Things getting better or worse?

[Number Six]

I watched an interview with Penn Jillette on The Glenn Beck Show recently. Penn said something I found insightful. He said, paraphrasing, "Two things are always true, number one, things are always getting better and number two, people always think things are getting worse." I agree with that and I definitely think that's true through history.

But I wonder if there is a connection between the two. That is, maybe one reason (amongst others) that things are always getting better is that people always think things are getting worse and therefore operating in a mode of "Things are getting worse so we've gotta work to stop it."

Just to pick one example, when I hear environmental doom-and-gloomers my initial reaction is to go "Oh please, what ridiculous scare tactics." But it occurs to me that although the content of some of what those people might indeed be crazy nonsense, maybe it actually helps the world for them to say it. In other words, maybe making people think the world is getting worse ends up making the world better because it gets peoples' attention.

So, while my initial reaction to crazy claims with good intents is to say "BS" it occurs to me that maybe I'd be making the world a better place if I instead kept quiet and let people be fooled in a way that ends up helping the world in the long run. Maybe this all boils down to the question "Do the ends justify the means?"

[Dunstan]

I watched an interview with Penn Jillette on The Glenn Beck Show recently. Penn said something I found insightful. He said, paraphrasing, "Two things are always true, number one, things are always getting better and number two, people always think things are getting worse." I agree with that and I definitely think that's true through history.

I thought that Gregg Easterbrook's book of a few years ago, "The Progress Paradox," did a decent job of illustrating this. Of course, being Gregg Easterbrook, he went on to argue that we should all pray more.

I think a lot of the explanation lies in the fact that people don't compare themselves to their ancestors as much as they do to their peers. A guy who drives a cheap car today doesn't think, "wow, isn't it great that my car is safer, more comfortable, more fuel efficient than the one my dad drove at my age, and has an MP3 player and GPS device that he couldn't have imagined." Nope, instead he thinks about how much cooler his next door neighbor's car is.

[BPSCG]

Saw a 1960s vintage Jaguar a while back and was struck by how spartan it was. A new Toyota Camry is far more luxurious.

[tkingdoll]

It can't always be true. Surely the day WW2 broke out isn't true of 'things are getting better'.

[DouglasL]

Actually WWII saw a dramatic increase in the level of technology in nearly every nation involved. The driving force being how to kill the other guy faster and more efficiently. Other wars also showed technological increases for the same reason. I am not saying that war is a good thing. On the contrary the massive level of destruction is a dramatic BAD thing. The only thing that I can think of that drives technological increases at such a dramatic level is exploration. Either remote places on earth or space exploration.

[tkingdoll]

Actually WWII saw a dramatic increase in the level of technology in nearly every nation involved. The driving force being how to kill the other guy faster and more efficiently. Other wars also showed technological increases for the same reason. I am not saying that war is a good thing. On the contrary the massive level of destruction is a dramatic BAD thing. The only thing that I can think of that drives technological increases at such a dramatic level is exploration. Either remote places on earth or space exploration.

OK, but surely the 'things are getting better' only has context because it's paired with 'people think things are getting worse'?

I mean, nowhere in Penn's statement does he imply that the 'things' in the first part means 'technology' and the 'things' in the second part means something else. If the 'things' in both parts doesn't refer to the same...er...thing, then the entire statement is meaningless. "Technology is getting better but people think technology is getting worse" is untrue. People don't think that at all. "Technology is getting better but people think crime is getting worse" is a meaningless sentence. The 'things' have to be the same and I can think of many examples which prove the statement untrue.

[sphenisc]

It can't always be true. Surely the day WW2 broke out isn't true of 'things are getting better'.

Ooh, it were terrible...

http://monologues.co.uk/004/Day_War_Broke_Out.htm

[dudalb]

The world is always going to hell in a handbasket,but never quite gets there.

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Actually, this reminds me of education.

For decades we've been hearing about how it is failing our kids, and we've implemented numerous contradicting reforms.

But in reality, scores have slowly but surely been increasing the entire time.

[WildCat]

How about the constant claim that our civil rights are being taken away in the US? As opposed to when? When there was institutionalized slavery? Jim Crow laws? When Americans of Japanese ancestry were rounded up, their possesions taken and they were put in internment camps? When J. Edgar Hoover was up to his shenanigans? The McCarthy era? When there was a draft?

