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So I'm reading the news and once again I'm baffled and sad at the same time.
We have crisis upon crisis, everywhere.
Financial. The lives of millions are influenced by few bankers juggling with money. People that have nothing to do with a bank on the other side of the world lose their job because said bank went bankrupt. And the financial sector seems to have learned nothing and is back to the old ways.
Enviromental. Politicians on a broad front ignore every warning, celebrate meetings without results as success and don't care what happens to the world we, our children and grandchildren have to inhabit unless they can utilize it for votes. And they're pretty much the only ones that could do something about it.
Diplomatical. Not only do we have wars all over the world, but politicians everywhere behave as if they're some lords or caste nobles from the 1800s. We live in the 21st century, yet diplomatic relations and actions could well come out of a history book with all the bickering, insults and petty issues going on. We have nations on our planet that can barely feed and educate their inhabitants, but could nuke half our planet with their arsenals.
Religious. I somehow expected religion to have become an exclusively spiritual thing in our time, but it's worse than ever. Islamistic terrorists making all peaceful muslims look bad. Fundamental christians spreading racism, violence and stupidity (creationism). Jews still being blamed for their belief by people mindlessly repeating phrases that are hundreds of years old.
General. 21st century, but half the world lives in poverty. Military spending outwheighs funding for science, education or help for poorer nations everywhere. Freedom is sacrificed for "security" in so many countries and places, as if 1984 was indeed used as a manual and not as a warning. Organisations like Wikileaks (all controversy about Assange aside) are critized and their support is pulled, even though it's one of the best things to happen in times of growing paranoia, surveillance and secrecy. Mainstream media has become the twisted parody it was often portrayed as in movies about "the future" from 20 or 30 years ago.
I realize life has never been fair for everyone and that there always have been wars, crises etc. But when growing up, I somehow expected the future to be brighter and the world to be a better place than it is today. I'm actually depressed every time I read or see the news. I wanted to change the world when I was younger, I even chose a field of study that would help me do so (enviromental engineering). But nowadays, I ignore news whenever I can, I don't want to change anything anymore because I'm convinced that I won't be able to contribute to anything in the first place. And my ambitious and naive plans from my childhood and teen years have made room for and attitude that's basically just "live my life, enjoy myself, see that children I may have are educated well, and screw all the rest".
  
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cuz no singular culture/worldview meshes perfectly well with the concept of the world getting a whole lot smaller like it did over the past few centuries. no human can comprehend what 6.9 billion people really means, and humans arent entirely used to working with statistics rather than numbers yet. also, human irrationality.
in terms of cultures singularly thriving well though, scandinavia seems pretty well off (other than all the seasonal affective disorder)
also that attitude you described in the last part of your post needs to die (esp in america) or we're more heavily screwed than ever
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Even though the 21st century has a lot of bad to it, it still does not compare to the horrible states of earlier centuries of humanity. Just think of slavery, masculine dominance, scientific ignorance, plagues and just pure violent brutality (ie the arbitrary mass murders of religious fanatics and monarchs)
I actually think the world of today is A LOT better than what humanity was a few centuries ago. The only thing that has really gone down the hill is the environment.
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Compared to 20 years ago, you may be right. Compared to 100 years ago, you are not. Especially in europe, we used to be shit poor with supercrappy lives for 90% of the people 100 years ago. So we do go forwards; only its 2 steps forwards, 1 step back.
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oh yeah i forgot that part; the world is better right now than it ever was before, and depending on how that environment thing goes, it might not get much better after this either. we can only hope :D
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I realize life has never been fair for everyone and that there always have been wars, crises etc. But when growing up, I somehow expected the future to be brighter and the world to be a better place than it is today. I'm actually depressed every time I read or see the news. I wanted to change the world when I was younger, I even chose a field of study that would help me do so (enviromental engineering). But nowadays, I ignore news whenever I can, I don't want to change anything anymore because I'm convinced that I won't be able to contribute to anything in the first place. And my ambitious and naive plans from my childhood and teen years have made room for and attitude that's basically just "live my life, enjoy myself, see that children I may have are educated well, and screw all the rest". I identify myself a lot with you.
The state of today's world is not something "new" intelligent individuals have predicted economic and social collapse for decades even since after WW2, but the masses won't listen to them, only the enlightened can understand them.
