Sorry, saw the post below and it's getting buried, so I'm reviving it.
The Pinker Thesis is a compelling one from a materialist point of view: fewer people in poverty, fewer people contracting life-threatening viruses, greater workplace opportunities for women, et cetera.
From a materialist, secular humanist perspective, it's completely obvious why this is a persuasive argument.
However, it's a curious position to be taken by conservatives, who, at least allegedly, should recognize that such measurements do not appraoch a totality in terms of gauging how well we're doing overall as human beings. In western socities, we also see, to name a few: falling life expectancies, soaring levels of loneliness, climbing levels of depression among children, the collapse of the family - horrendous levels of illegitimacy in impoverished populations, epidemic levels of addiction in poor rural areas and poor urban areas, epidemic levels of unreported violent crimes in cities due to victim/witness intimdation and subcultural norms(which distorts the crime picture), the collapse of community due in no small part(and on several levels) to technological innovations, the increased use of technology to victimize children, the rapid disappearance of civic and fraternal organizations, the degradation of the arts into the banal and the profane.
It should be hardly surprising to conservatives that as the spiritual deficit increases in many western societies, all the markers of the Pinker Thesis don't render a happier, or, at least, a more contented people. Misery finds its way into people's lives down various avenues. Cherry-picking data that focuses exclusively on the materal leaves you in a situation where purveyors of this perspective have to shout at the populace, "Why aren't you people happier?!? Don't you know how great things are???" None of the things they cite speak to the underlying reason people grow unhappier with each passing year, at least in western societies.
The seeds of this line of thought reach at least as far back as Jesus’ day. He often emphasized the distinction between wealth and spiritual fulfillment.
I take back everything I wrote about Radiohead, BTW.
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I am not sure what to take away from it yet, but it's interesting to me. Also interesting (not addressed in the Nova episode) is that as the situation has become materially better for humans, depression and anxiety have increased. It seems like we're hardwired to need struggle. Where we don't have challenges (think spoiled children) we find a way to create our own.
And they kept fighting that battle for a whole year.
Now we are horrified that 2,400 Americans were killed over the last 18 years in Afghanistan.
This is probably a pretty good proxy for the value we now place on human life, compared to our ancestors. Ergo, things ARE better.
Sure, there are problems...there always will be. But an uptick in loneliness doesn't outweigh the fact that the number of people living close to starvation is falling on both a percentile and absolute basis.
It's an interesting argument and worth reading or listening to, if you're at all interested.
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As you may have noticed, all things come back to Adam Carolla and Loveline with me. Did you know something like 99% of conent on Wikipedia comes from men?
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The loveliest thing about it is that feminists cannot attribute it to the male patriarchy because anyone can contribute and refine content there.
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A Mcstat of course...I made that up...
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the dust also fighting for “King and Country”.
There are about three times more people in the country than during WWII - when nobody talked about loneliness (especially men). How can we possibly know there is more today than there was then?
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Several factors:
1) Kids aren't required / encouraged to socialize in person any more by schools. One example: Dates are no longer required for dances...and dances in general are becoming much less attended. In my day, requiring dates for dances got me a few free opportunities to meet new girls...to practice dating by being forced into real dates even if I was shy. When one of my buddies was dating a girl at an all girls high school, but he didn't want to go without some guys he knew, he would just set me and all our other buddies up on blind dates with a half-dozen girls from the school. I would do the same for him. Voila! Socialization. Today? That never happens. Packs of girls go to those dances without dates.
2) Technology: Kids socialize through technology instead of in person. Kids (boys at a minimum) play video games on Friday night instead of going to parties. Kids don't try to organize their Friday night outing during the week by talking to people at school. They send a text. Maybe they get a reply; maybe they don't. They start a text chain, and then get elminated without knowing about it, they stay home. Even in college, dinner at the dining hall is often organized by text, not by walking by an open door in the dorm. And open doors in the dorms are becoming few and far between. That's considered weird.
2a) Technology -- Porn. The need for a teen boy to have a girlfriend to release his pent up sexual frustrations is as low as it has ever been in the history of mankind. Marriages are down. Reproduction in general is grinding to a halt in every country which has ubiquitous access to the Internet.
Granted, these are first world problems. They are still problems. And, this does lead to depression and suicide, and pointing out to our kids that they should feel lucky because they don't have to run from the lion anymore doesn't actually solve the problem.
Old guys always think the youngsters are totally screwed. And their impressions are based on nothing in particular.
