There's a trend where people keep saying they have "lost faith in humanity" because of what's happening in present times; however, "Violence has steadily declined over the course of human history, and we are currently in the midst of the most peaceful era yet." This leads to another thought. If it's so peaceful now, imagine just how wretched it was in the past. Amirite?
We must be doing something right.
Indeed. The suckiness of life for the first 10,000 years of human existence is beyond my comprehension.
vic - the people of that time knew nothing else so they must have been happy a bit.
That because, as our quality of life increases, so do our standards.
The question is, are we happier than we ever were before ? Oddly enough, no.
We traded poverty and "classic" diseases for fear, diabetes and cynism.
research shows we aren't has happy as the people who came before us
so I can agree with you on that one
plus
with Maslow's hierarchy of needs
if physiological needs are not met
less focus is probably given to other needs
once you fulfill one step
you may be able to go up the latter and fulfill the next step
(safety)
well of course
there's always room for improvement
OY
I got something
In the words of Andrew Kaluzny:
"The world is a good place, but you should still want to change it."
I'm not complaining, but I wonder why this is the case.
I think several factors including human rights movements, the banning of human trafficking and labor laws probably made a huge dent. Advances in medicine and dental care also made people less likely to be in excruciating pain which probably reduced a lot of drunken assault and "lashing out" type violence. Just guessing here.
sauce
wtf?
I believe it should be read "source", and understood as a request for a (reliable) source for what the post states.
Oh, I see
take it all with a grain of salt
Your advice is to add salt when you're out of sauce ?
good one
I was rather surprised by this. I would've thought with events that date back the beginning of the 20th century and the new millennia, violence would be at its highest. This does give me some optimism.
However, perhaps people often say that they've "lost faith in humanity" because we live in an age of advanced morality and diverse thinking, so when violence and vulgarity is committed, it seems more likely that the perpetrator consciously new he/she was doing something wrong.
The 20th century was officially the worst 10 decades that have ever been through the human being history. I mean just try to count the terrifying things that happened to nature, and even to us because of us!!!. And from looking at the first decade in this century, I dont see any "improvements".
I think there is no point in comparing our experiences in the present versus the past because we have not been there ourselves. Past relies only in the present and so is the future. War and violence is ever present, it cannot be eliminated. Also, long peace is usually followed by long periods of war, a deep breath before the plunge they say. So I'm not exactly sure if we should be feeling happy being secured.