With an overpopulation of stupid people you'll get a world that is fucked up, in every group there's a few winners and a whole lot of losers. The ignorant masses will have their way and the few people intelligent enough to realize what the reasonable and logical thing to do are pushed aside.
You want to cope with living in this mad world? Listen to and enjoy George Carlin (R.I.P), fuck hope and realize things are not going to go better but are only going to continue as they have for thousands of years. In Carlin's opinion civilization failed when we handed the power over to traders and priests. Besides America is only a 234 year old country...where people believe they have god on their side.
What is really fucked up about humanity is very simple, it's our priorities...our wants instead of our needs, the unequal division of resources for as long as there are countries, borders and races, and as long as the 1% of the world population sits on 80% of the wealth and power, the rest of the world is going to be fucked over.
To quote myself from a personal transcript :
I've learned allot from this man, to think differently about topics I thought I understood. I guess comedians have the ability to tell the truth in a humorous way (through satire) while breaking down the barriers of denial and reaching into the audiences consciousness. Him and Einstein have understood universal values, logic and how humans function and think in civilization and corporate America. Like giving traders and priests the power, now we all sell out our time, money, beautiful intellect and soul to commerce and religion, to either stuff or make-believe bullshit
Life is not fucking fair and society is not fucking logical.
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I feel the same way a lot of times, but I think that the media has more to do with it than the world actually spiraling to apocalypse. Maybe things aren't worse, but when you have to hear about every single bad thing happening in the world every day then it makes things look fatal and hopeless. Or maybe the world really is much worse than it used to be, I really don't know.
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On December 20 2010 07:51 ChaseR wrote:Show nested quote +I realize life has never been fair for everyone and that there always have been wars, crises etc. But when growing up, I somehow expected the future to be brighter and the world to be a better place than it is today. I'm actually depressed every time I read or see the news. I wanted to change the world when I was younger, I even chose a field of study that would help me do so (enviromental engineering). But nowadays, I ignore news whenever I can, I don't want to change anything anymore because I'm convinced that I won't be able to contribute to anything in the first place. And my ambitious and naive plans from my childhood and teen years have made room for and attitude that's basically just "live my life, enjoy myself, see that children I may have are educated well, and screw all the rest". I identify myself allot with you.
Aw man what are you doing here? I can understand "alot" because that sort of makes sense. All ot? Al lot? I don't know what you're going for man. Please help me I'm very confused. The rest of your post is so good, but- this. Please help me understand.
User was warned for this post
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While I do agree with a lot, (read: like 99% ) of what you said, it's in our human nature to sort of glorify the past, and react to change and the new with fright. It's been going on since the dawn of civilization. You hear it in everything. "Back in my day... back in the good ol' days... don't make stuff like they used to... things aren't as good as when I was young... kids today are out of control..." etc etc.
The world was a better place in my parent's time. The air was cleaner, society was purer, and we feared nothing! Yet it was better yet in the days of their parents, victorious war heroes in a booming economy! And better yet for their parents, and even theirs. Greatest of all were the days of our distant progenitors, who were each and every one a king, and whom all did great deeds! Alas those days are gone now, that we believe existed, and we are left with the bitter present.
I know that I personally glorify and romanticize plenty of historical times. It's great fantasy and fascinating to read and learn about. Doesn't mean I would *actually* want to live back then. Our modern society has a *lot* of flaws, and you mentioned a bunch of them, but we've also come a long long way over the years. Personally I'm glad I wasn't born in a time when I would have given blanket consent to all male village members on the day of my first period.
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On December 20 2010 08:11 Haemonculus wrote:
While I do agree with a lot, (read: like 99% ) of what you said, it's in our human nature to sort of glorify the past, and react to change and the new with fright. It's been going on since the dawn of civilization. You hear it in everything. "Back in my day... back in the good ol' days... don't make stuff like they used to... things aren't as good as when I was young... kids today are out of control..." etc etc.
The world was a better place in my parent's time. The air was cleaner, society was purer, and we feared nothing! Yet it was better yet in the days of their parents, victorious war heroes in a booming economy! And better yet for their parents, and even theirs. Greatest of all were the days of our distant progenitors, who were each and every one a king, and whom all did great deeds! Alas those days are gone now, that we believe existed, and we are left with the bitter present.
