Is the world getting better or worse?

[spartan max2]

So my question is do you think overall as time goes on people and things on this earth have been getting better or do you think that things have been getting worse and worse in the world?

I personally think that even though everyone likes to complain that things have really been getting better for everyone as time goes on. But im kind of optimistic lol

What do you think?

[ReaperS_ParadoX]

WORSE

[thyra]

Things can only get better. I am just thinking everything is so cool with the world at the moment because I am eating my small sandwich with cheese!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgMl9qBTBq0

[Magic Stars]

Worse.

Simply because we never learn from past mistakes and still aren't learning about mistakes we are making within the present.

[Skep B]

Pretty much the same.

We just have access to more information about the world so we hear about all the stuff going on around us.

World's always been what it is I figure. Humans are still Humans, so their actions will be about the same motivation wise

[seaturtlehorsesnake]

better overall, still sitting at the level of "completely awful" for a lot of people.

but better.

[Four Winds]

In the "Western World" I think things have gotten a lot better if you compare them to say 1,000 years ago. We comforts that even the elite ruling class back then could not even imagine.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Razer

[libstaK]

Both.

The world is becoming more polarised. For some parts of the world and some individuals in many parts of the world it is better than any previous generation could imagine. For others though, there are horrors and sufferings on a scale no previous generation has ever encountered also.

Edited January 12, 2014 by libstaK

[keninsc]

The world is the same as it's always been. What's changed is our ability to communicate instantly at almost any time and from anywhere. That's encouraged being first to become the new priority rather than being right.

[Lilly]

It depends upon where one is geographically and economically. Medical science and technology have increased at a high rate over the last 30-40 years, and if one is fortunate enough to live in certain countries then certain aspects of life are better. However, from a social and moral perspective I think things are actually worse than when I was young.

[JGirl]

depends on what we're referring to. crime is worse, technology is better, for instance.

to be honest though i'm glad i won't be here much longer.

[Indiogene]

Mankind has progressed to new great heights in science, technology and innovation...our lives should be a lot better than our ancestors' lives even when they were alive 100 years ago. The media hypes negative news stories to sensational apocalyptic moods, and have us convinced things are getting worse. For example, news stories on our national crime rate shows it's lower and getting lower in the last 20 years, despite the news overly features crime reports. I sense life in the USA isn't as good like it was in the mid 1950's, and meanwhile, historians assume the late 1990's with 3% unemployment, no cold war to worry about (before 9-11 happened) and the impact of welfare reform are extremely positive things for America to experienced and they don't normally happen in any time period of (US) American history.

[ChrLzs]

We peaked in the 60's/70's, imo.. Now that the rich can use technology to put people out of work *except* in countries where the wages are ridiculously low, the benefits of technology have not been shared even *remotely* equally.

Back in the good ole days, a big company manager would get say several times the wages of a process worker. Maybe they were that much a better/more deserving person?

But now, it's many thousands of times or more - are they that much more deserving, or do they really work that much harder? Or have they just used technology and globalisation to their benefit alone?

[EllJay]

Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years in 4 Minutes - Health and Income-

The Joy of Statistics

[spartan max2]

Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years in 4 Minutes - Health and Income-

The Joy of Statistics

Exactly

[lightly]

Both? some things are easier for many .. but at what cost? We never had the ability to incinerate millions of people at a time before .. that's a giant leap backward in my opinion.

[Nighthawk9653]

In some aspects, I definitely believe that the world is getting far worse, but in other areas, I really think we are improving.

But just generally overall, I think we're declining.

[seaturtlehorsesnake]

It depends upon where one is geographically and economically. Medical science and technology have increased at a high rate over the last 30-40 years, and if one is fortunate enough to live in certain countries then certain aspects of life are better. However, from a social and moral perspective I think things are actually worse than when I was young.

i am genuinely curious as to what you mean with social and moral perspectives! this strikes me as one of those things where the idea of things declining might be very different. i say this because i think (in general, of course) that socially things have improved in the last half century.

[Wickian]

Our world is horribly corrupt, but I wouldn't want to live in any other time. I'll leave it at that.

[xYlvax]

Worse.. people are getting more stupid and over-populating and the environment is being destroyed.

[ReaperS_ParadoX]

The world is the same as it's always been. What's changed is our ability to communicate instantly at almost any time and from anywhere. That's encouraged being first to become the new priority rather than being right.

We also have access to nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, viruses, in my opinion the worlds gotten worse, strictly because of these weapons. Kids are shooting up schools not to mention all the people around the world that are starving from hunger, disease, and senseless wars. The world is far worse

[keninsc]

Naaaw, the same thing has happened before we just have more efficiency do to access to better weapons. None of that matters because none of it would happen if people wouldn't use it.

The Romans put whole cities to the torch, killed and raped everything in site them moved on. No automatic weapons or nukes required just blunt force trauma applied with the lance and sword. The only common denominator? Humans.

[seaturtlehorsesnake]

The Romans put whole cities to the torch, killed and raped everything in site them moved on. No automatic weapons or nukes required just blunt force trauma applied with the lance and sword. The only common denominator? Humans.

sometimes i think people forget how tremendously violent the past was. we all tend to look on our own time as the worst, but read up on the mongol conquests. read up on plantation slavery in the carribean. read about the origins of the word "decimate". hell, open a page anywhere in a history book.

[spartan max2]

sometimes i think people forget how tremendously violent the past was. we all tend to look on our own time as the worst, but read up on the mongol conquests. read up on plantation slavery in the carribean. read about the origins of the word "decimate". hell, open a page anywhere in a history book.

that's exactly how I see it. So much brutality throughout history.

In modern times the world freaks out when a government kills a couple protesters, that is a really good sign to me.

Edited January 12, 2014 by spartan max2

[EllJay]

that's exactly how I see it. So much brutality throughout history.

In modern times the world freaks out when a government kills a couple protesters, that is a really good sign to me.

that's exactly how I see it. So much brutality throughout history.

In modern times the world freaks out when a government kills a couple protesters, that is a really good sign to me.

Yeah, like during the WW2, they bombed the living p*** out hundreds of cities until all that was left was gravy and bone dust.

They didn't give a damn if 40 000 civilians got vaporised in a Tuesday afternoon. If a drone misses it´s target these days and kill 10 civilians the US get their asses handed to them by media, and people get shocked of the brutality of war. Well, excuse the living sh1t out of me, but killing 10 000 people between coffee breaks back in those days was just hunky-dory. Or take something like the savagery of the Colosseum, or the daily, public hangings in the city square where people brought their kids for a picnic to watch someone hang, or get burnt at the stake.

War is sh1t, but warfare of modern days is far more humane than it ever was.

The world is better now, but it is far from perfect.