When, exactly, was this Golden Age of Civil Rights?

[headscratcher4]

I always like those who claim they are defending the culture by attacking the culture.

[brodski]

When, exactly, was this Golden Age of Civil Rights?
Like all "golden ages", it was approximately 20 years ago.

20 years being (apparently) the limit of "social memory".

[dudalb]

"The Good Old Days,The Good Old Days,
Of Which We Fondly Speak Of,
Which,If They Were To Really Come Back,
We Could Not Stand A Week Of".

[cloudshipsrule]

Things always get better at a cost.

[Number Six]

And what is the cost?

I think things do get better in general but "always" is a problematic word since it implies, for example, that things were getting better on 9/10/2001 even though in reality they were about to get worse the next day. Maybe it would be better to say that, the farther apart in time, the better the chance things will be better at the later time than at the earlier time.

But I still wonder whether one of the reasons things are getting better is that everyone thinks things are getting worse and therefore they're working to save the world. Maybe if everyone thought that things were always going to get better then they'd become complacent and as a result things wouldn't get better.

[Dunstan]

But I still wonder whether one of the reasons things are getting better is that everyone thinks things are getting worse and therefore they're working to save the world. Maybe if everyone thought that things were always going to get better then they'd become complacent and as a result things wouldn't get better.

I doubt it. That seems to assume that a significant amount of progress is caused by people specifically trying to make the world a better place, and I don't buy that. I think most of us would like to make the world a better place, and hope that in some small way our actions will do so, but for the most part we're doing the things we do to benefit ourselves and/or our families.

[bigred]

I watched an interview with Penn Jillette on The Glenn Beck Show recently. Penn said something I found insightful. He said, paraphrasing, "Two things are always true, number one, things are always getting better and number two, people always think things are getting worse."
Frankly that's an idiotic statement.

A simple example: our growing population and subsequent shrinking resources (hell, and just plain old space). This is NOT "getting better."

Stick to magic tubby. yeesh

[gnome]

How about the constant claim that our civil rights are being taken away in the US? As opposed to when? When there was institutionalized slavery? Jim Crow laws? When Americans of Japanese ancestry were rounded up, their possesions taken and they were put in internment camps? When J. Edgar Hoover was up to his shenanigans? The McCarthy era? When there was a draft?

When, exactly, was this Golden Age of Civil Rights?

I think things were really great for a few hours the afternoon of July 12, 1994... what a marvelous time to be an American! I remember it well--truly golden.

[gnome]

If I had to take a guess at a serious answer--how about right after Congress scaled back some vietnam-era powers of the executive and intelligence agencies, after the abuses of COINTELPRO and such.

I think it started scaling forward again not long after... but I'm just saying...

[boooeee]

Frankly that's an idiotic statement.

A simple example: our growing population and subsequent shrinking resources (hell, and just plain old space). This is NOT "getting better."

Stick to magic tubby. yeesh


So things were better 100 years ago when the world was less populated and we had all the coal and kerosene we wanted?

I think things are getting better in the same way that the stock market rises. It has bad days where it loses several hundred points, but it's always higher than it was 20 years ago.

[Puppycow]

So things were better 100 years ago when the world was less populated and we had all the coal and kerosene we wanted?

I think things are getting better in the same way that the stock market rises. It has bad days where it loses several hundred points, but it's always higher than it was 20 years ago.

Really? I'm pretty sure that there have been plenty of occassions when the stock market was below the mark 20 years prior.

How about this one for example:
http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/c/my/_/_n225

Still, I generally agree with the idea, although there are exceptions to every rule.

I think the 20th century was better than the 19th, and the 21st will be better than the 20th. Which is not to say that there won't be a lot of major problems, but if given a choice of when to be born, I would pick the farthest date in the future direction available to me.

[Trakar]

So things were better 100 years ago when the world was less populated and we had all the coal and kerosene we wanted?

I think things are getting better in the same way that the stock market rises. It has bad days where it loses several hundred points, but it's always higher than it was 20 years ago.

I think that it is dangerous to always extrapolate some trends and presume that there is no way for them to reverse. Additionally, perspective makes a big difference.

[bigred]

So things were better 100 years ago when the world was less populated and we had all the coal and kerosene we wanted?
In terms of room to grow and resources available, yeah.....it's not even close.

