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Even though droughts floods and storms have globally stayed the same, deaths due to these things are down 98% globally since the 1920’s!!
yes. 98%.
You our mentioned better communication and technology There is also better medical aid and transport and trade When a drought hits one country they can trade with another and so don’t experience the famine These types of things mean much less pain and suffering Globally
Even though droughts floods and storms have globally stayed the same, deaths due to these things are down 98% globally since the 1920’s!!
yes. 98%.
You our mentioned better communication and technology There is also better medical aid and transport and trade When a drought hits one country they can trade with another and so don’t experience the famine These types of things mean much less pain and suffering Globally
T8. I’m sorry to say most of your headlines are garbage.
The sexond one asked if children today will die younger than parents. Infant and child morality are something I study. The trend is huge and extremely clear. Much much mmuch smaller infant mortality rates which ends up equaling longer lives on average. You have to know this is true.
have you ever considered how the news BUSINESS works? They have no responsibility to convert accurate stories or by sense of historic reality. A decade ago in Canada and the Us at least there was a rash of news reports on ROAD RAGE. maybe it was the same in New Zealand.
Pleas eplease please watch the video called
“human nature –the availability heuristic”.
It may also say “danger at the wheel”. It shows how insanely pathetic and moronic the entire news industry is….in the US at least. They need stories to sell. That’s their business. Please watch it. It’s short. The news businesses can t sell stories about people dying of old age on their beds which is common. They have to find the rare and unusual stories, even if they are barely true.
Again. They are a business. Combine this with human psychology and an unwillingness to look at stats or actual facts and this is mostly explained.
“murder rates rise sharply on many cities”
in other news murder rates fall sharply in many other cities.
Im a little interested in the US as a whole. not so interested in individual cities.
Bit im really interested in global homicide and while there has really only been global stars on hat for about a decade the trend is down. But if we look at Europe is insanely down over 700 years and I wold imagine Europe wasn’t special in that
You can always pick the worst of the worst and point to that indiciducual City or country What I’m suggesting is this can lead to self deception We must look at the whole or as large a picture as possible.
what sells more newspapers–sayong:
murder rates are rising in some cities
or
Murder rates are rising in some cities bit falling in most
the second one is a non-story. So they print the first one And people buy it up If it bleeds it leads.
David,
Do you consider suicide violence?
It is the tenth leading cause of death in the U.S. and that is mainly because its higher in Caucasians, who are the majority population.
Accidents are the fourth leading but I doubt you consider them violence.
Hi kerwin
i am interested in the trend of:
morality (which largely relates to harm, pain and suffering/well being flourishing)
and
pain and suffering (which may or may not be caused by immorality–ie: disease, accidents, etc)
No I don’t consider accidents violence but I’m also not sure the rate of deaths by accident (such as on farms, auto accidents) are increasing In fact I know for every mile travelled by car in the US, the person is 1/6th as likely to die as a few decades ago. We have both made cars safer and made life saving techniques better.
Fo suicide I don’t really know where to put that. It’s definitely bad but it’s certainly much different than someone killing others. Suicide is actually one of the few stats I haven’t looked at for violence and maybe that’s a bias I have. But I just don’t consider it comparable to someone doing harm to others.
As a side note, I wok for someone who just put their dog on anxiety medication I don’t think anxiety has really increased in dogs recently I just think we are more aware and care more
David,
I tend to view suicide and homicide as two sides of a coin. The former is violence tuned inward and the later is violence turned outward. In 2013 suicide was ranked 7th for males so perhaps it has gotten better. Breaking that study up by race and ethnicity you get Whites with suicide ranked as 7 and Blacks with homicide ranked at 5. Hispanics have both at ranks 8 and 9 respectively. I believe a large share of the difference is due to cultural mores such as your belief suicide is a lesser crime.
On accidents, males are most often the victim which hints at reckless behaviors as being a factor. I suspicion males are the most common victims of all those acts.
T8. I’m sorry to say most of your headlines are garbage.
Of course there is no truth to them whatsoever and the world is becoming a better place. At its current rate, Paradise on Earth is but decades away.
lol.
- Man flu is no myth as scientists prove men suffer more from disease
- Man finally returns overdue library book more than 50 later.
- Man slips on banana peel.
- Taking Too Much Vitamin C Can Be Dangerous
- Travel cost have gone up since 2008.
You can’t deny it David.
On a more serious note David. Let’s take the last 200 or so years.
In which period would you live in the Middle East with your family if you had to?
- Today
- 1950
- 1800
Some videos for your entertainment.
T8, I have never ever said on here that paradise earth is but decades away. And I don’t believe that.
Im merely looking at what I consider large and important trends. And it’s the direction I’m comcerned with more than any timing.
I don’t know what those videos are of but if they are meant for me I have no idea why. I have never argued that everything is perfect.
Your question about the middles east….I actually don’t know. I suspect each of those years were relatively bad. Relative to the world.
And its its the world I’m interested in. Ask me that question of the world….assuming I am an average person and don’t know if I will be dropped on the planet as a black man or a white women or a child, and I won’t know where.
The he answer then becomes rather obvious for me. Today would be better. And likel 10 years from now would be even better. Safer. Healthier. Less violent. Less war. Less poverty. Less pain and suffering. Globally.
