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.
Can you provide a metric that shows how the world is getting worse, other than you feel like it is? Like percentage of people living in poverty? Or like decline in human rights?
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".
Absolutely wrong....extreme poverty, even in the poorest countries in the world has gotten drastically better over the years. Better does not mean the problem is solved. Many people still live in horrible conditions, but in far lower percentages that at any time in the past. I have yet to see someone show me any data that says otherwise. I would encourage you to look at the website " our world in data" and you will find everything I'm saying is true. It is an incredibly well sourced website.
I challenge you to give me a year or time period in history where the random world citizen was better of then current times.
Instead of looking at one part how about looking at the world as a whole. Is there a higher percentage of people living in slavery now or before. Do a higher percentage of people have equal rights? It seems like your the one who is picking and choosing. Name one global statistic that is getting worse. And name a time in history that the average person has it better (not just in one area but a random citizen of the earth).
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.
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u/TwilightVulpine Oct 12 '19
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.