Although my main point is such a sweeping statement taken to such an absolute is more than a little silly, even for a description as subjective as "better."

[ConspiRaider]

Penn Jillette should stick to being an entertainer / comedian and forget about being a philosopher. He doesn't know what he's talking about in that area. And why would he? He is flush with cash, has everything he wants and more. To HIM and for him - things have gotten better.

Watch what happens, this 21st century. It won't be pretty, and it won't be "better". We've had our very brief period of "better". We WAY overextended. Now it's time to pay the band...

[shuize]

I don't know about the rest of you, but things have only been getting better for me.

[Number Six]

Penn Jillette should stick to being an entertainer / comedian and forget about being a philosopher. He doesn't know what he's talking about in that area. And why would he? He is flush with cash, has everything he wants and more. To HIM and for him - things have gotten better.

Watch what happens, this 21st century. It won't be pretty, and it won't be "better". We've had our very brief period of "better". We WAY overextended. Now it's time to pay the band...

Penn did also say in the interview that it's crazy that he gets to give his views on national TV only because he once got good at juggling even though there are lots of other people in the world smarter than him. It's rare to hear a celebrity say that.

Things have gotten better for Penn but they've gotten better for most of the rest of the world too. Whether that will continue is another question. I don't know what the future holds but I tend to be optimistic becuase people have been saying doom is around the corner forever and ever, but if you want to get into specific wagering that you may not live long enough to see resolved, check out www.longbets.com.

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Actually, the average wage has decreased, and the rich are getter all the increase in wealth.

So it gets better, for some, worse for others.

For a while the hole in the ozone was getting worse, now it is getting better.

Brokers never get better, though.

[bigred]

Penn Jillette should stick to being an entertainer / comedian and forget about being a philosopher. He doesn't know what he's talking about in that area. And why would he? He is flush with cash, has everything he wants and more. To HIM and for him - things have gotten better.

Watch what happens, this 21st century. It won't be pretty, and it won't be "better". We've had our very brief period of "better". We WAY overextended. Now it's time to pay the band...

Someebody else gets it, thank you -

[Tailgater]

Penn Jillette should stick to being an entertainer / comedian and forget about being a philosopher. He doesn't know what he's talking about in that area. And why would he? He is flush with cash, has everything he wants and more. To HIM and for him - things have gotten better.

Watch what happens, this 21st century. It won't be pretty, and it won't be "better". We've had our very brief period of "better". We WAY overextended. Now it's time to pay the band...

Someebody else gets it, thank you -

.....and that's pretty much his point, I'm guessing. While life is never perfect and always lots of room for improvement, every century is better than the last in overall quality of life in the world. Other than if global warming is fact (then we are all dead), why do people say the present is the worst in history? That's just ridiculous in every way.

[Beerina]

The world is always going to hell in a handbasket,but never quite gets there.

"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times."

[Beerina]

Penn Jillette should stick to being an entertainer / comedian and forget about being a philosopher. He doesn't know what he's talking about in that area. And why would he? He is flush with cash, has everything he wants and more. To HIM and for him - things have gotten better.

Watch what happens, this 21st century. It won't be pretty, and it won't be "better". We've had our very brief period of "better". We WAY overextended. Now it's time to pay the band...

This man predicts otherwise (http://juliansimon.org), barring the kind of government intervention of the type exactly espoused by environmentalists.

Isaac Asimov, who threw in with the 1970s environmental gloom-and-doom crowd, when seeing their predictions were wrong, at least had the intellectual honesty to admit it, though he didn't know why Simon's ideas "worked".

[Number Six]

But although the doom and gloomers have consistently been wrong could part of the reason they've consistently been wrong be that their preaching of doom and gloom brings about change that makes things better? I don't know if that's true but I'm just wondering. I hope it's not true because the doom and gloomers are so annoying and my inclination is to dislike and go against annoying people but if I dislike and go against annoying people and the annoying people are doing good then I'm going against those doing good.

[ConspiRaider]

But although the doom and gloomers have consistently been wrong could part of the reason they've consistently been wrong be that their preaching of doom and gloom brings about change that makes things better? I don't know if that's true but I'm just wondering. I hope it's not true because the doom and gloomers are so annoying and my inclination is to dislike and go against annoying people but if I dislike and go against annoying people and the annoying people are doing good then I'm going against those doing good.
Here's the problem. Your statement that so-called "doom and gloomers" have consistently been wrong.

