistic. It feels like people just want to stay stuck but as the author says "to see that a better world is possible, we need to see that both are true at the same time: the world is awful, and the world is much better." Being too dismissive of certain concerns is just as bad as being too pessimistic.
- ethanbond 3y agoUsually when people are complaining about crime in a city they literally do not know the facts. That's very different from "things are factually better than they've ever been, but we can and should do much better."
- colechristensen 3y agoThe two groups that talk about crime are more or less equal in their self-delusion. The left-wing folks aggressively deny there is any sort of problem and the right-wing folks insist such and such a place is a warzone and anyone who goes there should be afraid. Mind you there are plenty of people who are fairly reasonable who you don't see talking about these things publicly much, usually because the people who respond are so very obnoxious. You have people denying reality vs. people exaggerating it, neither really have very good information. I have personally experienced both. I left a formerly nicer neighborhood that took a turn to avoid robberies and too frequent gun shots for downtown where I feel much safer... and manage to offend both sides when I mention this.
- whstl 3y agoYep. It’s like this for lots of other subjects. From war to paper straws. Not saying whether it is wrong or right, but: it is often people trying to move the Overton window, or people getting manipulated by window movers.
- zeroCalories 3y agoThese are contradictory statements because they are politically loaded. The "things are alright, and are getting better, but we can do even better" party doesn't energize people, and no one wants to be that party, even if it accurately describes things.
- StopTheTechies 3y agoI mean if being politically energizing is all you care about, just court folks scared of immigration. Of course if you actually want to not make the world worse you need to argue for a better world. Liberals seem literally and generally incapable of this basic task.
- 082349872349872 3y agoI'm looking forward to the TAAAAGBBWCDEB Party rallies: — What do we want? — Gradual change! — When do we want it? — In due course! I appreciate the local approach to referenda. A referendum can be brought "solve X with Y!", but the government then has a chance to say, "we agree that X is a problem, but we think it'd be more effectively addressed via Z". Then we all vote for either Y, or Z, or (the most popular response) "X ain't so broke; don't fix it"
- akkad33 3y agoThe book [factfulness](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34890015-factfulness https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34890015-factfulness) is precisely about this. They present how the world is improving in an irrefutable way but media and politicians would only focus on the negative. The authors are Swedish, so they talk first hand about Sweden, and their experiences how drastically Sweden changed in the last 2 generations is amazing
- bryanlarsen 3y agoAn even better book recommendation (if you like the article) is "Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet" by Hannah Ritchie. Hannah Ritchie is head of research for ourworldindata.org; the book grew very directly out of the linked article. Ritchie credits a lecture by Hans Rosling (one of the authors of Factfulness) in the forward for being what turned her from a pessimistic biology student into the person that writes a book like this. A common criticism of the linked article is that "sure child mortality is going down, but what about X". Where X is climate change, species decline, quality of life, et cetera. The book addresses most "X"'s.
- ebcode 3y agoNot sure if this is the same lecture that Ritchie cites, but for anyone who hasn't seen this one by Rosling, it's worth a watch: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_best_stats_you_ve...
- StopTheTechies 3y ago> They present how the world is improving in an irrefutable way but media and politicians would only focus on the negative People are allowed to have their own opinions about what to value in the world. The idea of "irrefutable proof" the world has improved is completely asinine and counter productive... at best, and at worse just straight marketing for the ruling class.
- maximinus_thrax 3y agoEveryone reading Factfulness should also take a look at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328759928_Good_Things_on_the_Rise_The_One-Sided_Worldview_of_Hans_Rosling_Translation_of_an_essay_published_in_Kvartal_Sept_20_2018_httpskvartalseartiklarbra-saker-pa-uppgang-roslings-varldsbild-ar-ensidigt-pos https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328759928_Good_Thin... I've always regarded this book as being blatant neoliberal propaganda.