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Kids are being thrown into too many organized sports too quickly. We spent every day after school playing football, street hockey, basketball or shit, even wiffleball. We made the rules, the teams and resolved differences. Now kids only play sports in a tightly controlled, adult supervised environment.
I don’t have any studies to tell me how that adds to loneliness but I do know that going and finding people to shoot hoops with or play football with kept you connected to the outside world. Now you can play video games until mom takes you to soccer practice.
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I'm working on the assumption that TAs do the grading.
Prior generations dealt with more pressing ones such as food, shelter, warmth, transportation, sanitation, disease, bad teeth, savage Indians etc.
We were just discussing mass/school shooters the other day.
You would have to be either ignorant or locked into a particular side of this argument to refuse to acknowledge that, no, people weren't any more connected to their communities in decades past than they are today. There are terrific ways of measuring this, beyond the surveys that ask people if they're lonely, like the noted disappearance of civic and fraternal organizations.
We can go along with your explanation - that these are simply first-world problems - but that doesn't obviate the fact that people are becoming less and less happy or contented and this manifests in various social ills that are growing worse, not better. Ironically, Chris is this forum's poster boy for being miserable in this "golden age." Kinda funny, ain't it?
Hard to argue that. They are also REAL issues. Also, one could argue that in the end they may do in the society.
However, materially, technologically, having the capacity to live longer and more comfortably, and to contemplate things such a loneliness, we are living in a much advanced age. Being lonely ain’t as important when your belly isn’t full and you are cold.
We also seem to have a need to invent or magnify our obstacles when many of the big ones have been vanquished. We are an imperfect lot.
You're another on this forum that seems to be miserable despite all material markers that you should be happy, hopefully it's just a board persona thing ...
If anything, I am concerned about how fragile it is and what it will be like for my kids and theirs.
One thing I am both here and elsewhere is a deficit hawk for that reason.
Also concerned with the fragility, but also content with I can only my part.
I went on a self-reliance kick after the last crash in 2008-2009. I didn't lose my job, but my boss lost his, and I had to lay off 2/3 of my department. All of a sudden, almost everyone around me at work was gone.
After that, I did a self audit, and itemized the "fragile" things in my life...what did I worry about?...what was fine now, but could change easily?...what was unlikely to change but would have major effects if it did? I then started aggressively addressing each one of them. This has allowed me to be "less miserable" about recessions, social tensions...even less likely things like potential social upheavals. [Edit to add this along the lines of your comment below: I felt a sense of purpose from being a husband and father, and taking ownership of managing things I had previously ignored or took for granted felt like I was honoring that purpose...and that made me happier/more satisfied.]
And, I told my kids they can't count on things being as nice as they were for me. Things might be that nice, and if they are, great, but they shouldn't count on it. I told them that my generation is borrowing from their generation at WWII levels even though there is no WWII going on. So, I think they are taking their college seriously...only pursuing degrees that are marketable, so that they can be less miserable and have fewer "fragilities" to worry about.
Bottom line: I can only do what I can do...and I decided to actually do it. I don't worry about what I can't do.
Again, explaining why people are so unhappy is one thing. It's entirely another to argue that since this unhappiness seems unfounded, it is therefore less important that improvements in material wealth. As a matter of fact, you seem to have argued the rise in B might necessarily result in a rise in A. That's quite the conundrum for mankind. It also works against the Pinker Thesis, itself.
I am arguing that the rise of B also results in the rise of A. It’s redunkulous hubris to say that because we have materially and technologically conquered problems, we also haven’t created or enhanced others. Our cavernous political divide is also a first world problem as in reality we lack the fundamental issues like slavery, or economic depression to argue over this badly. We have the richest poor in the world.
I don’t have the answers, but so far generationally we have met the challenges.
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A true first world problem but none the less a problem as he is so divisive.
Said people obviously didn't read Pinker's book...
Racism actually has little to do with him although of course racists do support him.
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Along with his realization that he was surrouinded by stupid people who disagree with him.
And the fact that he lives in New Orleans. I probably should have placed this first on the list.
You try to be happy with all that working against you.
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There are some real problems today and some are as bad or worse than the past Not many though. We seem to have the need to invent a lot of our own first world problems. The one we really do seem to ignore is how ephemeral and fragile our technology based world is. We are dependent on the power grid for just about everything.
less able to deal with even comparatively minor issues in western societies.
Again, instead of a nuanced appraisal, the Pinker Thesis is a fanciful one that ignores other crucial markers that interfere with the thesis itself.
His points on war, are, frankly, ignorant, and porrly-conceived.
Of course it is a crutch!
