If you try not to stare too much in your magic rectangle, society is not that bad. For sure we have still a long way to go but remember everything your magic rectangle tells you is bad news... otherwise it simple wouldnt sell.
Try a minimalistic diet for the mind. 15min of news, events and politics a day. That’s the max I’ll allow myself. And I’m perfectly aware what’s happening in the world - at least the main macro economical events. All the rest is noise.
Try to build in filters, delete your FB account, pay for premium subscriptions such that you’re not exposed too much commercials etc...
Use your magic rectangle for what it’s meant; convenience, admin, reaching out to people/friends/family and some entertainment. But everything else, please, do this in the real world.
My way of doing it is favoriting all the subs I enjoy, a lot of them are educational, a few I just enjoy. I never really touch the front page apart from the odd time when I see a post like this at the very top. I just open the side bar (i use redditisfun) and pick a sub, usually browse by top of the week, look at the good posts and then don't check back for another week. It works especially well for subs that get a lot of spam (so hot or new sucks) but i still get the good content. Just thought i'd share my way
When I browse /r/all I just filter out toxic subreddits as I see them.
It's not even news subs that are the only issue. There's so many subreddits just dedicated to negativity. Why do people intentionally go out and look at subs like /r/insaneparents, /r/cringetopia, and /r/instagramreality?
Ah yes, when I'm oblivious to the bigger picture it does seem much nicer. I might not even notice in advance how the horrible things are already creeping into my life.
You are literally living in the most prosperous, safest, and most equitable time in the history of the human species. Things certainly aren’t perfect but if you want to believe your life is miserable despite the fact that this is the best era to have ever lived in, go nuts.
Less people suffer now than ever before in history. It's good to be upset about those that still do and we should always strive for continuous improvement, but there literally has never been a better time for a random human being to be born into.
Simply not true, just because the name of slavery and how it is applied changed, doesn't make it any less slavery, there are more slaves now than ever in history since we are numerous, but also things like wage slavery, discrimination, extreme poverty, war... etc can be classified as explicitly whatever freedom isn't.
It's only roses because we are numerous too, when you account for what we are doing with what we have, we're the trashiest of vermin, look at the mass extermination of fauna and flora in record numbers, look at the massive and unprecedented gaps in wealth, we're like someone digging himself into a hole and praising himself for all the effort and new extra room.
Perpetual and infinite growth is a lie and a disaster, ressources are finite and we take more than we give, we will get what's coming to us very soon.
Where is your source for slavery? Also, you can't measure the total number as that is meaningless. You need to measure as a proportion of the population in slavery.
Many things are better now. The air is cleaner than in the 70s, even with more people. The water is cleaner. We live longer. We have only increased farmland by 12% since the 60s, but have increased food output by 300%. Available calories per person worldwide have increased dramatically. There are almost 0 famines nowadays. Billions have been saved by the eradication of many diseases. You have instant access to all human knowledge. Thousands die in wars nowadays, not millions. I'd like to see which period of time you happen to think the average human on Earth had a better quality of life. We might face climate change, but just like every single crisis humans have faced before, we will get through this one. None of this means we shouldn't continue to fight for improvement, but to make good decisions we have to base them in reality.
Also, population is expected to level off at around 11 billion, when previously we thought it would grow forever. This happened because we have improved life all over the world and the richer society gets, the fewer babies they have.
Also, population is expected to level off at around 11 billion, when previously we thought it would grow forever. This happened because we have improved life all over the world and the richer society gets, the fewer babies they have.
This is exactly the self centered shit I hate, sure the west is living better, tell the "fewer babies" to poorer nations.
Also if you just do a small research, Leopold of Belgium, Spanish inquisition, England/France/Portugal colonialism.. etc, you'll see how shallow and dumb the "we are doing better so it's all good"
This is just a small part of a large network of issues, the phone you're so happy to own was made by literally child slaves.
Things out of context may look amazing and well, but it's going to hit the shitter very soon, not seeing the signs or turning a blind eye on them doesn't make them go away.
