History
Welcome to History!
A community dedicated to sharing and discussing fascinating historical facts from all periods and regions.
Rules:
-
Post about history. Ask a question about the past, share a link to an article about something historical, or talk about something related to history that interests you. Discussion is encouraged.
-
No memes. No ads. No promos. No spam.
-
No porn.
-
We like facts and reliable sources here. While sources like Quora/Reddit/Wikipedia can be great tools for quick searches, we do not allow such user-generated content as primary source. What’s wrong with Wikipedia?
NOTE: Personal attacks and insults will not be tolerated. Stick to talking about the historical topic at hand in your comments. Insults and personal attacks will get you an immediate ban.
view the rest of the comments
I’m old and have studied history extensively. Life on our planet has improved. Life expectancy is way up, hunger, slavery, discrimination much less - multiple studies show this. We are on the brink of a world war. In 10,20 years from now, you will think about today as the happy times - make a note of it.
He mentions creating more problems than we've solved, which like you I disagree, but on the other hand he asked if the world was, presumably on average, "happier".
I think that could be a tougher call. On the one hand, the average life experience is by any rational consideration better now, but as communication has advanced now everyone gets to know about the most miserable news that they would have previously been completely oblivious to.
So while atrocities always were happening, 50 miles away people would have no idea. Now any such event on the other side of the world has instant awareness.
So we get exposed to harsh realities constantly and if we have any shred of empathy we get burdened with that. Those realities may be smaller compared to the population than before, but their emotional impact is far broader.
You’ve got a point there.