Is the world changing for the better or worse?

If there were only two or three troubling trajectories in the picture the chances of global improvement would be somewhat better. But we've got a dozen different threats all developing at different rates in different places. The international cooperation we'd need to develop and execute an overarching range of solutions is simply not there. Meanwhile, new problems emerge constantly and old unsolved ones re-emerge. Our industrial "progress" over the past two hundred fifty years may have made us over-confident – it's very possible that we won't be able to invent our way out of this. Don't forget that it was "reason" that got us into this mess!

Interesting. I am interested in your thoughts on reason getting us into this predicament. It is my belief that we will solve the problems we see today as dire. I just worry what the world will look like. More geo-political than environmental. If the environment isn't resolved, the future is predictable, but geo-politically, that fascinates and scares me. We aren't working together to form a better world right now in the US imo. We aren't even really trying to make the US better, just make the "other side" look worse. Sometimes I think we are just going through our teen years as a nation, but then I wonder will this teen reach adulthood or not. I am sure that the Vietnam war era was worse than our current hatred of each other, but sure would be nice if we could all find a few common issues to solve and then vote in folks to work them.

Well, for starters, look at the Renaissance and the overthrow of the Old Regime – the systems and traditions which had guided society for millennia were replaced over a few centuries by ever more successful capitalist economies fueled by industrialism and the scientific method. This was a huge cultural change. But while this progress led to longer, healthier, and wealthier lives for people and the replacement of superstition with empirical knowledge, many people were left in an unmoored condition. Because under the Old Regime, every person, every class, had a function in society. A peasant's life might be miserable but he knew he was playing a vital role in his society, recognized by the Church and the Crown. But as this old system broke down, practical economics emerged and the state began to make common good with the wealthy traders to secure influence and power. The view of society as having a purpose was replaced with a perspective which saw society as a mechanism, which could be steered through the application of reason. Instead of fulfilling the time-honored function of one's social place, the individual pursuit of wealth and success became the personal goal within an acquisitive, rather than functional, society. Rational capitalism's success was rapid once the power of steam was harnessed and the industrial revolution went into full swing. But the really dangerous consequences – pollution, resource exploitation, environmental destruction – manifested themselves too slowly to emerge as matters of concern. There's always a new forest to cut down, a new species to drive to extinction – short term acquisitional profit at the expense of long term functional goals.

People like you who base their opinions and actions on the words of uninformed sources like the Orange Shitgibbon, Q, Fox, etc.

How do you operate in a group of morons who don't believe in Vaxx or even Covid but believe in flat Earth????

Religious nutjobs who believe in an Armageddon type second coming deliberately pursue policies that make the world unlivable purely for superstitious reasons.

When the world overheats and the rapture never happens they'll be as dead as the rest of us.

And that'll because the rest of us didn't pray to their shibboleths hard enough

I don't know about the whole world, but I believe the US is definitely getting worse by the day, with elected republicans being at fault.



https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2023/04/16/oklahoma-sheriff-and-commissioner-accused-of-racism-and-threats/70119918007/

I don't understand your position, can you explain.

I am not sure that God has a role in my question, but if you want to elaborate, I'd enjoy the discussion

A lot of folks don't buy into RW boooshwa.

I believe in God, but that has nothing to do with my question or this conversation. I am also a physicist. My question was about us. About our approach to life.

If you can't own up to it, there's no amount of convincing you.

I can't argue with you lately. My party has lost their way. I want a limited federal government with the laws being passed to constrain us only at the most local level. The federal republicans today are lost. they are the antithesis of what I believe in.

I don't deny any part of my life. What are you saying I am denying?

Tbh, I was just curious what others thought about where we are as humans and hoping for thoughts on how we might work together to solve our biggest challenges. Honestly. I came onto this forum to talk and share ideas.

The part you're not admitting?

As a physicist you don't have a problem with Evvangelicals saying global warming is a myth because God made the Earth and man can't change it?

A love of Roger Zelazny.

Is the world changing for the better or worse? Why would you expect it to change in one direction versus another? There seems to be a built in expectation that things will always improve, that there's always hope for a better tomorrow. But that's one of those feel-good maxims people love to cling to, not a natural result of evolution, or even "intelligent design". In the short run things seem to improve and there are profits to be made. But the planetary consequences unfold at a much slower rate. So for eighty years we've heard about the wonders of plastic and have substantially designed our existence around this miraculous space-age petrochemical product, only to discover belatedly the environmental damage and danger to human health and the natural world posed by microplastics. You could say the same thing about fossil fuels which have raised human living standards while slowly setting into place the destructive processes which now threaten the biosphere. One of the chief designers of artificial intelligence is now warning us about the danger the technology poses for society – thirty years too late!