Just is not true.

Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, back in the 1970s, began speaking out and publicizing the issue of global warming. That's when he was in the House of Representatives. He was essentially isolated, ignored.

And now look. Household word, is global warming. Finally. But now we're up against it, as to whether we will react quickly enough to affect it.

Ask the polar bears up north whether things are better for them - or worse. Or the bajii, a freshwater dolphin that we just managed to make go extinct.

Ask the Inuit women, who are being warned that their breast milk may now be toxic to their own children - if they are better off.

Ask American women, who are pregnant or are thinking of having a child, whether they feel better about eating fish - a very healthy food otherwise - today than decades ago. Fish did not used to have methyl-mercury in their tissues. Now they do.

Are people as free as they used to be? No they are not. Try getting on an airplane in the U.S. Try going almost anywhere and entertaining the notion that someone is NOT watching you on a monitor. Try talking on a telephone and NOT imagining that your call is being monitored, or recorded. Or records of your call history are NOT being turned over to a government bureaucracy. Try getting a job in the USA and NOT agreeing to have your urine tested - because you might be lying about using certain drugs. Try opening your snail mail and NOT thinking that it may already have been opened, examined and resealed. Try sending a private email to someone and being absolutely confident that it reached ONLY that person.

Oil is about to reach $100 a barrel. And it will go well beyond that. Coal is being sucked up and burned at an ever-increasing level. Coal spews mercury into the air. Coal mines emit methane into the air. Coal produces twice the amount of CO2 when burned, as does natural gas. In China? Coal is seen as the black gold. Yet, look at this quote, about a city in China of 3 million:


Taiyuan residents, though, shrug wearily when the talk turns to pollution, fearful that speaking out could get them in trouble. But when pressed, the complaints tumble forth and expose a community held hostage by the soot.

Residents seal their windows to keep out the dirty air. Parents are warned not to let their toddlers play outside, for fear of being covered in coal dust. Fruits and vegetables must be washed in detergent.


Full story:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/05/asia/AS-FEA-GEN-China-Coal-The-Dark-Side.php

I'll never be one to say that we CAN'T solve these problems, especially these larger issues that seem to be closing in upon us, globally. We're more than qualified - on paper. We're smart, social, imaginative and adaptive. I'm saying that we probably WON'T solve these problems - at least not in the first half of the 21st century. Because we're also resistant to change, too comfortable with our current standard of living, too content to deny projected consequences, too confrontational with each other internationally, too much in love with staking out and stubbornly defending portions of the Earth's crust...

Currently the pendulum is swinging AWAY from "better" and towards "worse". But one has to step very far back, to see it.

Obviously I hope we solve everything, right quick. I want space travel within the solar system - for everyone - to get on track TOMORROW, for example. But solving the big, pressing issues? I'm just not seeing that trending, today. I'm seeing too many ostriches heading for the coast, in desperate search of soft, fluffy sand.

[billydkid]

It would all depend on how define getting better/getting worse. If people are less happy and satisfied with their lives, things are getting worse.

[Tailgater]

Here's the problem..... <snip> .....search of soft, fluffy sand.

A long list could be made of improvements also, but I don't think a list of good or bad things proves anything. You could pick anytime/where in history and point to horrible times that went on for not only decades, but centuries. I don't see a comparison of video cameras or piss tests (I'm all for those, especially scholl bus drivers), to lets say the spanish inquisition. Or comparing freedoms overall to specifically minorities pre-civil rights. Or the extinction of a dolphin, to Lake Michigan near Gary/Chicago a few decades ago or Chernobyl. Or the European Union after thousands of years of war. On and on. But did humans learn from each of these times in history and improve on them? Sometimes no, but I think mostly yes. Maybe this decade is worst than last decade, but is this century worse than last? Is this millenium worse than the last? The pendelum is always swinging back and forth, but the clock still moves forward IMO.

[Dunstan]

Are people as free as they used to be? No they are not. Try getting on an airplane in the U.S.