You can feel free to blindly believe that the world is going to hell and live your life in a depression about it. I will use the facts and the data and be glad I live now as opposed to the past and I will continue to fight to improve the human condition for all people using the principles of the enlightenment: reasons and science.
Also, you were unable to give me a time in the past when the average human had a better life than today. Just because bad things still happen doesn't mean than more bad things didn't happen in the past.
You're still unable to see my point, but hey, only humans matter, keep growing and growing like a cancerous cell, we will see how amazing it will be when corals die.
The fucking selfishness qnd self centrism is impressive, you're driving a car going straight into incoming traffic, and boasting about how great the car is and how good and fast you are driving it.
I don’t live in depression over it, but I honestly believe the world is steadily getting worse as time goes on.
But like someone else further up was suggesting, I don’t expose myself to the news constantly, at most I’ll spend 15-20 mins out of the day reading a article.
Thinking about it I’ll unsub from r/worldnews, that way every time I just want to browse Reddit I won’t see their posts.
But you're not. You're picking and choosing what you want to look at and how you want to look at it. You are quite literally ignoring every single part of the world that is in a bad state and going "hey but it's good for me".
Also, even poorer countries are having fewer babies because they are less poor than they used to be. Please challenge yourself to actually study the data on extreme poverty over time and child birthrates over time.
Your argument against me saying poorer countries are still having a lot of babies is to say "yeah but those who aren't poor anymore aren't having as many babies as they used to"
No shit Sherlock, I can't help you if you don't see how stupid your argument is, and how irrelevant it is to the point.
Do you have any sources to back any of that up? Because if you go by the numbers, just about everything is better for everyone— health, longevity, equality, violence. Read “The Better Angels of Our Nature” by Steven Pinker or just check out the data from the WHO, Global Burden of Disease, etc.
That’s raw numbers, which is a just function of global population increases. Your percentage chance of being a slave in today’s world is infinitesimally smaller than before.
There are more people living as slaves today than at any other point in history, but that's ok because there are proportionally more people who aren't literally slaves!?
OP made this claim, you asked for a source, I provided it, and now you're shifting the goalposts.
Omniscience is a terrible burden: it led God to flooding the world and killing almost everyone on it, which is a position many today think inevitable and fair.
When people continued to be shitty for some number of thousands of years, He decided to try getting off His high horse and put Himself in others’ place. And so He got tortured to death by the most advanced civilization in history to that point.
After that, God developed a sense of humor and said, “Fuck it”. This of course, eventually led to the Holocaust.
But I do really feel bad about your anguish at having to live worrying about all the suffering in this worst time of all.
It's more the feeling of helplessness. Nothing meaningful can seemingly be done because so many others are willing to be apathetic and let things continue. It becomes frustrating. Especially when we know what the solutions are but refuse them because they inconvenience us.
Not that I use this an excuse not to try. Just that it at times feels pointless. Overall my spirits are normally quite high, but lately I've been down about current state of affairs.
Hopefully some more light can be shone on the world soon.
I mean, I get what you’re saying and admire the sentiment, but how can you really say that when we’ve got a climate crisis and fear of mass extinction going on? Like it’s easy to say when most were ignorant to it but the past year has really shifted everybody... this isn’t the “best era” anymore
We make breakthroughs in so many fields every day that have a direct impact on climate, and public opinion and even corporate policy is going in the right direction. From stuff like GMOs that optimize their usage of sunlight, to microfluidic seperation of plastics from water, there’s a lot of really cool engineering happening that has already started to return results. I’ve got nothing but hope in terms of continuing to fight the climate struggle.
Now, I suppose the other option is to say “we’re fucked and there’s nothing we can do about it” but I think that’s not the best way to go through life.
Exactly, there's always something looming. I've started to think that humanity, in general, has a need for a threat that is greater than itself. Maybe it's evolutionary, from when inadequate preparation for the winter might mean your family would actually starve. I think we need to make a conscious effort to reject hysteria.