- paganel 3y agoThe part of 4.4% children worldwide die vs. in the European Union 0.47% of all children die forgets to mention that the EU has much, much fewer children (comparatively speaking, as in children per women) compared to the places where child mortality rate is still (comparatively) high, i.e. places like Central and East Africa. Which is to say that were we to really want to make Africa reach European levels of (lower) child mortality that would also mean that the same Africa will start have much fewer children, at the same levels Europe is right now, which, adding it all up, means that we will end up having fewer children as a whole (for our entire planet, that is). Which means that this policy of trying to make the world "better" would end up actually making it worst, that is it will make us (the human species) have (much) fewer children in the future.
- throw3450 3y agoHaving fewer children globally would make the world a better place. Less people with better quality of life is better than more with much worse quality of life.
- huytersd 3y agoBirth rates in Africa are already on their slow journey to decline. At the very least they’re dropping. Maybe we can expect a similar trajectory to India that reduced its birth rate from 6 to below replacement rate of 1.9 in about 20 years.
- johngossman 3y agoThis sort of utilitarian calculus isn’t even believed by utilitarians. Simply having more people doesn’t make the world better (or worse.) This comment reminds me of the Robert Silverberg novel “The World Inside” where the world is dominated by a belief that reproduction is the highest good.
- paganel 3y ago> Simply having more people doesn’t make the world better That's literally what the original post says, that we should have more children alive (by less of them dying). I tried explaining how trying to have less children die will make us have fewer (alive) children as a whole. I have also not mentioned anything about utilitarianism, I was following Max Roser's logic on this (I personally find that a Northern guy like Roser writing about what Africa should do about its children is pretty colonialist, but that's not relevant to this post).
- opportune 3y agoOne day we’ll collectively realize how damaging constant access to “news” (in the modern day, engagement-optimized despair/outrage/fear porn) is on our mental health. Until then we’ll never be able to square the circle of how things can be so bad while our actual immediate lives are perfectly fine
- vitiral 3y agoTao Te Ching 29, Stephen Mitchell Do you want to improve the world? I don’t think it can be done. The world is sacred. It can’t be improved. If you tamper with it, you’ll ruin it. If you treat it like an object, you’ll lose it.
- swayvil 3y agoI think you can improve yourself. Is that the same as improving the world? I mean, if you are a worm then you see the world through worm's eyes. Then, if you become a butterfly, you see the world through butterfly's eyes. So the world is transformed for the better. Right?
- vitiral 3y agoHere's my take You are part of the world. You change and improve and also decay and die. These things are natural, they do not need to be forced. Sometimes forcing something makes it happen faster, but oftentimes its like forcing taking a shit: you just end up more constipated. Here's the principal: be able to wait until the right action arises on it's own. Perform the action and step away. You are a human, a complex biological organism. Actions are part of your nature. Let your emotions and actions happen with serenity and grace. There is nothing to gain by forcing them except to create your own constipation.
- mistermann 3y agoWatch out for Chapter 1 though. ;) The TTC is very crafty, almost like it's testing you to see if you're paying attention.
- 29athrowaway 3y agoThe world will end in a technologically enabled autocracy, with private robot armies controlled by the elites that enslave humanity and cull the population. Democracy will be obsolete soon once mass media and social media can manipulate people at will, via AI agents of misinformation. Technology augments individuals and given sufficient augmentation, the power of one individual will be larger than the power of millions. This is already the case economically and politically, and that will soon be the case militarily.
- wsintra2022 3y agoI think that may be a key point. People (a large percentage of people) can be manipulated at the flick of a switch due to advancements in technology and science. Therefore democracy as an ideal must of died sometime around 2014
- pastacacioepepe 3y agoWhen was the last time "the people" were actually in charge? I think "democracy" died in ancient Greece, along with its actual meaning. The only modern interpretation that is consistent with the original meaning is a dictatorship of the proletariat.
- throwaway11460 3y agoAny "dictatorship of the proletariat" ended up as oligarchy very quickly.