I know that I personally glorify and romanticize plenty of historical times. It's great fantasy and fascinating to read and learn about. Doesn't mean I would *actually* want to live back then. Our modern society has a *lot* of flaws, and you mentioned a bunch of them, but we've also come a long long way over the years. Personally I'm glad I wasn't born in a time when I would have given blanket consent to all male village members on the day of my first period.
the word you are looking for is nostalgia and no - it might not have been better before, the world has and will always be corrupt, unstable, and a terrible place to live in. Not just for the poor and weak, but also for the rich working class... Alienation, monotone daily life increases as the cities grow larger and we are no longer individuals, just easily replaceable machines in the opportunistic society of greed and fear.
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On December 20 2010 07:05 Shockk wrote:
I realize life has never been fair for everyone and that there always have been wars, crises etc. But when growing up, I somehow expected the future to be brighter and the world to be a better place than it is today. I'm actually depressed every time I read or see the news. I wanted to change the world when I was younger, I even chose a field of study that would help me do so (enviromental engineering). But nowadays, I ignore news whenever I can, I don't want to change anything anymore because I'm convinced that I won't be able to contribute to anything in the first place. And my ambitious and naive plans from my childhood and teen years have made room for and attitude that's basically just "live my life, enjoy myself, see that children I may have are educated well, and screw all the rest".
The world is rapidly changing and each generation will have its own challenges to overcome. While previous generations had to deal with their crises, we have our own set of issues to deal with. The world has had its up and downs, but I would say we have always been making progress. When I was a kid, i thought I would change the world too. Today, however, I realize that the world doesn't change overnight and that it isn't the work of a single individual. I do some work everyday but there's tons of other people that are working too and collectively the world will change. Don't see solving some big issue as a homework problem that can be done in 10 minutes and don't get discouraged when faced with a big obstacle. Think of all the work that had to happen over 200 years for the United States to have a black president today.
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On December 20 2010 08:22 Shauni wrote:
the word you are looking for is nostalgia and no - it might not have been better before, the world has and will always be corrupt, unstable, and a terrible place to live in. Not just for the poor and weak, but also for the rich working class... Alienation, monotone daily life increases as the cities grow larger and we are no longer individuals, just easily replaceable machines in the opportunistic society of greed and fear.
While you have a point about alienation but it also its positives. The forced communities of small villages could be terrifying or even brutal to those who couldn't fit in, or just pissed off the wrong person. Chosing the communities you want to be part of takes some work but it's also a privilage almost no one in non-urbanized societies could enjoy.
Office work might be monotonuous but it beats working in a factory line or spending most of your day out in the field.
It's not just that people are nostalgic. They are actually wrong about how terrible some things in the past were. Many forms of prejudice were entirely acceptable, even expected. Not just racism or homophobia but prejudice against physically disabled people. How about cruelty towards the mentally ill or abuse of orphans. I understand physical abuse was pretty much the norm in orphanages in Romania and wasn't uncommon here in Hungary or the rest of the communist bloc. Generally, if you were weak or vulnerable you could expect very bad things to happen.
Greed is nothing new. How many people died due to leaded gasoline even after it became clear it was dangerous? How about smoking? Sure, for many it was a choice, but what about those who were systematically mislead? And before that the slave trades, crusades or the utterly pointless wars of 17th and 18th centry Europe.
It's not just that things are no worse now than they were. They are in fact much, much better for almost anyone.
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This may seem like a weird answer, but there is a comedian who made a career out of explaining this.
Youtube George Carlin.
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Dude, get some perspective. Read some history books. Humanity will always be going mad, it will always be on the brink of destruction with some great tyranny, it will always be just one step away from what you need. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. You're just wearing rose-tinted glasses. Things never change(including everything you pointed out in your post), they've always been this way.
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The world isn't going mad. You are. It seems you have some dark desire to see despair and distress in everything, as well as an extremely detached persona, and as a result, aren't able to experience or appreciate the strides made by humanity as well as the nature of humanity through a gestalt perspective instead.
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The world's been mad for the past couple thousand years now. But at least now we have video games to distract us from all of it 
I mean, we're really at an interesting time in human development. This is my opinion at least. Really the most positive thing we have going for us is science. Philosophy and theology really have stopped yielding any sort of progress or growth of ideas, beyond a few interesting thought experiments which are really fun to think about, at least. I mean, the whole premise of some religions is so deeply flawed. A lot of christian and religious thinkers criticize atheists about being apathetic to ideas about causality. The funny thing is the idea of god doesn't answer any questions about the causality of the universe, it only complicates things a lot.