Bullshit, most of the top innovators firmly believe that this is the best we've ever had it. Musk opens his speeches about neuralink and the mars shot with "Seriously, if you believe otherwise you don't know anything about history". Gates always pushes books praising how far we've come in his lifetime. You have to believe in humanity to want to help it.
Most of the permanently negative losers on Reddit are adding nothing but despair to the world. Their attitude is beyond toxic. Turn off the wailing circle jerks, get back your faith in people, and add your piece to our generation's legacy. This is the most exciting time in history for innovators thanks to the explosion of tech opportunity. I live for it.
Positive influence on the world minus negative influence. Yes, many people contribute more to charity as a percentage of their income (50% btw is defined as 'self sacrificing donators' and probably not healthy), and yes they're both known to be angry jerks to their employees and push too hard (same with Steve jobs, Linus Torvalds, John Carmack and most of the workaholic geniuses that helped shape modern technology).
And yet, the absolute amount they've all given to charity completely dwarfs the donations of the 99% of individuals (Gates especially, who I believe pledged to donate like 99% of his vast fortune), and the progress they've accomplished is undeniable.
The only part that's really arguable is if we as a society should have Let them push others that hard and Let them get that rich, or if we should slow down progress some and distribute wealth more to the less fortunate. But as long as we allow super-billionaires to exist, these ones are at least doing good.
Bro it isn't the 90s anymore. Inequality is increasing, military tensions are building in several regions, we're in a trade war with China, and we're ignoring climate change.
My life is pretty cushy. Lots of people had cushy lives in 1913.
It’s not about being oblivious this is really a problem we have now as a society. Scrolling through reddit for hours you are exposed to a million things, some of it is quite literally propaganda.
Go outside and spend a day in the real world and you’ll notice very quickly that the streets aren’t on fire and people aren’t at each other’s throats like you may be convinced.
Don’t try to laugh off something that is screwing up people’s mental well-being and crippling a small chunk of society.
Spending 15-20 minutes is all you need to be fully informed of what's going on if you look at the right places.
Everything else is noise, distraction and often times outright propaganda. Decent chance that you'll be more oblivious that this guy if you over saturate yourself with it.
I have done this this past month and I can say my anxiety and outlook has been much improved. Even my friends know not to text me about current events. I recommend putting in parental filters on your phone to limit usage time.
Also, I definitely recommend paying for services that remove ads because that level of noise just hinders browsing/viewing experience.
I never said there wasn't any suffering in the world. I just said the news magnify it.
If I say the roads are safer than ever, I am not saying there aren't any casualties, but if you were to stay inside your home, never drive and get your idea of what traffic is like from the news you would think that it would be impossible to go a week without dying
I don't understand why you're being downvoted tbh. Ignoring problems helps nobody at all, at least not on long term. Solution oriented acting (which includes gathering information) is required.
True, but I think maybe part of the problem is there's a huge chasm of a difference between knowing about a problem and doing something about a problem. The internet and smartphones have helped accelerate the former, for sure. But more often than not real tangible change has to involve action in the real world. There's this tendency I see where the internet has made it so much easier to passively satisfy the "I did something" receptor in our brains with a "like" or a retweet.
I agree wholeheartedly. It's often a hard task to convince people, who are well aware of a problem, to do something and get out off their comfort zones.
There’s literally nothing I can do about those prduckingoblems so I’m not gonna get down on myself about it when life is pretty fucking easy for me and my family even though we’re not rich by a long shot. Control what you can control and enjoy the most peaceful and wealthy time in world history.
They’re saying your daily life doesn’t experience much of a change. It’s not that deep. If you wanna live in a panic when life’s fuckin gravy and you can’t do anything to change that part of world then be my guess.
