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The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

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Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#31

Post by ps4fanboy »

seivan wrote: post #23
marknutter wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

talk about missing the point. You can acknowledge that violence is on the decline while also wanting it to continue to decline. The danger in ignoring the decline is that resources will be disproportionately redirected to solving problems that aren't of any real concern (terrorism, war on drugs, etc) instead of the problems that are actually in need of solving.

I never acknowledged anything you mentioned, so I am not sure what you've been reading or smoking. Please, tell me what resources have we spent on saving these 7000 women (probably more) used as sex-slaves by these islamists? I guess they are not a real concern because they're not as bad as "sexism" in video games or the "racism" in using native American outfits for Halloween.

Short of supporting a full scale invasion and colonization of the countries in question how do you propose to change the situations that allowed this to happen?

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#32

Post by burkaman »

marknutter wrote: post #20
diafygi wrote: post #13

Great! We're better overall than we were! No reason to rest on our laurels, though. How can we be better than we are now? Here's some areas that aren't doing too well: 1. Climate Change - We're in store for a lot of trouble over the next few decades[1]. How will we manage? 2. Wealth Inequality - The gap is widening[2]. How do we reverse the trend? 3. Gerrymandering/voter suppression - The ones in power are the ones w…

the article said we should rest on our laurels?

No, but you don't need to disagree with the article in order to make a useful comment. This is just a natural continuation of the discussion.

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#33

Post by Animats »

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey informed the Senate Armed Service Committee (in 2013), "I will personally attest to the fact that [the world is] more dangerous than it has ever been." Now that's surprising from the head of the JCS, and from a former commander of an armored division in combat. He's a trade-school guy (West Point), so he knows his military history.

Things have been much, much worse for the US. Early in WWII, it didn't look good. When the USSR got ICBMs and H-bombs, it really didn't look good. Worldwide, nobody is having a really big war right now. The USSR lost 20 million people in WWII. Nothing that bad has happened since.

There are some big worries ahead, mainly regarding proliferation of nuclear weapons and troubles involving existing nuclear powers - Russia, China, Pakistan, and North Korea. Those are the things that can kill us.

Domestically, the biggest threat is the Mississippi River, with major floods both at New Orleans and further upstream.

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#34

Post by learc83 »

Animats wrote: post #33

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey informed the Senate Armed Service Committee (in 2013), "I will personally attest to the fact that [the world is] more dangerous than it has ever been." Now that's surprising from the head of the JCS, and from a former commander of an armored division in combat. He's a trade-school guy (West Point), so he knows his military history. Things have been much, much worse for…

>Now that's surprising from the head of the JCS, and from a former commander of an armored division in combat. He's a trade-school guy (West Point), so he knows his military history.

Of course he says that, the budget for the department of defense is in part dictated by how dangerous the public and congress perceive the world to be.

Military leaders have been saying this exact same thing for centuries.

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#35

Post by learc83 »

aswanson wrote: post #14
parasubvert wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steven Pinker has done a fairly deep study of the long run decline in violence: it is real, it is over centuries, and it is dramatic. But it is not guaranteed to last. I highly recommend his book as it provides a lot of data on the topic (and is quite a good read too). "The decline in violence, he argues, is enormous in magnitude, visible on both long and short time scales, and found in many domains, including milita…

Seconded. Although, given the length/depth of the analysis, be prepared to commit more than one sitting to finish the book.

Is finishing a full-length non-fiction book in one sitting common?

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#36

Post by eli_gottlieb »

ef4 wrote: post #15
diafygi wrote: post #13

Great! We're better overall than we were! No reason to rest on our laurels, though. How can we be better than we are now? Here's some areas that aren't doing too well: 1. Climate Change - We're in store for a lot of trouble over the next few decades[1]. How will we manage? 2. Wealth Inequality - The gap is widening[2]. How do we reverse the trend? 3. Gerrymandering/voter suppression - The ones in power are the ones w…

> Wealth Inequality - The gap is widening In the US, yes. Globally, no. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/upshot/income-inequality-i...

Simpson's Paradox: within almost every country it's widening, but between countries it's shrinking.

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#37

Post by monkeypizza »

diafygi wrote: post #13

Great! We're better overall than we were! No reason to rest on our laurels, though. How can we be better than we are now? Here's some areas that aren't doing too well: 1. Climate Change - We're in store for a lot of trouble over the next few decades[1]. How will we manage? 2. Wealth Inequality - The gap is widening[2]. How do we reverse the trend? 3. Gerrymandering/voter suppression - The ones in power are the ones w…

Focusing solely on wealth inequality leads to strange conclusions:

  The richest people should destroy productive resources
But destroying productive resources (efficient water purifiers, better solar panels, computers that do more computations using less energy) would have been wrong in almost all of history - so why would we adopt beliefs now which make it right?