I really like the direction civilization is heading down. We're becoming more critical, self-aware, both of what we are and what we are capable of. Sure there are a lot of problems in the world, but our ability to deal with these problems is growing exponentially as we develop new technologies and methods.
At the end of the day, you can't worry about all the things going wrong in the world. You can only really take solace in all the things going right in the world and in your own life. We also have to keep in mind how potentially ground breaking a new discovery can be. Just look at all the fields we're poised to make major breakthroughs in, or just read scientific publications each week and you'll see that we're making significant progress each day. And finally, you just have to find what you do interesting. For instance, I hope to go into research about computer-brain interfaces, not solely because it will help amputees move again, but because I genuinely find the field interesting. As Kuhn says in structure of scientific revolutions, a lot of science is done because of the motivation to solve problems, not necessarily to provide a service to mankind. When you find a field that you care about so much the whole world could burn down around you, and you'd still do it, stick to it.
btw is diplomatical really a word?
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Meh, almost everything bad with the human race is the result of primitive survival instincts. Humans just aren't developed for long term planning or altruism. Honestly, there are no incentives for a species to develop those traits; intelligent and altruistic people don't pass down their genes as readily as the dumb families spawning 50 kids.
So... humans haven't really changed for a long time, and probably won't in the future. We've become more educated, and technology is solving many of our problems, but the mentality and instincts of the average human hasn't changed much. We are still selfish, and self-centered, unable to empathize with those who are different. We are still prejudiced, even if only subconsciously. We still exploit the hell out of anything we can.
Personally, I don't expect humanity's problems to ever go away. The privileged will always exploit anyone, and anything they can. Humans will always fight amongst each other. Oh, and I don't see religions going away either.
Call me cynical, and I am, but I don't see my viewpoint as invalid.
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Haha, nostalgia at its finest. The average human today lives a vastly superior life in every form conceivable to his counterpart a century ago. All this nonsense people spew about WikiLeaks and the government response as the "death of democracy" and other sensationalist bullshit apparently refuse to realize that the past was never some ideal form of life that the hustle-bustle of modern day life has ruined. As a historian, it's amusing to see someone asking "Why is the world going mad" when, in 1453, 1914, 1933, 1939, 1962... people were asking the same question.
Avoid romanticizing the past.
Your post can easily be reversed in a positive light:
Financially, the world is far better off than it was in the past. Compare today to 1930s in economic terms and it's clear that there has been progress in the evolution of banking practices and a depression like in the 30s is highly unlikely. Likewise, on an individual level, no one could possibly argue that the average human leads a worse life in terms of financial status than his counterpart in previous times. There may have been particular periods in history where income disparity has been less, to be sure, but from a look at the big picture the world has improved.
Diplomatic? Really? The fact that there hasn't been a major war since the 1940s (Not on the scale of history's precedents) doesn't mean anything? The UN? Peacekeeping missions? Comparing today to history as a whole shows, again, a marked improvement in the diplomatic process.
Are things perfect? No. But they are, in general, and when considering the scope and scale of human history, much better than they have ever been in our recorded history (barring environmental concerns and even then, stricter national legislation on the forms of emissions and pollutions are much more stringent than the start of industrialization).
I suppose my point is that, while things are still far from perfect, the progress of human civilization up until this point can certainly give us hope.
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Going mad?
It's always been mad.
(This pretty much applies to every point, though in varying degrees (with it being worse in some eras than others))
If anything, it's just as mad, but slightly more tolerable (you know, minus africa)
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That's just the world we sit in.
The way I see it:
I'm not religious, when I die, that's it. My life ends there, my existence will be forever lost. That's why my only plan in life is this: To experience stuff. And thankfully I was born in the ''first world'' or ''western world'' as a white male, giving me huge possibilities to try out different things, good and bad.
I intend to live my life as what people might call a ''good citizen'', I will go to school so I can get relatively good paying job, I will most likely raise a family too. I won't harm others or do crime or do anything that would directly somewhat negatively impact our society.
Otherwise I will just sit back and enjoy the ride till I die, and do what it takes to survive in this world of ours. I'm not really a visionary. ;o
And yeah, life isn't all bad things! It's not all depressing stuff and greed and bla bla. Humans are capable of inflicting the greatest of horrors. Yet we are also capable of doing the most wonderful things.
Just try to enjoy the good things and try to ignore the bad things I suppose. I myself will be seeking for both, since they are both part of the ''experience of life'' which I seek before dying.
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EPT