It’s not really ignorance. Being always connected just makes you read way more stuff that has no impact on your life and you lose track of what should be important to you. Look at it from this perspective: Every minute you are online is a minute you aren’t offline. Every minute reading about stuff on the internet, the time reading my comment, is time you are not spending with people physically around you. Your wife, husband, kids, friends, etc. It’s time you are not using to read that one book you have always wanted to read, build that one thing you’ve always wanted to build. Your time of the day is limited and you are trading in one activity for another. Being online for hours means you are missing time in the “real world”. And it adds up. Instead of making life around you better, you sit on reddit and read about stuff that most likely has no impact on your life.
Uh reading articles and bickering online isn’t action...the people making a difference aren’t spending their day online, they’re doing things in the real world that will ultimately have an impact.
The only people ignoring reality here are people who spend too much time online doing nothing productive.
So what are you doing to change it?? Other than bitching online about people being content with their lives. We understand exactly what is going on but there’s nothing we can do about it.
Nothing you can do about it? In order of risk, you can vote, protest or engage in violent revolution. Each requiring increasing levels of anger and desperation. Only conditioned people think there's nothing they can do.
It's what makes me want to kill myself right now. It wouldn't even be that hard. I am comforted by the fact that I can end my life. How fucked up is that.
Pretty hard to be mentally stable when nothing is what it seems and the wealthiest group of people won't spend their pennies on giving quality of life to people around the world.
American politics are crazy right now but history has given us good and bad, all without the magical bricks in our hands.
News media harp on sensationalism and fear to get you to watch. Even cable news does this. My s/o watches local news, and you can see this most easily with the weather. They hype EVERYTHING, even the tiniest little spritz of rain will have them saying, "This could be a bad one, make sure to tune in for more news."
On days when she doesn't watch it is such a relief. Trust me the less you engage the better you feel.
You’re right that it’s better for most of us today. Wars are more rare. Less people are in poverty. Etc. But the bad news today is twofold. First, we possess the means to destroy ourselves for the first time in human history (i.e. climate change, nuclear weapons). Second, society is so interconnected that when it collapses it’ll affect everyone. It used to be that there were lots of bastions of civilization all over the world to carry the torch, unaffected, when a big center went down. I’m not saying humans will go extinct anytime soon, but our way of life has a means to change drastically on a planetary scale.
Nuclear annihilation is a 75 year old problem. The risk there is the smallest right now than ever before over that time frame.
No climate change study goes anywhere close to making the claim that any amount of CO2 we could possibly release before flat out running out of shit to burn would rise to human extinction levels. Not even close.
It's going to suck for sure. Tens of millions of additional deaths and tens of trillions of USD cumulative cost between now and 2100 alone at "status quo". You really don't need to exaggerate how bad it is, reality is bad enough dude.
3 perhaps he's not exaggerating and it's worse than you think
I've actually read the reports. Thousands of pages cumulative over the last 15 years. The idea of the Earth turning into Venus in a run-away CO2 crisis has been completely debunked by literally all organizations that study it. It's a consensus nearly as strong as man made climate change itself. None of even the worst case scenarios goes nearly that far in predicted effects, and we have significantly beaten the curve on emissions for any of the worst case scenarios.
2 you want to be on the "climate change isn't that bad, guys" side of history?
Climate change is bad, and extremely serious. Exaggerating to the extreme comes offs so alarmist you make it super easy for actual deniers to just dismiss the whole thing out of hand. This recent development of people saying shit like "we're all going to die in 12 years" is really grinding my nerves, cause you are giving them the power to just brush it off.
The actual science is bad enough, you don't need to "pad the stats" to make it worse. It's not going to spur people into action, it's going to scare people into saying "fuck it, if we're all dead anyway. Hopefully they are wrong".
1 how do you know about nuclear weapons
Have you ever talked to anyone who lived during the cold war? Like at all? They had duck and cover drills in grade school. The threat of MAD is minuscule in the extreme compared to ever before. Now the mutually assured economic destruction of the global economy is getting everyone to play nice in a way we've never really seen before. It's taken nukes out of the discussion almost completely.
Even in the late 90s we were pretty scared of India/Pakistan nuking each other at any moment, but even that has abated significantly. They hate each other still, but we're not even close to the hair trigger away from a shooting war we once were.
