Hacker News Reader

> ... whether it be on the global/national stage, in your business or in your personal life. Overall, things in general are still slowly getting better for everyone on average. ...

the assumption that things are getting better may be correct on the collective level but even here it depends where your samples are coming from. a developing country struggling with desertification or disappearance of drinking water or floods will likely not look better in a few decades. Capetown or other places may not exist in a few decades.

on the individual level it looks a lot bleaker even than this. Most individuals stuck in some hamster wheel are going to tell themselves they're doing it for "their future". But as Covid shows the future may not pan out well. Maybe their partners are dead, maybe they are dead. In the long run though everyone is dead. Our fallacy is thinking bad things only happen to others.

> a developing country struggling with desertification or disappearance of drinking water or floods will likely not look better in a few decades. Capetown or other places may not exist in a few decades.

This is categorically wrong. And it's hard to know what to say when all evidence is against this.

As a side note, to a specific case you mention, the life expectancy in Capetown is the largest in the country and continuously improving.

Even in the fantasy world of the 'Media' where it might run out of water, in a few decade their lives would still be far better than now.

Have you spent any time at all in a developing country?

They're so high on hope and change it's inspiring. It's the opposite to TFA - everyone is living better than their parents did, the progress is visible between generations (between decades even). They know they still have problems, but they trust in their ability to deal with them like they're dealing with everything else.

They are multiple wars countries that are definitely not moving toward better future. Like, there are wars and genocides going on right now. Those people are not be better off then previously. Syria is not better off, Libya is neither. Palestine is not moving toward shiny future. Yazidi are not better off nor other people in formerly ISIS areas. Especially women, but like, guys did not had it easy either. Not that Kurds had it easy before, but it seems like genocide is starting around now.

And those are just super obvious examples from top of head. Everyone is living better than their parents did is just not true.

> Everyone is living better than their parents did is just not true.

in addition to these more extreme examples you listed, your statement even holds water for places in the West (e.g. US).

So basically there's three groups of countries:

- Developing countries where things are visibly getting better every year

- Developing countries where there is a crisis or war of some sort to stop things getting better every year

- Developed countries, that the TFA talks about, where there is improvement but it's slow and not apparent.

As a rough estimate, of the ~190 countries in the world, the first group is by far the largest, and the second group is by far the smallest. Am I wrong?

> Have you spent any time at all in a developing country? ... it's inspiring.

Ah yes, that paradise in Xinjiang.

> Have you spent any time at all in a developing country?

literally been living abroad since the early 90ies most of it in either very poor or developing countries.

> They're so high on hope and change it's inspiring.

I have seen this attitude also in Japan which isn't "developing".

If one generalizes we can say all of Asia (the "Tiger" nations) have been "high" on hope. Most of the attitude of locals during a decade in Asia which I experienced was very forward-looking and upbeat. Returning back to Europe was incredibly depressing since everyone was complaining (even they had everything)

IMO it's about perceived wealth because I saw the same in Europe (Croatia and Poland have very cheerful people compared to the South of France which is full of rich French and Brits and everyone is complaining).

When I spent time in Poland between 2005-2010 there was a running joke about "Poland can't even manage to do the financial crisis properly" (7% growth iirc so Poland would be a "depressive Slavic country" where everyone is upbeat. ofc don't ask the Polish because they joke about being the only country where people are even more complaining than Brits. But if you come from France, Germany, Belgium or other very West EU countries where the attitude is hostile towards new technologies and ideas in general then Poland is refreshingly upbeat).

agree with you about a lot of this is attitude and a shared sense of trust among citizens in their systems. if we take Japan again, that same shared trust ("yes-saying", never question your elderly or superior, or blind trust in authority) is what has led to Fukushima disaster. There is huge value in moaning and being critical about all things that promise an easy fix.

cool, you know what I'm talking about then :)

and yes, I agree about the authoritarian mindset being bad for a lot of things. But that's the culture - you can't impose western values on a people that don't share the same underlying assumptions about humanity. That's the thing that got to me most: the people I talked to about it genuinely don't believe that "all people are created equal". If you don't believe that, then democracy makes no sense at all.

> Overall, things in general are still slowly getting better for everyone on average.

For anyone interested about this topic, the book Factfulness describes why this is the case and why our society focuses on the bad news.

Overall, things in general are still slowly getting better for everyone on average.

Overall, global temperatures are still slowly getting higher for everyone on average, too.

So, why bring this up? Why must everything be headed to disaster? Why is all good news always countered with a negative forecast of doom? I seek to understand.

> I seek to understand.

I can't speak for the parent poster, but I find that "things are getting better" and other forms of 'incessantly positive' narrative give me some degree of dissonance. The bad things don't cancel out the good, but the good things don't make up for the bad.

The times I find myself talking about it are when things seem especially bleak, and a given positive spin just turns out to be that last straw of annoyance. Pointing it out just seems to bring back some sense of reality, sort of bracing for when the next awful thing inevitably comes up.

Personally, I try to keep it in my private notes, but sometimes things spill out. It's not an attempt to bring others down.

Of course, this is comment is just as moot.

thanks for sharing :)

So you see the world as definitely getting worse every year, and any news or indicator that it's improving is just a blip, and annoying because it gives people hope when there is none. Is that right?