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My new favorite book of all time

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Re: My new favorite book of all time

#81

Post by Santosh83 »

coding123 wrote: post #39
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…

I have yet to meet anyone who gave a good answer to this question. It is obvious that we (as a species) behave like this because we can get away with it. Plain & simple. Whether it is a good long-term strategy is unclear to our brains that refuse to look at far-off effects. Time will tell.

Besides moral relativism helps us to justify much of our destructive behaviour and inability to accept hard changes that might be necessary to make the world better for all living things.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#82

Post by criddell »

kevmo wrote: post #70

The thing that I don't like about books and articles like this is that they promote complacency. They obscure shitty living conditions that billions of people are still living under by pointing to statistical averages and fun concepts like "war is illegal" (which is highly arguable in and of itself). I am all for recognizing that humanity is maturing, but I think books like this actually slow the pace at which it doe…

> promote complacency

I get the exact opposite feeling. Things aren't hopeless and there's no reason to stop pushing for improvement because what we've been doing for the past 100 years is working! Maybe it depends on if you are an optimist or a pessimist.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#85

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

JorgeGT wrote: post #72

> Time spent doing laundry fell from 11.5 hours a week in 1920 to an hour and a half in 2014. This might sound trivial in the grand scheme of progress. But the rise of the washing machine has improved quality of life by freeing up time for people—mostly women—to enjoy other pursuits. This. I remember following Reddit AMAs of two centenarian women, women who remembered SS troops arriving at their village, who watched…

It’s worth noting that the act of sorting, inserting, removing, and putting away clothing is not very labor intensive.

Having to manually wash each article of clothing takes actual effort, which can be quite tiring. It’s not easy to engage in other pursuits when one is tired out from physical labor. One could argue that the savings in exertion even outweigh the savings in time.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#86

Post by chippy »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #74
chippy wrote: post #47

The British philosopher John Gray is a good counterpart to Pinker's idea of progress. He focuses on the myths of progress, civilisation and freedom. This is his response to Pinker: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/john-gray-stev... "A new orthodoxy, led by Pinker, holds that war and violence in the developed world are declining. The stats are misleading, argues Gray – and the idea of moral progress is wi…

"He encourages us to assume that progress is fragile, is not automatically improving and that we need to be active in defending our freedoms, our progress and the things we take for granted." But would Pinker or Bill Gates disagree with that statement? I don't think so. Bill Gates is devoting his fortune to doing so, and is doing so very effectively. And even if Pinker is wrong, I believe his message is much more lik…

Yes, I don't think that view was expressed in Gray's article about Pinker. But I imagine that there could be an implication that "if the data shows the world is improving, it always will do, progress happens one way and is always going up" which Gray takes issue to. Why act if everything is getting better anyhow?

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#87

Post by deeg »

kevmo wrote: post #70

The thing that I don't like about books and articles like this is that they promote complacency. They obscure shitty living conditions that billions of people are still living under by pointing to statistical averages and fun concepts like "war is illegal" (which is highly arguable in and of itself). I am all for recognizing that humanity is maturing, but I think books like this actually slow the pace at which it doe…

I understand your concern but I disagree that Pinker's book will lead to complacency. I believe the opposite: Pinker's book will prevent us from sliding into nihilism and despondency. We have plenty of media and politicians reminding us how terrible the world is; Trump gained the presidency in part by convincing a sizable population that America is declining. We need Pinker to tell us that we are actually making the world a better place.

If the media ever switches to telling us how great the world is all the time then I'll agree with you. :)

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#88

Post by iamcasen »

chippy wrote: post #47

The British philosopher John Gray is a good counterpart to Pinker's idea of progress. He focuses on the myths of progress, civilisation and freedom. This is his response to Pinker: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/john-gray-stev... "A new orthodoxy, led by Pinker, holds that war and violence in the developed world are declining. The stats are misleading, argues Gray – and the idea of moral progress is wi…

Thank you. I couldn't help but feel like Pinker is peddling feel-good nonsense to sell books, and give people hope to cling to.

Progress or betterment is entirely subjective, and when considering the human condition, relies on too many variables to even count. Of course, the variables the Pinker focuses on have gotten better overall.

The way I see it is a chaotic scatterplot that is trending slightly upwards towards "better." There are many local minima and maxima however, and I presume those ebbs and flows of prosperity and poverty can last 60 years at a time.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#89

Post by h1srf »

ams6110 wrote: post #59
dalbasal wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

..on laundry, that hour and a half is spent washing a lot more clothes than the eleven before. If we had the limited wardrobes of those people, it'd probably be down to twenty minutes.

On the flip side, 11 hours seems high. I've washed clothes by hand before; it doesn't take that long and in fact it's faster than washing by machine (though you can't do something else at the same time).

If you're only washing your clothes maybe but 11 hours a week sounds reasonable if one person is washing clothes for a family + hanging/collecting/folding
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