- 29athrowaway 3y agoLike the mess after the French revolution?
- ulchar 3y agothat's some mind you have seeing into the future like that
- fauntle 3y ago
- seydor 3y agoA lot of awful things happen because some people think they can fix "the world". We can fix ourselves one by one, not all at once.
- PaulKeeble 3y agoThe world on big measures is going better than it has. I am constantly annoyed there are too many in power slowing process to actually do better. If we all wanted it to be better to avoid preventable deaths and disability we could make progress a lot faster than we do.
- chasing 3y agoBut what about that ragebait headline I read the other day? Clearly the entire system must be burnt to the ground.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- 1970-01-01 3y ago>It is wrong to think these three statements contradict each other. We need to see that they are all true to see that a better world is possible. I'll disagree with all of that. Awful, better, and improving are all measured differently, however these observations will push, pull, and merge with other observations. Quality of life is not so clean that we can dismiss any part of it as trivial.
- pastacacioepepe 3y agoThis is what shielded first world upper class tell themselves to not feel guilty, and at the same time to make sure that no actual change threatening the status quo that keeps them well fed happens too fast. You never hear someone struggling to pay rent or to buy groceries tell you "God bless we have it so much better than 150 years ago". Guess why?
- bryanlarsen 3y agoPeople who believe that the world is doomed no matter what don't spend any effort making the world better. People who believe the world is great as it is don't spend any effort making the world better. Only people who believe that the world should be better, AND that it is possible to make it better expend effort to make it better.
- pastacacioepepe 3y ago> Only people who believe that the world should be better, AND that it is possible to make it better expend effort to make it better. I agree, but saying the world is much better than in the past while it still has all the same basic problems (wars, hunger, preventable diseases, poverty, exploitation, etc) sounds to me just like privileged people patting themselves in the back. In the meantime, children die under bombs and starving.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoIt sounds like you read a different article than I did. The first line of the article: "The world is awful". Does that sound like people patting themselves on the back?
- trgn 3y agotangential to your point, and this seems trite, but the hippies were right after all. People need to imagine again. The ability to see a thing, in your minds eye, from all angles, without it having to be fully formed, without it having to be realized. Once you can imagine again, the future looks bright.
- kamma 3y ago100% of children would die. The world was awful, is awful and continue to be awful. We bring sentient beings to life to only subject them to the inevitable death.
- pestaa 3y agoNo, not all children die while being a child. Antinatalism (the philosophy that having kids is immoral) has nothing to do with life expectancy.
- epiccoleman 3y agoWhat a silly thought. I'll take my 40? 60? 80? 100? years of life over an eternity of nothingness any day of the week, thanks. The world sucks? Maybe so. It also contains food, love, music, children, laughter, grandparents, trees, cats, and just fuckin' pathos, man. Try not to waste it!
- archon1410 3y agoYou'll have an eternity of nothingness regardless of how many years of life you get. Perhaps you don't want only an eternity of nothingness. As for the pathos, I've a hard time believing it compensates for even a billionth of say, the suffering of an abused child. There's no doubt that it would have better (impersonally, as Derek Parfit used that word) if the world didn't exist. But now that you're here, might as well enjoy it, but perpetuating it doesn't seem wise.
- epiccoleman 3y ago> no doubt that it would have been better if the world didn't exist I strongly doubt this, for what little that's worth. Better by what metric? Better for whom?