I do it all the time. My baggage is scanned, and it's mildly annoying having to take my shoes and belt off to go through the metal detector, but what's the big deal? Just a few decades ago, airfare was so expensive that my family almost never flew anywhere for family vacation; now my parents can afford to fly to Europe every year if they want.

Try going almost anywhere and entertaining the notion that someone is NOT watching you on a monitor. Try talking on a telephone and NOT imagining that your call is not being monitored, or recorded. Or records of your call history are NOT being turned over to a government bureaucracy.

I pretty much never think about this stuff. I don't flatter myself that Homeland Security cares about me making weekend plans with my friends or walking to the grocery store, and more importantly, I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary.

Try getting a job in the USA and NOT agreeing to have your urine tested - because you might be lying about using certain drugs.

I've had multiple jobs and never been asked to take a drug test.

Try opening your snail mail and thinking that it may already have been opened, examined and resealed. Try sending a private email to someone and being absolutely confident that it reached ONLY that person.

If someone's been examining my mail -- which I highly doubt -- I'd be more outraged at the waste of tax dollars. I'm kidding here. There are civil rights abuses going on, and we should call the government on them. I don't have to believe that things are worse than ever to believe that we should still try to make them better.

When exactly was the Golden Age of Civil Liberties? The early 20th century, when advocating against WWI got people thrown in prison? The 1940s, when the Supreme Court okayed the internment of Japanese-Americans? The McCarthy Era? The RFK Justice Department that wiretapped Martin Luther King, Jr.? J. Edgar Hoover's FBI? And that's without mentioning the days when racial, gender, and religious discrimination were legal.



Oil is about to reach $100 a barrel. And it will go well beyond that.

But if you're concerned about CO2 emissions (and we all should be), isn't that a good thing?

I wish I could remember where I read this, but I saw an interesting article or blog post recently that argued that environmentalists should brag a little more about what has been accomplished. Pointing out all the problems of the past that have been at least improved if not solved -- without reducing our standard of living or "going back to the caves" as the strawman critique of environmentalists holds -- would make people more willing to listen to the solutions that are being proposed to today's problems.

[latent aaaack]

He's right to the extent he means that the mass media (television media mainly) distorts reality and fails to provide perspective in a way that seems to portray everything as more terrible and panic inducing than it is.

This would be true even if WWIII were a few years away or if an asteroid was spotted to be on a collision course with us or if there were no major news events - the media would still imply, like political propagandists imply, that the public is a pliable, thoughtless, cowardly, drooling, sub-sentient object waiting for instructions from it's mysterious powerful masters.

But aside from that, the statement that peoples' lives are getting better is meaningless without a specific measure.

There may well be a huge population crash this century from environmental and population crises and war. Even after the Black Death killed 33-66% of Europe's population though, the end result for survivors and future society was actually positive. Population rebounded and it's hypothesized that it catalyzed revolutionary changes like the Renaissance, so the point is change is constant and it's nothing to be frightened of but to be planned for and faced with dignity and steadfastness like Londoners did during the blitz.

[Ranillon]

I watched an interview with Penn Jillette on The Glenn Beck Show recently. Penn said something I found insightful. He said, paraphrasing, "Two things are always true, number one, things are always getting better and number two, people always think things are getting worse."


My problem with this quote has nothing really to do with the question of whether or not we are indeed better off, but that such statements are usually little more than code for "Stop whining about some problem I'd rather not believe is real and prefer to ignore."

In other words, the phrase isn't really a plea to enjoy what you have, but rather a tactic to glibly dismiss a potential problem, often one with national and/or global consequences (like, for example, Global Warming). It's basically the adult equivalent of a headstrong teenager blowing off the warnings of a parent to, say, drive safely or not use drugs. Why admit there is a potential danger when you can just casually dismiss the speaker as being too negative? After all, problems are really easy to deal with if you don't even acknowledge they may exist (regardless of whether they actually do).

[Number Six]

Here's the problem. Your statement that so-called "doom and gloomers" have consistently been wrong.

Just is not true.

Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, back in the 1970s, began speaking out and publicizing the issue of global warming. That's when he was in the House of Representatives. He was essentially isolated, ignored.

I wasn't referring to the recent global warming stuff. Doom and gloomers have been around for a lot longer than 30 years. And the doom and gloomers from 30 years ago forecast a much worse 2007 than we're experiencing now.