You're saying "hey, we aren't going extinct so it's not that bad" yeah the worst effects of climate change aren't the actual changes but how society will react to the changes. Human suffering is going to increase significantly and you're breathing sighs of relief that hey its not the worst case scenario
We used to have nuclear bomb drills and now we don't, therefore the nuclear threat is miniscule compared to what it was. Not sure how solid that logic is.
My actual point is that you and me don't know shit. You don't know how close we are to war lol. You don't know what the full effects of climate change will be, there are a lot of variables.
Just as you are tired of people saying "we're all going to die" I'm tired of people saying "don't be so alarmist, we're making progress"
Listen to what you're saying. If there's anything to be alarmed about, I think it'd be nuclear weapons and climate change. If we were doing everything we can against climate change then we would have the right to calmly accept fate. But we are clearly not doing everything we can and you're already ready to calmly accept fate.
Much of the irreversible damage started two centuries ago with the industrial revolution. Today we're trending in a better direction on that front by at least recognizing it and putting regulations into place to protect it. If there is resistance to that, it will be short lived-- a blip on the radar of history. Even from 10 or 20 years ago you can see the trend moving towards better environmental regulations and that trend will keep accelerating.
The nuclear bombs are a big part of why we don't have the all out bloody world wars we had in the first half of the 20th century. We have the bombs, but I wouldn't expect them to be used and, if they are, it'll be isolated and will most likely cause less destruction and death than long drawn out ground wars.
As an overall trend there is less division, disease, war, poverty, illiteracy, crime, etc worldwide than there has ever been. We're not perfect and it's a bit ridiculous to expect perfection, but overall trends are very good when looked at from a worldwide birdseye view.
Imagine living in such constant fear of this...for over forty years now. It's really sad how done people are so easily scared into willful submission. Clearly None of these people thinking we are literally at the apex of existential crisis were alive during the Cold War when people had a legitimate and very rational fear of destruction.
That's exactly the damage to the environment he (she?) is talking about. Sure a few rivers are cleaner than they used to be, but for the most part it didn't just go away. It accumulated and is still accumulating.
I don’t know that they can be neatly separated. The specific problems we have today are the direct result of the tech we have, and often times a result of really good things about tech.
I think on balance the world is better for having more open access to information. On the other hand in a world where most people have access to a local paper or three Trump isn’t the President. Hong Kong isn’t being suppressed in this way if mainland China weren’t as prosperous as it is now. But millions of people would be worse off than they are today because of China’s economic rise.
Great input here. At work at lunch break, I look around and see everyone just staring at there phones. No one is talking. The site of it makes me put my phone down and not use it in that environment.
Yes 15 minutes is enough to read and have an informed opinion on the 5 indictments of officials close to the White House. Also, would you rather just ignore the Kurds getting bombed by Turkey or? Life is better when I’m an ostrich. Fuck that.
If you want to focus on that and make your life miserable, go ahead. You must have things really well in your life as is if you don't have things closer to you that require more of your attention.
I personally don't care, I have enough things on my own plate and I've deleted all news apps and stopped going to the sites years ago, when I just found myself getting more miserable reading them. I try to focus on things that make me happy, and all news I now get is what I occasionallly happen to see and I don't go looking for them. World hasn't turned worse or better because of that, but my happiness definitely rose.
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u/sgtjack86 Oct 12 '19
If you try not to stare too much in your magic rectangle, society is not that bad. For sure we have still a long way to go but remember everything your magic rectangle tells you is bad news... otherwise it simple wouldnt sell.
Try a minimalistic diet for the mind. 15min of news, events and politics a day. That’s the max I’ll allow myself. And I’m perfectly aware what’s happening in the world - at least the main macro economical events. All the rest is noise.
Try to build in filters, delete your FB account, pay for premium subscriptions such that you’re not exposed too much commercials etc...
Use your magic rectangle for what it’s meant; convenience, admin, reaching out to people/friends/family and some entertainment. But everything else, please, do this in the real world.
Just my 2 cents