The thing I think you're missing is that homelessness, for example, isn't some persistent natural disaster like cancer, that we're slowly solving. It's a GROWING problem caused entirely by the way that we structure our society. In traditional cultures, there is no such thing as "homelessness" except for people banished from the tribe for bad behaviour. We invented the concept at the same time that we were inventing electrification. Other concepts we've invented are pollution, unemployment, weapons of mass destruction and genocide. It's bizarre to look only at material well-being and pretend that the massive amount of suffering in the world is natural and slowly receding. It's not. Some of it is man-made and increasing.
I think there are always going to be bad things that happen in the world, and persistent problems that will never fully go away. But I think it's hard to argue with the fact that life in general has gotten better for the bulk of the global population.
If you look at the Human Development Index, which is a score with 3 components (life expectancy, income, and education), you'll notice that the HDI of every single region of the world has substantially increased between 1990 (its introduction) and now. There has never been a safer, more prosperous era in humanity than what we're living in right now.
Let's see...how many predictable logical &/or epistemic errors can we spot in this stream of consciousness? As the saying goes: consciousness is a hell of a drug, and when combined with culture: *watch out*!
I think you're overanalyzing a sentence that's not meant to convey much meaning on its own. If we're trying to litigate the meaning of "is", then I think we're getting lost in the weeds here.
The thing I think you're missing is that homelessness, for example, isn't some persistent natural disaster like cancer, that we're slowly solving. It's a GROWING problem caused entirely by the way that we structure our society. In traditional cultures, there is no such thing as "homelessness" except for people banished from the tribe for bad behaviour. We invented the concept at the same time that we were inventing electrification. Other concepts we've invented are pollution, unemployment, weapons of mass destruction and genocide. It's bizarre to look only at material well-being and pretend that the massive amount of suffering in the world is natural and slowly receding. It's not. Some of it is man-made and increasing.
I think there are always going to be bad things that happen in the world, and persistent problems that will never fully go away. But I think it's hard to argue with the fact that life in general has gotten better for the bulk of the global population.
If you look at the Human Development Index, which is a score with 3 components (life expectancy, income, and education), you'll notice that the HDI of every single region of the world has substantially increased between 1990 (its introduction) and now. There has never been a safer, more prosperous era in humanity than what we're living in right now.
Let's see...how many predictable logical &/or epistemic errors can we spot in this stream of consciousness? As the saying goes: consciousness is a hell of a drug, and when combined with culture: *watch out*!
If you list them out, I'd be happy to respond. :)
> Modern day life is incredible, in every sense of the word.
a) Which of the many conflicting meanings of the word "is" are you assigning here?
b) Do you intend readers to take your claim literally?
c) Have you taken into consideration the unknown?
d) Have you taken into consideration things like this (this is just one link, there are *many* others):
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/
I think you're overanalyzing a sentence that's not meant to convey much meaning on its own. If we're trying to litigate the meaning of "is", then I think we're getting lost in the weeds here.
Drat! My old nemesis Naive Realism remains undefeated in the court of public opinion. 😭😭