- archon1410 3y ago> Better by what metric? Better for whom? From Derek Parfit's On What Matters, chapter 126 (Has It All Been Worth It?): > If someone dies a slow and painful death, it would have been both better for this person, and impersonally better, if this person’s life had ended earlier. The last part of this person’s life was worse than nothing, or in itself bad. We can reach similar conclusions about the whole of someone’s life. If someone’s life contains much prolonged suffering, and nothing or little that is good, it would have been both better for this person, and impersonally better, if this person’s life had ended just after it started. Things may be in one way different if we suppose instead that this person’s life had never even started. Perhaps we could not claim that this alternative would have been better for this person. But when we ask which alternative would have been impersonally better, there is little difference between these two comparisons. Since it would have been better if this person’s life had stopped just after it started, it would also have been better if this person’s life had never started. In other words, it would have been impersonally better if this wretched person had never existed. And since such claims make sense when applied to one person, they also make sense when applied to all conscious beings, or to the whole of reality. Parfit thinks it was/is worth it, given the good things in life, and using future improvements in QoL as one of the arguments. I don't. What amount of pathos, pleasure, love, beauty, could justify the life and suffering of even one person who say, was raped and murdered in childhood? It would be very difficult to justify the creation of a world given that tradeoff, but people are much hesitant to accept that it is unjustified now that it already exists.
- lapcat 3y agoFrom my perspective, global warming is the overriding problem, because time is running out to stop it. Maybe time has already run out, and it's too late to prevent the terrible consequences. In terms of other social problems, the world has gotten better in many respects, and it could continue to get better over time... given unlimited time. I'm just not sure that we have unlimited time. Wrecking our own ecosystem makes it very difficult to make progress on anything else, and the consequences of wrecking our ecosystem will only aggravate our other problems. That's why I'm overall pessimistic.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago> time has already run out, and it's too late to prevent the terrible consequences. Climate change is not a binary. We can choose how many terrible consequences it will have. It'll never be too late to prevent some terrible consequences.
- tovej 3y agoBy definition, there's a deadline for preventing something from happening. We're already in an extinction cycle, extinctions are happening at a rate of 100 to 1000 times the natural rate. And as for absolutes, total extinction of large mammals comes to mind as a consequence after which humanity can't really do anything.
- feoren 3y agoI think the possible outcomes of climate change (especially if we continue on our current trend) are unthinkably catastrophic, at worst including the potential deaths of a significant percentage of humanity. But there's still an enormous gap between that and "total extinction of large mammals". I don't think that's anywhere near a realistic consequence of climate change.
- nradov 3y agoThere is no conceivable future in which white-tailed deer become extinct in the next few centuries. We will probably lose some of the less resilient species, though.
- loughnane 3y agoDemagogues on the right, left, and along every axis make a living by shining a light on one of these and leaving others in darkness. We buy it because it's easy to pick a side when you're only looking at one angle, and easy feels better. The people who can see that we've got room for improvement without poo-pooing the gains that we've made are the best sort of people. Sadly that's the center and the center has a hard time keeping hold of most people's minds.
- bigfishrunning 3y agoI would argue that the center has a hard time keeping hold of the loudest people's minds. Most people are closer to the center then social media would have you believe.
- tovej 3y agoOur World in Data is a thinktank touting the same old progressivist agenda that's keeping us from solving climate change through degrowth. Case in point, they've released a blog post saying that carbon dioxide pollution is beginning to decouple from GDP growth, which is only weakly happening in a handful of countries with lots of alternative energy sources, and this is only because they haven't accounted all pollution due to consumption.
- pizzafeelsright 3y agoSolving the Malaria and vitamin A deficiency is noble, I suppose, but only addresses the underlying condition of death. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
- karaterobot 3y ago> Clearly, a world where thousands of tragedies happen every single day is awful. Here I will take the heartless position and say that it is not clear to me that this statement is true. I certainly agree that it's a tragedy for the people involved. But if 4.4% of children dying before age 15 means that the world is an awful place, at what point would that stop being true? 2.2%? 1E-10%? I don't think the world is an awful place, I think it's a good place, getting better in some ways, with a long way to go in many others.
- floodle 3y agoI agree, the statement is just poorly written. A qualifier like "awful" is only ever in relation to something else. Statement 3 (the world can be much better) is essentially a better formulation. 4.4% is awful in relation to 0.47%, which is possible.