(I was at a parish seminar, and the speaker yelled that out at us, scaring the crap out of everyone.)
Religion helps people deal with life's difficulties.
Would you pull a crutch away from someone who needs it? Of course you wouldn't.
Wars, for instance, are not crucial. Nor is crime - murder, rape, spousal abuse, etc all declining rapidly - or life expectancy or health.
But "decline of the family" is more crucial. Sure.
I guess we will agree to disagree about who is the fact-free ignoramus.
People don't seem to be happier despite "markers" that indicate they should be. You can write this off as "puzzling" but to me it seems we really don't understand which "markers" contribute to human happiness.
My instinct is that is has to do primarily with a sense of purpose.
It is why the military life is so individually rewarding, even though it involves incredible personal hardship at times. There is tremendous clarity in that life style...at least in combat units, and especially in elite units, but I think elsewhere as well.
Not sure how realistic it is though.
People look for purpose outside of themselves. Increasingly, in secular societies, there is nothing outside of themselves.
On a local forum up here recently, a poster, commenting about a local Christian organization that is serving the homeless, wrote, "Well, if evangelizing about some guy in the sky is what it takes, so be it." He, of course, ignores the question, "Why does it seem that most or nearly all of the organizations that have any durability over time are the Christian ones, while the secular ones tend to fade away over short periods of time?" Not to get too Biblical on you, but one is built on stone, while the other is built on sand. Talk to non-religious folks about something approximating purpose in life. In modern times, that boils down to two criteria:
1. Something that makes me feel good. Emotions.
or
2. Some explanation of a moral purpose that is obviously rooted in some Judeo-Christian ethics, but completely unrecognized or unacknowledged as to its roots. As such, the purpose itself may be fleeting or pass with changing winds, hostage to whichever ethic is currently fashionable in popular culture.
Hardly the makings of a contented existence.
In particular The Moral Landscape?
There are people around me, particularly my mother, that benefit from faith, it makes them a better person and gives them a sense of purpose. I get the opposite from it and apparently so does Sam, but unlike Sam I think it is a good thing for society. It's an interesting topic for me personally.
I'm not impressed with "The New Atheists," to be honest, but he is intelligent and he's willing to debate. Some of his ideas, like science informing ethics, or advocay of the use of hallucinogenic drugs to have deeper spiritual experiences are alternately silly and dangerous. We've been down both those roads before, with disastrous consequences.
I do appreciate what he has been willing to say about Islam. In contrast to other liberals, he at least applies his dislike of religion across the board, and his refusal to surrender to that fraud, Reza Aslan, a couple years ago, was admirable, given the attacks he was bound to receive for doing it.
I long ago acknowledged that many things have indeed gotten better, most importantly fewer people in poverty, the improvement in the lives of women and a few others.
Pinker's assertions on war are ignorant. He isn't well-versed historically and he underestimate the 20th century experience.
mobility.
Almost none of what you think is happening is actually happening ("unreported crimes" is particularly asinine - can you imagine how many unreported crimes happened before cell phones? In the south? Much of the other stuff is based on vibes that conservative old shits get from their lazyboys). Anyone who thinks there is substantially more unhappiness now than in, say, the 1970s, does not remember the 1970s. Your list is mostly nonsense.
But more importantly: Sure, there are still problems. But more people can expect to live a substantially less violent, more tolerant, less painful, longer life than ever before.
Or maybe you shouldn't? Instead of offering reasoned rebuttals, you offer logical fallacies and baseless accusations. One of the more heartwarming things here at the end of 2019 is that more people here seem to be recognizing these things about you, and not just the right-wingers.
All the quantifiable markers I noted are well-documented. I suspect you know that. From declining life expectancies, to ridiculous illegitimacy rates among the poor and minorities, to loneliness, to the other stuff, all of that is very-well noted.
Link: https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-americans-less-happy-20190323-story.html
Your constant, tiresome refrain here is that society isn't actually better, or we are looking at the wrong stats, or something. Happiness does seem to be dipping, and it makes little sense. But the other stuff is not true. The suicide rate is not climbing, for instance (see below). The US is an outlier here, which is also puzzling. AGAIN: no one says that everything is PERFECT, only BETTER in most categories.
Finally: "Declining life expectancies" is pretty misleading. In the USA this is true, for the last couple of years, and 100% attributable to the opioid epidemic - and overall it is WAY up from any earlier time. ANd again, loneliness is unmeasurable. We have no idea whether it is rising or not.
Link: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/suicide-death-rate-by-age
I don't find this puzzling at all. I mean, just look at this forum.
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Are we great again yet?
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