I think it makes more sense to focus on getting everyone to a basic level of freedom & choice; i.e. good health, good education, and freedom of information.

A successful world is one where everyone has at least these basics. In that world, we don't have to worry if the richest person's swiss bank account balance doubles, or they build a few more mansions. The problem of wealth is the people who don't have enough!

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#38

Post by eli_gottlieb »

monkeypizza wrote: post #37
diafygi wrote: post #13

Great! We're better overall than we were! No reason to rest on our laurels, though. How can we be better than we are now? Here's some areas that aren't doing too well: 1. Climate Change - We're in store for a lot of trouble over the next few decades[1]. How will we manage? 2. Wealth Inequality - The gap is widening[2]. How do we reverse the trend? 3. Gerrymandering/voter suppression - The ones in power are the ones w…

Focusing solely on wealth inequality leads to strange conclusions: The richest people should destroy productive resources But destroying productive resources (efficient water purifiers, better solar panels, computers that do more computations using less energy) would have been wrong in almost all of history - so why would we adopt beliefs now which make it right? I think it makes more sense to focus on getting everyo…

> The richest people should destroy productive resources

No. Focusing on inequality would lead to the conclusion that the richest should hand over some of their capital resources to the middle classes and the poor, ie: to the working class.

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#39

Post by fixedd »

parasubvert wrote: post #11
retrogradeorbit wrote: post #5

The world can "fall apart" without people dying. For example, the ongoing currency wars. You can also have violence without death. Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are examples. Because these people are only tortured, and not murdered, is that considered "peaceful"? And it also would depend on how far back you draw the data from. Is the Stalin famine of the 30s modern, or ancient? If we cast the data back to the 1600s, it's…

Steven Pinker has done a fairly deep study of the long run decline in violence: it is real, it is over centuries, and it is dramatic. But it is not guaranteed to last. I highly recommend his book as it provides a lot of data on the topic (and is quite a good read too). "The decline in violence, he argues, is enormous in magnitude, visible on both long and short time scales, and found in many domains, including milita…

> Pinker uses the phrase as a metaphor for four human motivations that, he writes, can "orient us away from violence and towards cooperation and altruism,"[2] namely: empathy, self-control, the "moral sense," and reason.

All of which are contrary to religious fundamentalism... which worries me as a US citizen.

Re: The world is not falling apart: The trend lines

#40

Post by monkeypizza »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #38
monkeypizza wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focusing solely on wealth inequality leads to strange conclusions: The richest people should destroy productive resources But destroying productive resources (efficient water purifiers, better solar panels, computers that do more computations using less energy) would have been wrong in almost all of history - so why would we adopt beliefs now which make it right? I think it makes more sense to focus on getting everyo…

> The richest people should destroy productive resources No. Focusing on inequality would lead to the conclusion that the richest should hand over some of their capital resources to the middle classes and the poor, ie: to the working class.

Say there's someone who wants to reduce inequality, and we ask them whether they approve of various scenarios:

Situation: "People living on a certain well-off island discover a way to farm more efficiently, which means they produce 10% more food, but that technology only works on their island. Is this good or bad?"

Inequality reducer: "This is bad, because that island's average income will go up while the rest of the world stays the same"

Situation: "We discover a free, simple cure for Alzheimer's"

Inequality reducer: "That's horrible, because Alzheimer's does the most damage to highly educated countries - those countries will now have way more mentally together, experienced 70-year-olds making them even richer, which will increase economic inequality with poorer countries where fewer people suffer from alzheimer's"

You have got to see this is a bit weird, right? It's a focus on minimizing local distortions sometimes can have a bad effect. In fact, imagine we really did have "equality" - the anti-inequality advocate would object to any change in that world, since it would lead to a temporary bit of inequality as information about the change propagated through it. Even simple things like the first invention of mechanized agriculture, or machines to make clothing, introduced tons of inequality at first, since there was only one copy of them at first! But we're better off now that our civilization doesn't have to devote 50% of everyone's life to growing food & making clothes by hand!

The other way to think about it is that that we just have to make sure everyone has at least a basic level of food, health, education, and freedom. That lets us focus on the main problems (people who don't have enough), and never could lead us into condemning gains in human quality of life.

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