- mistermann 3y agoConsider how the western world reacted when the harsh version of Mother Nature visited their lands temporarily during COVID...a few percentages sure seemed to be a big deal then. Luckily now that things are back to normal and people are thinking "rationally", we can once again see that it is not.
- xboxnolifes 3y agoThis was not a universally held position, so I don't see how it helps as a parallel in this case.
- mistermann 3y agoIn video games and sports, perfection of gameplay is often the difference between winning and losing, perhaps the same is true of the real world.
- kombookcha 3y agoThis doesn't just apply to covid - the reality is that a lot of global human suffering is being generated to prop up firstworld lifestyles, and the beneficiaries of that status quo have both material and psychological reasons for closing their eyes to it. People have a much easier time with telling themselves "sometimes suffering just happens and can't be helped" when the suffering is inflicted on strangers who are far away. The party can continue when you convince yourself there is no child in the cobalt mine, only cool new smartphone features.
- ChrisArchitect 3y ago(2023)
- bttrfl 3y agoIt is bad because I have a loan. It was worse because I had no money. It can be better because I could repay the loans. ... It is going to be a disaster but let my grandchildren worry about it.
- hmmmcurious1 3y agoI wonder how my children will live in this much better world where the climate is collapsing, a global war is looming, the spectre of unemployment due to automation is everywhere, surveillance will soon be unescapable with every person having a personal llm agent checking them, inequality soaring and so on. Eh who cares, my genes tell me they must move forward so uhh sucks for my kids I guess
- bryanlarsen 3y agoYour ancestors lived during the great depression, both world wars, the middle ages, et cetera. Surely many of them must have been pessimistic about the future, yet they all had kids...
- labrador 3y ago"Paradise is exactly like where you are right now... only much, much better" - Laurie Anderson, "Language Is a Virus from Outer Space"
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- archon1410 3y ago> lethal extremists > wipe these types off the map yeah... I agree with some of the sentiment but some self -awareness is also good. perhaps we should learn to love the lethal extremist inside us.
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- yhavr 3y agoThe world is not awful. The world just is. It's just humans create environment they don't understand and can't handle, and it takes them a lot of time and effort to even somehow organise it on a small piece of a land. And then it ruins, and then they construct it again, and cetera.
- mplewis 3y agoI mean, if you're rejecting that humans assign values to things around them, then nothing is anything.
- yhavr 3y agoWell, humans love too much assigning values to things around them, randomly-emotionally, and these values tell more about flaws of humans cognition, not the things itself. Say, one of cases of judgement about about "world" is something like "world became a better place" usually feels like a person thinks that some fundamental constants has changed, and changed irreversibly. So before humans managed to enslave and kill each other but now magically stopped. Slavery no more, democracy! And then putin starts a full-scale invalion on Ukraine, it's exception. And when exception turns into rule everyone forgets about their misprediction and postrationalises the new agenda (it was obvious that it's going to happen), it looks funny.
- xvedejas 3y agothe wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"
- philshem 3y agoFun fact: Our World in Data is a YC funded non-profit https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/our-world-in-data https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/our-world-in-data
- philshem 3y agotoo late to edit, but you can read about their 2019 experiences at YC here: https://ourworldindata.org/owid-at-ycombinator https://ourworldindata.org/owid-at-ycombinator
- partiallypro 3y agoWhen people focus on the positives, they aren't doing so to negate the negatives. They are doing so because many people are just factually wrong about things, like saying life was better in the 50s or something, which is just objectively false. One of the best ways to strive forward is optimism of the future and optimism about how far we've come; looking and longing for the past is not a great way to move forward or solve problems. That's one thing I didn't care about the opening statement. Sort of missed that point.
