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My new favorite book of all time

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Re: My new favorite book of all time

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a process. The point is that there is far less war going on now than ever before, on a population adjusted basis.

Further to that point, there hasn't been a serious war between major powers in seven decades. One of the longest stretches in recorded history. Overwhelmingly what we've seen in the way of war deaths since WW2, is in civil war and genocides by Socialist, Communist and Fascist regimes.

Don't forget that the US has had a hand in very many of those wars, and have been responsible for massive amounts of deaths in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#172
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dickens was the most popular entertainer of his time. Shakespeare was widely popular as well. Both are considered too difficult for most audiences now days. Can you imagine a writer like Dickens being the most popular in contemporary America or in the UK? Our most popular figure is Kim Kardashian. And my point about the Church was not to say that religion is all good, but to point to the fact that people are disconne…

When Oliver Twist was published (1838), a third of the British population couldn't read [1]. [1] https://www1.umassd.edu/ir/resources/laboreducation/literacy...

14 percent of adult Americans demonstrated a “below basic” literacy level in 2003, and 29 percent exhibited a “basic” reading level.

That is with public education.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#174

This article/video explains why so many people have completely lost faith in our technocratic elite. The idea that "You’re 37 times less likely to be killed by a bolt of lightning than you were at the turn of the century" makes a large difference in the happiness of people is ridiculous. Why are people pessimistic about the future? Maybe its because the rates of addiction (including to smart phones and other screens)…

> Maybe its because...

Disclaimer: all of this is entirely unscientific, just observations.

From the perspective of a South African, we didn't have people walking into a public place (church, concert or otherwise) and shoot up a crowd. In general, undeveloped countries seem to have fewer problems with psychopaths (disregarding the ones in charge). I find this immensely curious.

One thing that Facebook has taught me is that problems are like biodiversity. It seems as though every time we solve a problem a previously minor problem becomes a major one. One example that many here should be familiar with is Facebook: it solved many quality-of-life problems, but in the process has allowed other unforeseen problems grow out of control. I seriously wonder whether rampant psychopathy (relationally speaking) is a symptom of development (technological, economic, social and otherwise). It's logically possible to see how: you no longer have to worry about where your next meal is coming from so, provided predisposition, you can start obsessively worrying about your fabricated issues.

Up until relatively recently, the entire human race was involved in a desperate struggle to survive. Now, while still a minority, a decent percentage of the human race no longer has to worry about where their next meal is coming from. These elite are typically concentrated in specific geographic regions, which is where I've noticed that most of these "novel problems" exist.

> BillG: The world is getting better, even if it doesn’t always feel that way.

I'll add to that: until our evolution reaches a point that we are no longer in a fight for survival (by ways of nature or science), we won't feel as though the world is getting better. We are incessant worriers by nature.

> church

The church kept us in line and now that it is being rejected, we are acting like rebellious children away from their overbearing parents for the first time - doing everything we weren't allowed to do. This will pass, and we'll have a slew of new problems to replace it.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#175

" 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…

We also had the horror of chemical weapons in WWI. It was becoming more and more clear that there were things men could do that men should never do, even in war. Otherwise you could just crop-dust your downwind neighbors and be moved in before anyone could even report an attack. I still don't understand why we're allowed to stockpile nerve gas given the past 100 years of warfare and treaties.

Actualy the reason the Germans didnt use nerve gas in WW2 was because they mistakenly assumed Britain and Russia also already had them. Hitler was otherwise pretty keen on them.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#176
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's telling that one of the richest, most well off men on Earth is helping to peddle this narrative. It behooves those in positions of power and wealth to hoodwink the masses into being satisfied with their given stations. Research and statistics say the world is a better place than ever, put down your protest signs.

Bingo.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#177
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why act like the world isn't getting better if it actually is?

It is getting better for some people by some measures, and worse for others by other measures. What Pinker and Gates are attempting to impose is a tyranny of faux rationality--"an 800 pg book with sources up the wazoo say that the world is getting better, all these whiny poor folk must just be delusional".

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#178
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The "Pax Americana". That term isn't right, since there are a few other countries involved, but it brings to mind the right associations.

If you interpret "the UN" in this context as "the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council", it's pretty much the same thing as you're saying.

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#179
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.

Washing clothes for your family was hard enough, those who would do this professionally would suffer from the phsyical labour so much as to have a reduced lifespan.

And here I am complaining about working at a desk all day :)

Re: My new favorite book of all time

#180
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched the video of Pinker & Gates, and I confess my prejudice was 'two comfortably rich elitists pushing a centralized globalization agenda'. I'll read the book but with a large pinch of salt...

What is "centralized globalization?" The top google result for this term is a paper talking about the Vatican; results quickly seem to become less relevant (for example, talking about "globalization, centralization, ...").

Think Davos cliques and The Fourth Industrial Revolution' by Schwab et al https://www.amazon.com/dp/1944835148?ref_=pe_870760_15088932... My comment was not necessarily a criticism, more an observation....
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