But if you want to drop me into one of the very few places that are moving in a counter trend to the overall trend, then yes, the last likely would be better in that small area of the world that has gotten worse. (And I don’t know it has gotten worse because I haven’t looked at local numbers.)
why are you so focused on that one little area? News is of course about things that happen. Not about things that don’t happen. News doesn’t record non-events. And not being shot is a non-event. Britian not going to war with France is a non-event. The news records the bloodshed. And it can always find enough. If we want to know reality we have to look at stats. This is even more true give our cognitive illusions.
I’m pretty sure travel costs have gone way down in several decades.
Can you harm yourself from too much vitamin C? So extremely few people die from vitamin overdoes and yet people seem so concerned about taking too many vitamins.
David,
I find it surprising how many people kill themselves with aspirin but my point is that accidents seem to often result from reckless conduct though other reason are also factors. The disparity in men being killed by them seems to point to the idea that man are more subject to at least some of these factors than women.
Your question about the middles east….I actually don’t know. I suspect each of those years were relatively bad. Relative to the world.
So you admit you do not know.
The Bible is a book of prophecy that mainly pertains to a geographical region, i.e., the area around the Great Sea.
Even while the prophecies were given, there were civilizations in China, South America etc that were not being spoken of.
Jesus never said that Canada would get better or worse, he said that the world (not the Earth) would get worse like birth pains.
If you do not really believe Jesus own prophecies it could boil down to you being ignorant of what he was actually talking about.
If he was talking about Canada, USA, Great Britain, and France, then you might be right and Jesus wrong. Even then, I still say ‘might’ because history tends to record major upheavals and shocking events. It doesn’t record millennia of people farming, eating organic food, and families enjoying each other’s presence without distraction of PlayStation, TV, etc. People who could really meditate and enjoy life at a deeper level.
I know when I was a kid growing up, I didn’t have a lot of stuff and very few toys. But I was pretty happy enjoying the rainforest in our back yard which backed into an unpopulated mountain range, a big enough area to get lost in for days. As kids we use to let our imaginations run wild in the forest. It was a far richer experience than the life I have today which is a very comfortable but busy physical existence in middle class NZ. I try when I can to take walks in the forest, and enjoy the simple things in life. I bring my kids up with this ethos too. That life I had showed me that people living in the Amazon with nothing are actually quite rich. Unfortunately, their way of life is increasingly under threat as the world becomes a bigger place packed with apartments, concrete, and pollution. Thankfully New Zealand is a long way off that, but the dependence on physical things is not the source of joy and happiness and never has been.
Also, it would be true to say that there are more wars, more poverty, and more suffering today, just based on even this one fact. A bigger population.
That said, I believe that many prophecies are Middle East centric and what is happening over there now is tribulation for many.
Here is a video I watched today for example. It purports to show ISIS fighters dragging off Yazidi girls to make them sex slaves.
Definitely not the best of times for Christians, Yazidis, Sunnies, etc.
This just popped up on my Facebook wall.
And people call them primitive…
Posted by Survival International on Friday, 18 December 2015
T8
yes I admitted I don’t know any specific stats on the very small part of the world that is the Middle East. But as I said I suspect the stats and am sure most of them are some of the worst on the planet. Stepping into the Middle East is almost like stepping not the past in some ways. Health. Safety. Homicide. Death by toeture. Etc.
Again, I am concerned with the largest available data set because I’m concerned with the world. Even if things are bad or getting worse in that tiny fraction of the world, this is more than offset by most of the world. And I’m not just talking about the few countries you listed.
As as for your memories of childhood, let me quote someone who expresses an interesting idea
“”””When we think about the past, we focus on our childhoods, to a time when our parents protected us from the world. As adults, even if society has gotten better, the sense of being sheltered is gone. Nobody’s taking care of you anymore, so it feels like everything is getting more worrisome, even if objectively everything is getting better.””””–Christopher jencks, Harvard university.
As as a child people met you with hugs and smiles. There may have been a ar going on but it didn’t concern you because you were a kid. This is the human experience. It’s not special to you. And since we are prone to this misunderstanding of comparing present day troubles with our memories of childhood rather than the actual events that were going on back then, we need to look at the actual numbers. So as not to deceive ourselves with imperfect Maluable memories
Also, it would be true to say that there are more wars, more poverty, and more suffering today, just based on even this one fact. A bigger population.
Nope
since 1945 basically all stats on war have been declining even in absolute terms. The 2000 decade was the least war filled decade in half a century. Poverty isn’t just massively declining as a rate of the population bit is even declining in absolute terms
it would be bad thinking to judge these things in absolute terms. I’m guessing you wouldn’t be saying the world is becoming more sneezy despite more sneezes each year due to more people on the planet. There are likely more farts each decade but it would be bad thinking to say farting is becoming a worse problem. What is important is the rate. Because it’s the rate that determines how likely the individual is to suffer.
Which is the more violent world:
one with a population of 10 people that has 1 murder a year
or
one with a population of 1000 people that has 5 murders a year.
If if you say the second is 5 times as violent then that’s just bizarre. Any sane person would rather live on the second world with the lower murder rate. So as population exploded because of better health and illumination of pestilence and decreased infant mortality, even if the numbers became slightly larger in absolute terms, it doesn’t make sense to say this means anything is getting worse.
More births means more deaths. Everyone has to die somehow. It doesn’t mean things are getting worse. It means the population grew. When measured by population, the Second World War wasn’t even that bad and world war 1 was barely anything.
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