- wddkcs 3y ago'Better life' or 'worse life' is always subjective, there is no way to objectively quantify what makes one life 'better' than another. You could list every objective measure imaginable (life expectancy, education, access to opportunity, etc.) and you would not be close to capturing or defining 'a better life'. Human satisfaction is largely a felt quality, an emotion that transcends data points. Optimism is currently being used to fuel false political narratives. Any article on the topic can't help but feel political given the circumstances. Not just left vs. right, but capitalism vs. socialism, rich vs. poor, majority vs. minority. 'Things are better now then they ever have been' is an argument used in all those arenas. It's not am objective argument in any of them, it's a rhetorical device that advocates for the status quo. We shouldn't be optimistic or pessimistic about the future, we should be both.
- partiallypro 3y agoIt's not subjective if you're dead and/or live(d) in abject poverty. It is a subjective reality that life is better now than it was prior for practically everyone (in terms of standard of living, not in terms of tragic personal events), just because people view the past through rose-colored lenses doesn't negate that fact. No, we should be optimistic, that's not "political," in fact the opposite is true.
- wddkcs 3y ago>It is a subjective reality that life is better now than it was prior for practically everyone (in terms of standard of living, not in terms of tragic personal events) I assume you meant to 'objective reality', but that simply isn't the case. There are millions of people alive now that 'would prefer to be dead'. For them, life is objectively worse now than it would have been if they had been born 100, 200, 500 years ago. People in Libya are worse off than they were 20 years ago, by far, and those in Ukraine, Yemen, and Gaza are obviously in worse positions. Even leaving aside 'temporary conditions' like war, more people today are trapped in human slavery, or drug addiction, or any of a million other maladies that plague modern life. Life now is subjectively better than it was, as long as you're nowhere near the bottom of the distribution. But maybe you want to argue that the distribution is better overall? This is the same line of thinking that kills utilitarianism through the creation of a Utility Monster. The average distribution of suffering means nothing to the person experiencing suffering above that average. That people aren't starving anymore, means nothing, if those people are being fed by their slavemasters. Humans are as brutal now as they ever have been, and if anything, our technological and cultural progress has allowed barbarism on scales unimaginable to people even 200 years ago. It's that same technological progress that makes an even more horrifying future seem entirely probable. Outside of religious traditions, there is no overarching reason to believe things will get better for the average individual, and every reason to believe that power, wealth, and opportunity will continue to aggregate into the hands of a select few. Whether or not those few are willing or able to disperse their wealth and privilege is again a complete toss up. As such, taking an overly optimistic stance is simply asking to be taken advantage of by the same processes that have driven us to this point. Yes, humanity is better positioned than ever to satiate our physical needs, and yes, humanity seems closer than ever to losing everything we value, whether it's through nuclear war, AI abuse, bio-engineered plagues, or any of a hundred other horrifying hydra heads. Be optimistic, yes, but plan for the worst.
- mudlus 3y agoEvery point is a growth point, every point was a growth point.
- titzer 3y agoThe only optimists these days are humanists. Environmentalists generally think the planet is kind of screwed.
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- duckman1 3y agoMore children = More slaves Do not fall into the capitalistic rethoric.
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- zoogeny 3y agoAs an aside to this, I am reminded of paraconsistent logic systems [1] and three valued logic [2]. One quote I like from the three valued logic system, referencing Charles Sanders Peirce, states: > Peirce soundly rejected the idea all propositions must be either true or false; boundary-propositions, he writes, are "at the limit between P and not P." I also recall reading some description of Buddhist or Advaita Vedanta where logical systems that rejected the law of non-contradiction were explored. I can't find the exact reference, but I recall it was related to the Two Truths doctrine which leads me to believe it was explored by Nagarjuna. At any rate, the idea that two contradictory things can be true simultaneously is a very interesting area to explore. Edit: To add to the link list: Dialetheism [4] is the view that there are statements that are both true and false 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraconsistent_logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraconsistent_logic 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-valued_logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-valued_logic 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialetheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialetheism
- fodmap 3y agoI do recommend David Byrne's Reasons to be Cheerful https://reasonstobecheerful.world/ https://reasonstobecheerful.world/ a project that 'aims to inspire us all to be curious about how the world can be better, and to ask ourselves how we can be part of that change'.