The World, How Are We Doing?

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Permalink Reply by Scot68 on November 30, 2011 at 9:54pm

Yes, there is hope. There is also cause for great concern and it is easy to despair of any meaningful change. The list of really serious problems that the human species is facing is quite long, and the amount of stupidity that many if not most members of our species displays is discouraging. Still, I do think that there is hope. The OWS movement for example gave me some hope for possible effective change. I'm 43, and hope to be able to live several more decades in a world that I can enjoy. More so I wish for my teenage daughters that they will be able to enjoy a full and fulfilling life. And professionally, as a second grade teacher, I really need to believe that there is hope for the future of the world. I just couldn't effectively teach my students if I truly believed that we as a species had already shot ourselves in the head. So yes, I believe that there is hope for the world and for our species.

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Permalink Reply by Jerry Wesner on November 30, 2011 at 11:50pm

At any given moment the world is getting both better and worse.  It always has.  But it seems to me the overall trending is upward.  A friend said to me a few years back that he'd not want to bring a child into the world as it is now.  Too dangerous; too many problems.  I asked "Now weren't you born during the Great Depression?  Wasn't that followed by World War II?  Then the atomic era, and the Cold War; Korea; Vietnam; and so on."  "May you live in interesting times" just means "May you live."  But in this country Blacks, Jews, and certainly gays, have more opportunities than when I was young.  Too many stupid, superstitious, bigoted people?  Of course.  But on balance I can have hope.  (I have seven grandchildren for whom I must keep up hope.)  Today I can openly be a Humanist.  Yes, things seem to be improving overall.

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Christie on December 1, 2011 at 6:36am

Welcome:)

I have great hopes for the world, and space, eventually.

as any species on this planet we are adaptive, which quite frankly means we will find a way.

I do feel bad for the christian's as there thought patterns are a bit screwy, I mean, if your sure the world will end, what is your incentive to fix it or try make it better?

But I think people are coming around.

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Permalink Reply by Gila Guerilla on December 1, 2011 at 7:23pm

The world is changing, as it always has. I agree with the other posters, who say that some things are improving, and some are getting worse. This is not surprising. So many things have been invented in the last few hundreds of years. Take the motor car or the aircraft, for example. They are very recent introductions into the world. When you consider that humanity first arose a several million years ago, what a huge change in a short space of time, is the automobile. And what a double edged word it is - a tool for good and bad. As a prompt for this think: transport; leisure; medical aid; pollution; accident; tool of murder.

This is a miniscule portion of how the world gets better and also worse. Humans have evolved without the modern technologies, and living arrangements we now have. We are not innately equipped to handle all of this. But we have brains, which can be applied in problem solving. As social animals, we can get together, to solve problems, (just as in some cases people have banded together to do bad or harmful things).

For those who have a hope for a better world, let us keep trying, and keep using our social cohesiveness to maintain the effort. I see no reason why it is impossible, but then I see no reason why disaster might instead be the possible outcome. Thus as individuals, I think we need to have the attitude of desiring a better place, and the will to contribute to any efforts in the right direction.

Let us not allow the world to fall into the shit-pit which the religious would see as the prequel to the second coming of their lord.

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