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Comment by hayst4ck | Hacker News Reader

"Hope is not a strategy" is exactly meant to disarm this type of blithe thinking.

Global warming is unaddressed and China is actively building a military to confront the US promising WW3. We have at least 2 major active genocides, one of which might succeed.

If you were to graph corruption, it is clearly increasing. Income inequality is increasing. Congress members are still trading stock. Supreme court justices are still taking bribes... Wages (measured in ability to purchase goods) are decreasing.

I'll happily engage in the thought exercise of thinking about some systemic graphs with a slope that inspires hope.

If America or the world had a dashboard, what graphs would you show me to make me think the world was "fine" or that I should feel positively about the future?

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> If America or the world had a dashboard, what graphs would you show me to make me think the world was "fine" or that I should feel positively about the future?

Share of people living in extreme poverty in the world: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/the-share-and-number-of-p...

Child and infant mortality, world: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-mortality-igme?tab=...

Maternal mortality: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/maternal-mortality?tab=ch...

Prevalence of undernourishment in developing countries: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-of-undernouris...

I think if I were living in the third world those would give me hope that if I had a child they would have a better life than I had, not very compelling for a privileged white American.

I think for the world at large, more people, means more consumption, means more pollution and fewer resources per person. Those improvements are likely largely found in pre-industrial societies, and industrialization is environmentally expensive too.

I am willing to believe that while the velocity of global warming is positive, the acceleration of it might be negative. That would be hope inducing, but that's generally not the sense I've gotten.

When someone says the world is on fire, I think they are literally referring to the world being on fire, global warming, or the general rise of authoritarianism/strongmen across the world and the conflict they require to stay in power.

If less children and mothers dying and less people in famine doesn't give you hope I don't think anything will. Good luck.

If the only thing you're bringing to the table is the notion that, in the midst of several interrelated threats to global civilization, more people globally experience what a pakistani brickmaker might consider prosperity, you should consider spending a bit more effort towards staying informed of current events.

The thing you scoff at in your racist quip lots of mothers would kill to give their children, still today. Real peoples lives are improving at a great pace, the fact you have so much more doesn't make less deaths at birth any less positive. When I was younger to hear someone speak like this of reducing world hunger would get you labeled with whatever the most evil label would be.

It's telling that you claim racism in a comment that underlines the ECONOMIC CATASTROPHE that is manual labor in Pakistan. I think we've established you aren't actually paying attention.

I hate to break it to you, but the same could be said pretty much every year since 1900.

If you had that thinking, you'd have missed a great time.

A broken clock is bound to be right eventually.

At some point, the world will end, eventually.

Ludicrous. Whole ecosystems weren't collapsing in realtime in 1901.

The Dust Bowl was pretty apocalyptic.

Fun Fact: one of that topsoil came back and we've been leaning on non-renewable inputs to paper over the damage. So yeah, there's a tie-in to at least two of the existential threats we're dealing with (fossil fuels and agricultural issues). Back to the issue at hand, how many marine fisheries had we wiped out completely at that point?

Don't stress, don't strain. In 30 years, everything will still be ok and you will still be stressing about the future, unless you choose not to. Regardless, I don't see any benefit in idle pessimism.

Here's a dashboard: https://ourworldindata.org/

Pick almost anything to see a positive trend.

Without so much as glancing at that I'm guessing there's a few things missing from whatever "look at this bulging GPD" horseshit is actually there:

- Arable acreage globally

- Topsoil depth/health in agricultural areas globally

- Biodiversity as a simple count of distinct species on the planet

- PFAS contamination (by either sheer area or PPM)

- Atmospheric CO2 and methane PPM

- Geopolitical stability (this one's trending down FAST)

- Healthcare outcomes in the US compared to any other industrialized nation on the planet

- Likelyhood that a nuclear weapon will be used in anger in our lifetime

- Percentage of GDP that makes it into the pockets of people that actually work for a living

I could keep going but why bother.

What benefit could come to China by starting WWII? Absolutely none, even if they won(which they wouldn't).

This is exactly the problem with this hopeless viewpoint. just like those wearing rose colored glasses, your shit colored glasses are preventing you from accurately understanding what is going on in the world.

China will attempt to take Taiwan (they’ve even given their military a deadline for getting ready). US probably wants that not to happen and will probably try to stop it. Things will escalate rapidly and we’ll be lucky to live through it. Rand did a good study on the dangers of escalation during a conflict over Taiwan. It doesn’t look good.

US isn't going to start WWIII over Taiwan, even though they really don't want China to have it.

Which is why the US is will leave Taiwan hanging. Taiwan sees what happened to Ukraine, the writing is on the wall. Hong Kong style gradual reunification will happen in the next 10 years.

Everyone thought Russia wouldn't invade Ukraine until they did. Everyone thought two countries having a McDonalds meant peace between them until they didn't.

Denial and delusions are the most basic of mental health defense mechanisms, but society cannot work if everyone is in denial or experiencing delusions. It is better for the individuals, but not better for the whole.

I'm not a proponent of being hopeless, but if everyone is living in la la land thinking nothing bad can happen until it does... I don't think that is a good way to conduct society. We have very real unaddressed problems. I think wanting to escape from that is at least understandable if not rational.

I, personally, do not feel hopeless when there are problems, I feel hopeless when other people do not recognize those problems. I feel hopeless when problems are not being addressed.

Historians at ivy league colleges are saying that the forces that made Russia Russia (increasing wealth inequality and decline of rule of law), and the forces that put Hitler into power in Germany (rampant nationalism, stoking the public with a desire for quick solutions, and appealing to the German aristocracy's greed) are both active in America.

So you can moralize about my shit colored glasses, but what if there is actually shit on those glasses, wouldn't they be shit colored?

>> I feel hopeless when problems are not being addressed.

So, start addressing them. Stop waiting around for everyone else.

Fun Fact: some problems require literally everyone's participation to resolve.

Actual Fact: such problems will obviously never be solved so don't worry about it.

Incorrect. Shit like global warming and collapsing marine fisheries will absolutely resolve one way or another. The question is do we brick the planet's ability to support our society before the resulting massive reduction in human population permits ecosystems to restabilize.

A ton of people thought Russia would or at least could invade Ukraine. Though I do recall when those people were made fun of by our President 2 years before the first stage of their invasion - "the 1980s called - they want their foreign policy back".

> but if everyone is living in la la land thinking nothing bad can happen until it does... I don't think that is a good way to conduct society

Except that is not at all where American society is at. People (especially those chronically online or in front of 24 hour news programs) are expressing some of the most negative views towards the future as they ever have.

Yes, if the world is actually shit then you aren't wearing shit colored glasses. I don't think it is, so I will just laugh at and feel sad for those people who are so down in the dumps. Obviously I might be wrong about this, I guess we will have to wait and see.

Oh yeah, everything's fantastic if you have nothing to compare it to.

Nothing to compare it to...besides for history, and basically the rest of the world.

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