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|like a boss|
Less proper cynicism and more straw cynicism.
Cynicism on a whole is just "be skeptical about everything" as far as I know.
go ahead and do every stupid thing you can imagine
I changed accounts.
Problem is, human selfishness isn't really going down. We're no more altruistic. We've simply shifted from using violence to using more nuanced methods of aggression to get what they want.
As murder statistics go down, white collar crime goes up. A murderer will kill one or two people. Perhaps a dozen if he's a spree killer. A white collar criminal can ruin hundreds, if not thousands of lives.
Which is worse, do you imagine?
I am now known as Flyboy.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Brilliant.
Well gee, are you suggesting we put a price on human lives? You ... you... Economist!
edited 28th Sep '11 2:24:50 PM by TheyCallMeTomu
|like a boss|
USAF: Human selfishness will never go down. Humans are built selfish, and you can call it a flaw if you like but that's the only reason we've come this far at all.
As for white collar crime, it is on the rise mostly because effective means of stopping it quickly and effectively don't exist on a widescale level yet. It will fall too, soon enough.
Also, I'd say anything that results in a loss of life is by default worse than anything that ruins one's welfare. Neither are pleasant, but you can recover from the latter at the very least.
Crime is never going to go away and it's naive to think such, but it can and will be reduced greatly.
go ahead and do every stupid thing you can imagine
I changed accounts.
I would say the murderer is worse, but the white collar criminal is more damaging.
Either way, violence going down isn't a good indicator of a better world.
I am now known as Flyboy.
It is all else being equal. But all else isn't equal.
Stop using cynicism as a placebo for logical thinking damnit!
edited 28th Sep '11 2:33:10 PM by TheyCallMeTomu
I changed accounts.
I didn't say the world couldn't be improved. I'm saying to stop patting yourself on the back because violence went down. It's merely been replaced by something more insidious.
Apathy killed the cat. And achievement-induced apathy is the worst kind...
I am now known as Flyboy.
The world has improved because the internet kicks ass. 'nough said.
|like a boss|
No, the world has improved because I exist now.
go ahead and do every stupid thing you can imagine
NOT THE BEES
Pretty much. The kind of crap that goes on in the marketplace on a regular basis is downright sociopathic. I'm honestly not sure if I'd prefer it to outright violence — at least then the opponent isn't in an untouchable ivory tower.
I changed accounts.
In all seriousness, I think "the world has improved" is a pretty ballsy statement. I mean, it's easy to say that the current state of affairs is unacceptable. But unacceptable compared to what? It's not like the state of the world hasn't been unacceptable in the same way for the past two thousand+ years.
Ultimately, it comes down to who is living under what circumstances. Violence is just one of many different criteria by which we judge those circumstances.
I changed accounts.
Excellent. We're very shiny shit now.
What does this mean? Well, instead of taking the time to pat ourselves on the back for it, we should just work on making it better still. Time wasted for achievement recognition is time that could have been spent getting yet more achievements. Recognition will come when we can no longer get any more achievements in making the world better.
I am now known as Flyboy.
|like a boss|
Well there's certainly far less people being burned at the stake for witchcraft and being killed by the Bubonic plague, amongst other things.
Before I get a scathing retort, I am perfectly aware that neither of those things are completely gone, but I think that greatly reducing the evils of old at least deserves some recognition.
I am fairly certain this is referred to as the "Utopia Fallacy".
edited 28th Sep '11 2:51:32 PM by BlixtySlycat
go ahead and do every stupid thing you can imagine
I can believe this. The average citizen may well be 46.6% less likely of picking up his axe and chopping someone's head off in a fit of rage.
|like a boss|
prettymuch.jpeg
go ahead and do every stupid thing you can imagine
USAF, "taking time to pat ourselves on the back" assumes there's a tradeoff between patting one's self on the back, and actually doing things. There's not. At least, not for anyone here in this thread. We're just being academic about it. that's what TV Tropes does. It's academic about otherwise absurd or banal subjects.
|like a boss|
Alternately; banal and absurd about otherwise academic subjects.
go ahead and do every stupid thing you can imagine
Hence why I said "Let's keep it up" instead of "Let's kick back and have champagne."
But I take offense at the suggestion that we can never be satisfied with anything we do until we've done it all. One of the best ways to de-incentivize improvement is to deny any reward for partial improvement on the grounds that you're reserving it for total improvement.
I changed accounts.
NOT THE BEES
Patting oneself on the back leads quite easily to complacency and ethnocentrism if not done in moderation. Sometimes we're our own harshest judges, but when we're not...whoo boy.
edited 28th Sep '11 3:05:03 PM by Pykrete
|like a boss|
It would be patting ourselves on the back if we were claiming responsibility for the occurence. I've not seen that, as far as I can tell we're just happy about there being less murder in the world, and if that's wrong than I would rather not be right.
go ahead and do every stupid thing you can imagine
USAF, sometimes you come off as someone who can't admit when they're wrong.
I don't think anyone here is saying "Let's stop trying to make the world a better place because we're pretty good already" after all.
I think it's mostly just that most of us would not want to go back and time and life 50 or 100 years ago.
edited 28th Sep '11 3:08:39 PM by TheyCallMeTomu
Agreed. I truly believe it, we're living in the best f*cking time in the history of humankind. We have our problems, but we're now aware of them, and we can act about it