One of the doom and gloom issues 30 years ago was world population. Billions would starve. They didn't. Were the doom and gloomers wrong or instead did all the dooming and glooming cause people to change their behavior and thereby prevent billions from starving?
Or maybe a little of both.

[Number Six]

My problem with this quote has nothing really to do with the question of whether or not we are indeed better off, but that such statements are usually little more than code for "Stop whining about some problem I'd rather not believe is real and prefer to ignore."

In other words, the phrase isn't really a plea to enjoy what you have, but rather a tactic to glibly dismiss a potential problem, often one with national and/or global consequences (like, for example, Global Warming). It's basically the adult equivalent of a headstrong teenager blowing off the warnings of a parent to, say, drive safely or not use drugs. Why admit there is a potential danger when you can just casually dismiss the speaker as being too negative? After all, problems are really easy to deal with if you don't even acknowledge they may exist (regardless of whether they actually do).

Glibly dismissing things that should be glibly dismissed is a good thing. Not glibly dismissing things that should be glibly dismissed is a bad thing. Glibly dismissing things that should not be glibly dismissed is also a bad thing.

Your answer assumes that the doom and gloomers are right and that the people dismissing them are wrong. But I don't want to make that assumption, rather I want to check to see whether it's true. The doom and gloomers have been wrong, but the question is, why? Have they been inherently wrong? Or instead have they been wrong because their doom and gloom forecast sprang people into action thereby preventing the doom and gloom?

[Tailgater]

. I don't have to believe that things are worse than ever to believe that we should still try to make them better.

I like that. Right on.

[Number Six]

I don't have to believe that things are worse than ever to believe that we should still try to make them better.

I don't either but maybe some people do. Maybe the best way to produce positive change is to tell everyone the world is going to crap and that they have to change now or else we'll all be dead in 20 years. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. I certainly wish the best way to get people act was by calmly, rationally explaining things to them but I don't think it is. The question is, what combination of calm, rational explanation and dooming and glooming works best?

[Dunstan]

I don't either but maybe some people do.

Some people, sure. The question is how many, and I don't know where we would look for evidence on that, so all we have is our intuition. Mine says that it's not many.

Maybe the best way to produce positive change is to tell everyone the world is going to crap and that they have to change now or else we'll all be dead in 20 years. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. I certainly wish the best way to get people act was by calmly, rationally explaining things to them but I don't think it is. The question is, what combination of calm, rational explanation and dooming and glooming works best?

If by "dooming and glooming" you mean making claims that are not calm or rational, i.e. exaggerated, then I think that's doomed (heh) to fail. Take global warming for example, since we've been discussing it in this thread. Whatever you think the "right" solution is (carbon taxes, emissions caps, etc.) it probably involves people making sacrifices for the greater good.

Imagine an average citizen evaluating the situation. He'll make these sacrifices if he can be shown they're necessary, but his natural inclination is to resist. If "doom and gloomers" are making unsubstantiated claims, someone is going to point those out, and that's all the reason he'll need to resist.

Look at how many people claim that Al Gore's message is all nonsense because one or two claims in his movie have been successfully nitpicked. Look at all the global warming denialists who cite previous "doom and gloom" predictions by the neo-Malthusians and the "ice agers" of the 60s and 70s.

Now, if instead you mean "should we emphasize the risks as much as possible while staying within the limits of the evidence," that's a different question.

[Ranillon]

Your answer assumes that the doom and gloomers are right and that the people dismissing them are wrong.


You've missed my entire point -- it doesn't matter who is "right". If one does indeed "glibly dismiss" an idea then they will have NO IDEA WHAT IS "RIGHT." They aren't doing the proper basic investigation to figure things out whatever they may be. Casual dismissal becomes a substitute for informed understanding. In such a case being "right" becomes more a matter of coincidence than fact. That's the problem.

[Number Six]

You've missed my entire point -- it doesn't matter who is "right". If one does indeed "glibly dismiss" an idea then they will have NO IDEA WHAT IS "RIGHT." They aren't doing the proper basic investigation to figure things out whatever they may be. Casual dismissal becomes a substitute for informed understanding. In such a case being "right" becomes more a matter of coincidence than fact. That's the problem.

