Is the world going in a worse direction?

Both of those are inherent parts of Human nature. You can't change the fact that well-off people will want to keep the status quo, and that people will have differing opinions about what's better. And to be honest, I don't understand the point of your third paragraph.

There is no perfect solution to Human existence. There is no way we can remove evil and selfishness in this world. But do you disagree that overall, the average life of a person on this planet has gotten better over time?

"Delenda est." "Furthermore, Carthage must be destroyed." -Common Roman saying at the end of speeches.

The best approach is to be a pragmatist. This means having an ideal, but being able to reconsider it at every junction and adjust it to reality. And that means being prepared to accept you were wrong, or even if you were right, that your goals may be too lofty or, more empoweringly, require additional help to attain.

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

And yet the status quo ain't quite so quo. Of course people are greedy and self centered, but I'd be willing to bet that we aren't as greedy and self-centered on the whole as we once were. Shit, we used to be so self-centered that we thought we were at the center of the universe. The rich and powerful have always sought more power, yet, on the whole, throughout history, they have had less and less, or more people have managed to reach the same level of wealth an power, and the type of power has certainly changed, either way, there are more people with wealth and power than there were in the 16th century, and John Q. Public certainly has more power than he used to.

I beg to differ. Sociology/society may control the input, but we still chose what to do with it. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, says there is literally no such thing as free will or luck and everything is predetermined. It's just functionally impossible to figure out what the outcome of any macroscopic event would be using quantum mechanics.

Worse Direction. It's only a matter of time before Violent Revolution and Anarchy pop up everywhere, including America, just ot put down the rich/corporates screwing people over everywhere, and not just America. However, that happening, provided those responsible win, rebuild the old wastes, and fight hard to not let things get this bad, it could get better, regardless of where you're from.

This is where I, the Vampire Mistress, proudly reside: http://liberal.nationstates.net/nation=nova_nacio

Yes and no. Standard of living has gone up, but that's not necessarily happiness. We seem to be sliding deeper into a work for the sake of work mentality, and that's kind of wrecking people in spite of greater prosperity.

edited 12th Sep '11 9:18:30 PM by Pykrete

@USAF: The best way to explain the nature of the world to you, is this; it is possible to treat the symptoms ("evil", as people refer to it), but curing the disease (the human flaws that lead to "evil") is impossible. What you want to do is cure the symptoms by curing the disease, which can never happen. You are better off using the disease (human flaws) to better the organism (society) than you are trying to kill the disease to cure the symptoms, which, as I said before, is impossible.

You are an idealist, no matter what you might think. While I do admire your idealism, your views are unworkable in reality; you will need to accept the fact that reality does not offer a morally clean path to realizing idealism. Idealists (and I do consider myself one, as well) must be willing to take dirty roads to create their final vision, otherwise their ideals will die with them, or they will die before seeing their ideals realized.

Is the world going in a worse direction?

Well, yes and no.

Yes because if this keeps up the problems this world face will finally be extinguished. No because the problem I was referring to is humanity, us. We are the cause of this world's suffering. Each man's ambition is only satisfied by his fellow men's failure. Take job hunting as an example.

edited 12th Sep '11 10:10:53 PM by djmaca

...a little brother should belong to his older sister, right? - Orimura Chifuyu

Yeah.. USAF, you're essentially just an idealist who is filled with so much fervor that he can't see his own idealism.

My personal wish is that people would quit talking so god damn much about this sort of thing, and actually try to do something to achieve their goals. Don't whine about your problems, fix or negate them.

edited 12th Sep '11 10:13:02 PM by Barkey

As they say, "talk is cheap"...

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

It's the reason why the world doesn't really get any better, in a functional sense. Those who have a vision on how to make it better disagree on what "better" means and fight each other over it, while those who don't care about anyone but themselves just bilk the system for all they can get.

I can be convinced of things that run counter to my opinions. Remember, when I came to this board I was a staunch Republican voter. Now I wouldn't vote for either party, although since not voting is worse I'd probably vote Democrat in this election. It's not that I won't change my opinion, so much as I like to hear particularly good arguments first...

Indeed. We survive better now. We do not live better, however.

I do not contest that I am an idealist. I am merely an unorthodox one. Ideals live and die every day without anyone noticing, but I see no problem with dying before an ideal is realized. It's a matter of what the next generation experiences as well, after all.

I don't think it is possible to cure human nature. I never contested the model provided for symptoms vs. causes. I simply think we're not even doing a good job of treating the symptoms.

...

Barkey's insights are sometimes rather incomprehensible, it seems. I feel that this should be something easy to understand. I don't see why I don't. Huh.

Indeed. Once again, "better" and "worse" don't matter in the slightest. Don't tell me about what you've already improved, tell me about what is still to be done. Self-congratulations merely give you a reason to stop trying your hardest at fixing things.

Act as if you've accomplished nothing and try your hardest to fix it. At the end of the day, you'll be farther than if you stop and get excited at every small, insignificant thing. The journey, in this case, is to be ignored in favor of the destination.

I am now known as Flyboy.