- We have the accumulated knowledge of the entire human history at our fingertips and can avoid a large chunk (not all, obviously) of the pitfalls that befell our ancestors. maladies that basic sanitation eradicates, old deadly diseases like leprosy, polio, being eaten by lions, mass starvation ... those are things that are not a Thing in developed countries, and a lot more developing countries than before. The amount of people being lifted out of critical poverty worldwide over the last 50 years is another wonderful example.
- obviously we have new pitfalls our ancestors didn't ... but when was this not true for the human species? there's always been adjustment periods to new social changes and technology. The printing press created one heck of an information upheaval that changed power structures of institutions and nations, and yet it's considered a net good now.
- On a more individual scale, the human brain for some has a tendency to always need to worry or be anxious about Something. The ancients were simply anxious about other things. This has been a thought that's helped me from negativity getting in the way of the potential positives I could accomplish.
- "if it bleeds, it leads" is one of the truest quips about the news I've heard and seen. Simply logging off of news and focusing on local connections will do wonders for the mindset. What you see on TV does not equate to reality.
And lastly, some may feel this quote is overly twee, but the older I get the more it rings true:
"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping. '" - Mr. Rogers
1. I realize this is a narrow/selfish view, but if you are European or American, does it really still apply? Have things really been improving much in this regard there since the 90s/2010s? Why is the future here going to be brighter for Europe/America in this regard? I do realize I am moving the goalposts here a bit.
2. Again, the internet has been around for some time, and it was arguably better 10-15 years ago. Old message boards and old YouTube are certainly better than modern Twitter, TikTok, instagram 'influencers'. Yes, there was plenty of rubbish on the internet back then too, but at least we knew it was rubbish - now it is mainstream culture.
3. Logging off the news will not switch off the big risk that will affect all of us, like the stuff I outlined in the original post. But yes, at least it will help with worrying about things outside your control. Still, that is kind of saying "yes, there are few reasons to be optimistic, the world is getting worse - find ways of dealing with it".
I gotta say, Bill Gates single-handedly owning the health infrastructure of the third world doesn’t put me at ease. This is a man who was ruthlessly capitalistic throughout his career, and hung out with a convicted rapist (Epstein) on a regular basis. At the very least, he’s an “ends justify the means”, willing to look the other way kind of guy. There’s no doubt the Gates foundation has done a lot for global health, but it’s too much political power for one flawed person to have.
Honestly I kind of like the idea of being killed by a lion over dying from a nuclear holocaust. Like a real man.
I've been telling people this for like over a decade and they don't think I'm joking, there is a hint of seriousness to this though. I mean these are all things that killed a relatively lower amount of people, stuff we could bounce back from and adapt to basically - it wasn't like the prospect of any of the things you listed basically means all life on earth is completely screwed over for centuries and centuries until cockroaches become sentient or whatever.
Eaten by a lion can be a slow and painful death. It will be worse if they decide to play with you a bit before eating you alive. You will get bitten bite by bite with blood flowing out slowly. It is incredibly cruel process and can take hours if you're unlucky. It is hard to regard it as 'manly'. I will pick nuclear blast any day as I will be gone in less than a second.
Alot of us don't live in nuke target zones and will just die slowly of the collapse of civilization, nuclear winter, fallout etc anyways and it won't be due to our horrible decisions.
Gimme the cat. I'll take agonizing hours over days.
Oh that part is just a dumb joke. It's just thinking in the broader picture, people have been getting eaten by wild cats for thousands of years. We can continue doing that sustainably for another unit in the thousands of years. But if things start getting nuked? At BEST you happen to be in the far reaches of the Patagonia or maybe New Zealand, and even then the fallout may cause agonizing death.
At least if you get in a fight with a huge cat you have a chance of killing it with your bare hands [1]
also something observable with wolves. those who attack humans are usually too sick to run after hares and deers. lucky for us they haven't figured out yet that humans are basically a free all you can eat buffet.
- obviously we have new pitfalls our ancestors didn't ... but when was this not true for the human species? there's always been adjustment periods to new social changes and technology. The printing press created one heck of an information upheaval that changed power structures of institutions and nations, and yet it's considered a net good now.
- On a more individual scale, the human brain for some has a tendency to always need to worry or be anxious about Something. The ancients were simply anxious about other things. This has been a thought that's helped me from negativity getting in the way of the potential positives I could accomplish.
- "if it bleeds, it leads" is one of the truest quips about the news I've heard and seen. Simply logging off of news and focusing on local connections will do wonders for the mindset. What you see on TV does not equate to reality.
And lastly, some may feel this quote is overly twee, but the older I get the more it rings true:
"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping. '" - Mr. Rogers