Okay, I didn't mean the word "glibly" to be used in that way. I mean, dismissing things that deserve to be dismissed is a good thing, although of course you should know that they deserve to be dismissed instead of dismissing them automatically and being right just by being lucky.

On the other hand, the fact that people are always saying the world is going to hell and it never does says to me either that the world is a lot more immune to going to hell than people think (in which case dismissing people that say it is going to hell is a good thing) or else the people saying the world is going to hell brings about change and prevents it from going to hell.

If I don't know whether the world is going to hell but I do know that the people are always saying the world is going to hell are wrong then even if I don't know anything about the specific current claim about the world going to hell it isn't completely nonsensical to dismiss them even without thinking. I mean, the idea is, "I don't know and you don't know but I know I don't know whereas you don't know you don't know. And past history shows people who say they know when they don't know are usually wrong."

[Dunstan]

I mean, the idea is, "I don't know and you don't know but I know I don't know whereas you don't know you don't know. And past history shows people who say they know when they don't know are usually wrong."

I don't know about that.

[Number Six]

I don't know about that.

When I say past history shows that people that say know are wrong I mean people that say the world is going to hell have been wrong. Some people say they know about certain things and turn out to be right.

Here's something sort of related I thought about once. Consider someone that has been married many times, say, Liz Taylor. And assume she takes it all seriously and is really trying to make a marriage last.

So, Liz has never been married and she meets a guy and falls hard and he proposes and she accepts and gets married. And it doesn't work and they divorce. Then guy #2 comes along. She marries again and it doesn't work again. Then guy #3. And guy #4. And guy #5.

This whole time Liz is trying very hard to accurately assess whether the next marriage is going to last. But at some point it should occur to her that, even though this next guy really feels like the right one, she also felt that way about the previous five guys and was wrong every time. So maybe she starts to think, "Ya know, when it comes to assessing whether I can make a marriage last a lifetime, I'm just not good at it."

Similarly, when people say the world is going to hell over and over and over and it never does, it occurs to me that maybe people just aren't good at assessing whether the world is going to hell. Unless the world is in fact going to hell all the time except that it is saved by the actions taken by people that are scared into it by those that always say the world is going to hell.

Another analogy is "the world is coming to an end" people. After those predictions fail over and over you'd think people would eventually say "Obviously people aren't good at predicting when the world is going to end."

[Dunstan]

When I say past history shows that people that say know are wrong I mean people that say the world is going to hell have been wrong. Some people say they know about certain things and turn out to be right.

Here's something sort of related I thought about once. Consider someone that has been married many times, say, Liz Taylor. And assume she takes it all seriously and is really trying to make a marriage last.

So, Liz has never been married and she meets a guy and falls hard and he proposes and she accepts and gets married. And it doesn't work and they divorce. Then guy #2 comes along. She marries again and it doesn't work again. Then guy #3. And guy #4. And guy #5.

This whole time Liz is trying very hard to accurately assess whether the next marriage is going to last. But at some point it should occur to her that, even though this next guy really feels like the right one, she also felt that way about the previous five guys and was wrong every time. So maybe she starts to think, "Ya know, when it comes to assessing whether I can make a marriage last a lifetime, I'm just not good at it."

Similarly, when people say the world is going to hell over and over and over and it never does, it occurs to me that maybe people just aren't good at assessing whether the world is going to hell. Unless the world is in fact going to hell all the time except that it is saved by the actions taken by people that are scared into it by those that always say the world is going to hell.

Another analogy is "the world is coming to an end" people. After those predictions fail over and over you'd think people would eventually say "Obviously people aren't good at predicting when the world is going to end."

I'm sorry, I should have added a smiley, I guess. I was making a joke about all the "don't knows" in your previous post.

[Number Six]

That's okay, sometimes I feel like rambling on and on and this is one of those times.

[ConspiRaider]

I don't either but maybe some people do. Maybe the best way to produce positive change is to tell everyone the world is going to crap and that they have to change now or else we'll all be dead in 20 years. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. I certainly wish the best way to get people act was by calmly, rationally explaining things to them but I don't think it is. The question is, what combination of calm, rational explanation and dooming and glooming works best?
There is merit in what you say.

I wrote a piece a bit ago about personalizing Mother Nature, and her Monday morning as she looked out her window at the Earth - and heard no sound of a baby crying, anywhere on the planet.

