Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The world is awful, the world is much better, the world can be much better

ourworldindata.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 126 posts

Re: The world is awful, the world is much better, the world can be much better

#71

Post by js2 »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #56

There is a severe lack of competent and inspiring leadership. With no clear vision for the future people become trapped in pointless political squabbles. What makes life worth living for you?

My wife. My kids. My siblings. My cousins. My parents. My dog. Coffee. Bourbon. Ice cream. Scrambled eggs. The smell of baking bread. The smell of fresh rain. A walk on a sunny day. Sex. A really satisfying crap. Movies. People watching. A funny joke. A bad joke. Puns. A good story well told. The stars at night. The sound of cicadas. A hawk screeching overhead. The beach. The mountains. A friendly smile. A hug from a friend. A hug from a stranger. Jitters at the start of a marathon. Elation at the end of a marathon. A symphony orchestra. That guy playing guitar at the John Lennon garden in Central Park.

But yes, competent and inspiring leadership is good too.

Re: The world is awful, the world is much better, the world can be much better

#72

Post by robertlagrant »

trasz wrote: post #52
safety1st wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2017 when that article was last updated, yeah sure. Not sure you can make that declaration in 2022. The combination of record poverty caused by Covid lockdowns and food supply chain disruptions caused by the war in Ukraine has put millions of people worldwide in famine conditions: https://www.reuters.com/world/world-faces-unprecedented-glob... Exactly how bad it will get remains to be seen. But the causes of famin…

FWIW, China has a very long history of famines. Twentieth century wasn't an outlier - although in the West it's been heavily publicised for propaganda reasons.

It was the worst famine - and, arguably, period - in the history of the world:

- tens of millions died due to starvation from central planning issues (variously causing: a plague of locusts; Mao wanting to save face so refused foreign aid and maintained being a net exporter of food while people were starving; diverting people away from agriculture to metal production to meet the five year plan)

- millions died from government beatings/torturings to death, and suicide due to hopelessness and government destruction of cultural traditions in the name of centrally planned progress

Now one might say that there may have been even more harmful centrally planned economies, i.e. the USSR and Nazi Germany, but at best any of the candidates is competing to be only the third worst disaster in the history of the world.

Re: The world is awful, the world is much better, the world can be much better

#73

Post by yorwba »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #40
yorwba wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The black death is a bad analogy. At the time, population was at the upper limit that could be sustained with the technology of the time. If a farmer wanted a larger harvest, they would need to farm a larger area, denying its use to others, thus causing them to starve. Conversely, the large number of deaths directly increased the resources available to everyone else. It was a zero-sum game, with one person's loss bei…

> Assume climate change kills off 100 million people (more than any estimate I could find), i.e. slightly more than 1% of the current world population. The resulting increase in resources per capita would be less than a single year of global GDP growth. I presume this is highly dependent on which 100M people are killed.

I was talking about the difference between (world resources)/(world population) and (world resources)/(world population - 100 million).

Of course if you personally kill a very rich person and take their stuff, that might be a life-changing event for you, but unlike during the black death, the average person's income is not significantly derived from dead people's stuff.

Re: The world is awful, the world is much better, the world can be much better

#74

Post by mongol »

philovivero wrote: post #62
tsimionescu wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More has happened in the last half century than in all of humanity before that in terms of scientific progress. The vast majority of scientific advances in the last hundred years happened before World War I and right after - most notably, special and general relativity, and quantum mechanics. Computing was discovered right after WWII, as was the transistor. Lisp and FORTRAN are older than 50 years. We landed on the…

> Nothing discovered since the 70s compares to the advances in science and technology made in the first half of the twentieth century. Not buying that in the slightest. Reusable rocket boosters? Battery tech? International money movement? Everything in tech from 2000 to present? Sure, if you just define "everything since the 70's doesn't spark my imagination" then you win this round of nihilism, but the last 50 years…

Reusable rocket boosters are cool but if you compare their impact with for example manned flight and the invention of airplanes, I think you will find that the latter have been more important for human progress.

Re: The world is awful, the world is much better, the world can be much better

#75

Post by 29athrowaway »

carapace wrote: post #29
29athrowaway wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can now grow enough food to feed the world We grow food on topsoil. Topsoil is soil with microorganisms, worms and insects in it. You cannot grow food on sterile soil. Topsoil takes a long time to form, and very short time to be consumed. We are using topsoil at a higher rate than it is replenished. The rate at which we use topsoil increases over time. We are very wasteful with our use of topsoil. We discard ugl…

We're learning to grow food in ways that increases the amount and fertility of topsoil, so it's not a foregone conclusion. E.g. Permaculture, Syntropic and Regenerative agriculture, etc. Check out the transformation of the Loess Plateau in China. It was rendered into a wasteland by bad farming practices and then re-vegetated and revitalized: http://eempc.org/lessons-of-the-loess-plateau/

At scale? Can this be implemented globally in a few decades? What about making it work in places going dry?

