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Comment by ConceptJunkie | Hacker News Reader

It may be alien to us, but there are millions of people for which this describes their reality.

But millions less than there were even a few decades ago. The world is making progress toward peace, health, safety, and a decent standard of living at an extraordinary pace right now.

This is not to say everything is hunky-dory. But it is to say that this is no longer World War II.

edit: Where do you think all the Syrian and Lebanese restaurants in America came from? Refugees from the collapse of the Ottoman empire post-WWI. It was just as bad then as it is now. But it can get better, and I am totally convinced it will.

Every wave of immigration that made America what it is today came from people fleeing poverty and violence. Hardly anyone emigrates away from a safe, comfortable life with family and friends and familiar sights nearby. In the 19th century, 20% of the population of Sweden came to the US to escape famine. Sweden was 90% illiterate, mired in extreme poverty, with a birth rate above 5. Now, it's... Sweden. The most civilized country in the world.

If Sweden can evolve from an impoverished hellhole to being the epitome of modern civilization in a century, why can't the same thing happen to Syria? Or Sudan? Or Myanmar? I think it can, and it will.

I certainly hope Syria will rise again - but I'd say it's a big difference between being well educated, functioning civil society bombed into the stone age - and being poor.

Norway followed a similar path as Sweden - being quite well on its way even before we stole (negotiated for) most of the oil rights in the north sea.

And like most countries after ww2 - while the devestation was great, the rebuild was rather quick. Once there was peace. And one important part of peace, was liberation and independence.

> And like most countries after ww2 - while the devestation was great, the rebuild was rather quick. Once there was peace. And one important part of peace, was liberation and independence.

independence didn't happen for a majority of countries that fought in world war 2 however. Either they got locked behind the iron curtain after being litteraly level to the ground (poland), or had to fight a bloody long war for independance (vietnam, indonesia, most of africa).

your comment is only really relevant for western europe in that sense.

I was indeed considering adding a caveat that I was comparing to the regions mentioned in the quote - but I suppose even for Germany, independence took quite a while. So thank you for pointing out my hypocrisy :)

Yes, but... once some degree of peace and independence is achieved, social improvement happens at an astonishing rate. Take Iran. At the time of the Revolution in 1979, it was one of the poorest countries in the world. The birth rate was above 6 (I find birth rate is a very good proxy for economic/social progress). It dropped from above 6 to under 3 in just ten years - a feat that took England 95 years to accomplish. Today, Iran's birthrate is less than Europe. This is a result of (relative) peace and independence.

China is a particularly wild example. Per capita income there has grown about 15,000% since 1952. That's crazy, but it happened.

>If Sweden can evolve from an impoverished hellhole to being the epitome of modern civilization in a century, why can't the same thing happen to Syria? Or Sudan? Or Myanmar? I think it can, and it will.

Except Sweden one hundred years ago was not an impoverished hellhole. In fact, it was one of the richest (maybe the richest) countries on earth, smack in the middle of the most developed, richest and urbanized part of Europe (the Baltic region) already enjoying a booming economy and 100 years of peace.

Sweden in the 1920s was indeed in a comparatively sweet spot, but so was much of Western world before the Great Depression and WW2 hit. However, by modern standards, Sweden was still quite poor and agrarian: life expectancy for both men and women was under 50 years until the 1890s, and it was the last nation in Europe to experience a major natural famine in 1867-9, with ~15% of the population dying.

http://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subjec...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_famine_of_1867%E2%80%9...

Ok, how about 150 years ago? Poverty is poverty, famine is famine, illiteracy is illiteracy. For the average Swede - not the rich - life was as bad as it is in nations we considered desperately impoverished today. That's the point. There are people living well in Syria today, too. They're just a tiny sliver of elites, while ordinary people suffer.

But back to my original point. Do you think that there are nations that can't or won't be able to modernize? Are there people or places that are just incapable of achieving peace and independence? Because I don't buy that. China has done it. Iran has done it. Syria can do it, too.

I'm not denying things have improved significantly and that we aren't making great progress, but there's still a long, long way to go.

Yeah, gp seem disconcertingly disconnected from the reality of Yemen, Syria or Palestine - just to mention a few places off the top of my head.

Or maybe they have a sense of context.

Despite any media hype, the world is more peaceful than ever, and a fewer % of people are living in poverty than ever.

Maybe they're exceedingly well connected with reality.

My new favorite factoid... the percentage of people living in extreme poverty (less than $2/day) has dropped from 29% to just 9% in the past 20 years alone. The mind boggles. We've made as much progress against extreme poverty in the past 20 years as the past 20,000 years. Two thirds of it, just gone.

Looking at the angry headlines of the day is a very misleading way of understanding the world.

Or Venezuela.

I am disconnected from those realities because for me they are not comparable (to me personally or even in general).

The first is scale. WWII scale was massive and considering that WWII was really just WWI-part2 its really just the continuation of the global struggle for power finally ended in ~1991.

Second is personal closeness. My relatives participated in WWII. My life is shaped by its outcome.

Third is ideological. WWII was a battle of world ideology. Fascism, communism, and liberal democracy.

For the places mentioned they do not have the same affect in my life. If those realities took place on a different planet I would not be the wiser.

True, we're in a more peaceful, normal place of permanent war in the "frontiers" - but the quote listed thousands - not millions.

I'm not sure I see how the soviet collapse and subsequent change of aggressors back to british/us in Afghanistan signified the end of the continuous confrontation between powers - rather than yet another shift.

I'll not go into what harvest one reaps from planting bombs and troops abroad, but at least in Europe we're hardly unaffected.

And while there was ideological propaganda and real differences then - there's religious fundamelism and fascism to go around still...

I'll definitely grant you that we're in a state of low intensity conflict over remote resources - and outsource much suffering - a state that seems stable for now.

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