It was meant as an attention-getter, but not as deception. It's nothing more than a projection - a possibility - of the numerous paths down which we might venture. Not unique in that sense. You see books doing this, movies doing this. Done correctly, wildly popular. Look at the Terminator movies. Behind them all is a warning - an alarm bell off in the distance.

We're seeing the leading edge of deleterious paths that might be trod by us as a species, if we continue along, business as usual. Did I ever think - ever - that in my lifetime, the North Pole could MELT entirely in the summer? No way. I never, ever considered that as even a remote possibility. And yet - look up there. It's going. It's actually happening. No fantasy.

[bigred]

.....and that's pretty much his point, I'm guessing. While life is never perfect and always lots of room for improvement, every century is better than the last in overall quality of life in the world. FYI even if we agreed that's true, that's not what PJ said.

Other than if global warming is fact (then we are all dead), why do people say the present is the worst in history? That's just ridiculous in every way.:boggled: That's not what he (or anyone else here) said either.

PS and oh btw: not that it isn't worth noting, but "better" isn't all about more material things or better medicines.

[bigred]

He's right to the extent he means that the mass media (television media mainly) distorts reality and fails to provide perspective in a way that seems to portray everything as more terrible and panic inducing than it is. Is that what he means? To be fair he was paraphrased so hard to say, but I have to wonder.

the media would still imply, like political propagandists imply, that the public is a pliable, thoughtless, cowardly, drooling, sub-sentient object waiting for instructions from it's mysterious powerful masters. ? You say that like as if it isn't true.

But aside from that, the statement that peoples' lives are getting better is meaningless without a specific measure. Bingo.....

[JoeEllison]

Things ARE getting worse. Some things. Other things are getting better. It is all a matter of priorities. And, just because things in general are trending upwards doesn't mean we can't see a decade-long slump in some pretty important areas.

[Tailgater]

FYI even if we agreed that's true, that's not what PJ said.

:boggled: That's not what he (or anyone else here) said either.

PS and oh btw: not that it isn't worth noting, but "better" isn't all about more material things or better medicines.

I understand that. I went on more after Conspis more detailed post in #35. If you take global warming out of the picture, which we don't know if it will be the end of us or just a serious change in lifestyle, what factors of human life are worse? And I know that is also beyond material and medicine.

ETA-I wasn't quoting PJ. I was looking at how both of you compare the present to the rest of history and think how bad things are. Conspi said, "Watch what happens, this 21st century. It won't be pretty, and it won't be "better". We've had our very brief period of "better". We WAY overextended. Now it's time to pay the band....", and you seconded him.

There are more challenges, but humans learn. Are we learning too late? Maybe, but does potential problems equate to things being worse.

[Kopji]

I caught the show the other night. Here is the CNN transcript.

http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0711/02/gb.01.html


JILLETTE: You can certainly put it to the fact that human beings -- two things have always been true about human beings. One, the world is always getting better. Two, the people living at that time think it`s getting worse.

It`s because you get older, your responsibilities are different. Now I`m taking care of children instead of being a child. It makes the world look scarier. That happens to everyone.

And on top of that, we have this horrible -- you can call it Judeo- Christian, I think it`s even deeper than that, deeper than the Abrahamic religions -- of this horrible guilt that things go well. I mean, my kids won`t have polio, you know? And I`m old enough that my parents were still reminding themselves they didn`t have to worry about it. You know, I wasn`t going to get polio. I had the vaccine. They still worried about it.

And I think that there`s this huge amount of guilt for how good things are, and there`s this puritanical strain that liberals don`t know how to deal with because, you know, they don`t have the religion that started that. They just have this, you know, what I call it is we hate ourselves. It`s this, "Things are too good. It must be our fault. We can`t be doing this."

And whether you`re recycling or whether you`re doing penance or whether you`re hitting yourself with a whip, it`s all the same thing of just not being willing to say, "Wow, we`ve got it really good, but let`s help a few other people."


IMHO Beck is something of a Charismatic Jerk, so his guests spin in little circles trying to keep him from calling it a wrap before their time is up.

I'd have to agree that this is not the deepest analysis of the human condition that I've heard recently. :D Penn is fun and interesting in his own way though, I think he's one of the better spoken Libertarians. Remember that we are watching a discussion from two guys on the far fringes of well, anything.