Desalination plants and wastewater treatment plants have existed for decades, but are expensive. Today, many people don't have access to clean water because of this.

Rifles and ammunition are cheaper than new water infrastructure so war over water will take place everywhere before water conservation technology is deployed.

Re: The world is awful, the world is much better, the world can be much better

#76

Post by 29athrowaway »

Winsaucerer wrote: post #34
29athrowaway wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The world has been getting better, and continues to get better." Perhaps the tiny surface of the world you interact with now has more conveniences than before, but that is very distant from a reality where things are getting better. Your perception depends on taking many factors for granted, not acknowledging we depend on multiple concurrent progress traps. If you go to the supermarket and the shelves are empty, i…

> Perhaps the tiny surface of the world you interact with now has more conveniences than before, but that is very distant from a reality where things are getting better. By MANY measures, the world has been getting gradually better for just about everyone: https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-condit... . When we look at the facts globally, there is a clear and obvious trajectory. > Toxic optimism won…

Again, you are not acknowledging the progress traps.

Our solution has always been to migrate to the next place that has resources. But soon there will be no such place.

Re: The world is awful, the world is much better, the world can be much better

#77

Post by mandmandam »

birksherty wrote: post #67

It's too selfish for humans to say world is better. Is the world only for humans? Does it belong to us only? Every other species is in terrible condition than before or they got extinction. And the better is not going to last. All the progress is because of extreme fossil fuel usage. The effect has started to show, to be honest it's going to get much worse in coming decades. It's like a person falling from a building…

Why are you booing him; he's right.

While the article immediately addresses the acceptance of both awful and fantastic changes, it doesn't address our effect on the other species of the planet - which has been rather unambiguously horrific. On a scale that's basically impossible to comprehend without lifetimes of study across diverse fields.

This needs to be addressed more. Every hour of every day, until we have accountability for the people responsible and genuine changes.

I want our future to be one that respects the biosphere and all species, not just one. It's not just altruistic either - we've lost so much already, and people don't even know.

Re: The world is awful, the world is much better, the world can be much better

#78

Post by agentwiggles »

js2 wrote: post #71
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #56

There is a severe lack of competent and inspiring leadership. With no clear vision for the future people become trapped in pointless political squabbles. What makes life worth living for you?

My wife. My kids. My siblings. My cousins. My parents. My dog. Coffee. Bourbon. Ice cream. Scrambled eggs. The smell of baking bread. The smell of fresh rain. A walk on a sunny day. Sex. A really satisfying crap. Movies. People watching. A funny joke. A bad joke. Puns. A good story well told. The stars at night. The sound of cicadas. A hawk screeching overhead. The beach. The mountains. A friendly smile. A hug from a…

Cheers to all that and may you experience it all many more times!

Re: The world is awful, the world is much better, the world can be much better

#79

Post by atlasunshrugged »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #36

Is there a consensus on this organization (givewell.org)? I donate to French organizations I know and see their work directly, but have no experience with international ones such as this one. I would be most interested in ones that provide education capacities to girls but the one from the post concentrates on health related ones (which is of course great as well)

I think Givewell is excellent if your goal is to donate to charities that have been vetted for maximum impact (measured in terms of cost-effectiveness of dollars donated to saving lives) but if you are looking for a charity in a specific sector outside of one they have judged, they're not the best for that. But if you're a founder by chance, founderspledge.com supports people in figuring out where to donate based on their interests (and also publishes some of their research).

Re: The world is awful, the world is much better, the world can be much better

#80

Post by wolfram74 »

trasz wrote: post #52
safety1st wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2017 when that article was last updated, yeah sure. Not sure you can make that declaration in 2022. The combination of record poverty caused by Covid lockdowns and food supply chain disruptions caused by the war in Ukraine has put millions of people worldwide in famine conditions: https://www.reuters.com/world/world-faces-unprecedented-glob... Exactly how bad it will get remains to be seen. But the causes of famin…

FWIW, China has a very long history of famines. Twentieth century wasn't an outlier - although in the West it's been heavily publicised for propaganda reasons.

My impression from[0] is most places have long histories of fammines, without practical contraceptives, we're all moties and one or two bad harvesta from a Having a Bad Time.

[0]https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they...

Post reply on HN