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My new favorite book of all time

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Re: My new favorite book of all time

#31

Post by Diederich »

craftyguy wrote: post #21

> War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an effective deterrent to wars between nations. While this may have kept the 'superpowers' from engaging in direct warfare wit…

> an effective deterrent to wars between nations

Is this false? The last time I looked, the percentage of the human population afflicted by war has been shrinking.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#34

Post by pmelendez »

cs702 wrote: post #11

I read Pinker's previous book, "The Better Angels of Our Nature," and found it eye-opening; it changed the way I perceived the world. Highly recommended. (Here's a review: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/books/review/the-better-an... ) This book, his latest one, is now an automatic buy for me.

No wonder why Gates said "The Better Angels of Our Nature," was his all time favourite :)

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#35

Post by neves »

cs702 wrote: post #11

I read Pinker's previous book, "The Better Angels of Our Nature," and found it eye-opening; it changed the way I perceived the world. Highly recommended. (Here's a review: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/books/review/the-better-an... ) This book, his latest one, is now an automatic buy for me.

I'm also a fan of Pinker's books, but stopping to consider valuable when he writes the preface or recommends a book. I've got 2 terrible flops reading his recommendations. It looks like he'd recommend any friend that ask him.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#36

Post by JustAnotherPat »

meh, seems to me like the richest are biased into seeing a 'better' world because that reflects well on their influence.

But is the world really better relative to the progress we've made? I don't think you can use the sort of facts mentioned in the blurb as a case for the increase in Humanism.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#38

Post by dfmooreqqq »

jmilloy wrote: post #30
topleveldomain wrote: post #17

" War is illegal. This idea seems obvious. But before the creation of the United Nations in 1945, no institution had the power to stop countries from going to war with each other. Although there have been some exceptions, the threat of international sanctions and intervention has proven to be an effective deterrent to wars between nations." I would argue that something else that happened in 1945 has been a much bigge…

Yeah. It seems to me that it's not so much that "war is illegal" as "certain countries have declared a monopoly on force and have the means to enforce it." Or at least try to. That's probably a good thing, but it seems useful to me to approach it with a more accurate perspective.

"It seems to me that it's not so much that war "is illegal" as "certain countries have declared a monopoly on force and have the means to enforce it.""

In some lines of thought, that's the definition of illegal...

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#39

Post by coding123 »

melling wrote: post #15

I don’t get it. It’s a feel good book? Something more interesting would be learn how to more quickly improve the world. The world of 2100 could arrive in 2050, for example. Gates has around $100 billion to improve the world. How to most effectively leverage his money, for example? Build a better pharmaceutical company and cure some of the diseases on his list? Help to create better economies in Africa? [UPDATE] This…

Absolutely - even if everyone read this and suddenly feels complacent about our progress - what's next? Everyone is scared to talk about population growth - I mean at what point do we decide that we don't want to erase all unpopulated land simple because its there and fill it with humans. What about populations of wild animals - don't they get to share the earth with us? I feel like the movies about aliens coming and killing all humans is exactly how we treat animals on this planet. Just because they don't use verbal communication doesn't mean they should be slaughtered for our food. Why does progress always have to be pro-human?

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#40

Post by Fricken »

Pew research did a survey where it asked 42,000 people in 38 different nations how their day was. Respondents could answer 'particularly good', 'typical', or 'particulary bad'. Nigerians are having the best time, with 73% of respondents saying they were having a particularly good day. In Japan on 11% were having a particularly good day. The outcomes of this pew study correlate inversely with studies that objectively measure quality of life.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/02/particularly...

A ship is safe in harbour, but that's not what ships are for.

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