More World Troubles Than 'Normal'?

[BashfulAnthony]

How do you know they are ghastly unless you read them yourself?

If the Daily Mail or the Express were to have a sudden outbreak of journalistic integrity I think you can rest assured it would be all over the papers...

O.

If you want to see what they are doing, look it up yourself:  try and be objective, for once.

Helpfully  BA has helpfully posted a link to the Express so we can see how well they are doing.

[Rhiannon]

Who, the Express? Spreading fear and terror among the British does seem to be their modus operandi, I agree.

[BashfulAnthony]

Who, the Express? Spreading fear and terror among the British does seem to be their modus operandi, I agree.

A slightly over-the-top remark, I think.  Quite unlike you.

[Rhiannon]

Who, the Express? Spreading fear and terror among the British does seem to be their modus operandi, I agree.

A slightly over-the-top remark, I think.  Quite unlike you.

Do you get sarcasm?

[BashfulAnthony]

Who, the Express? Spreading fear and terror among the British does seem to be their modus operandi, I agree.

A slightly over-the-top remark, I think.  Quite unlike you.

Do you get sarcasm?

Not in that post, I don't.  It was pretty well hidden.

[Rhiannon]

Little things break though which is why his death caused more of a stir than say a child dying elsewhere.

I think it also depends on our own experiences.  If you have lived somewhere where the death of a 3-year-old is commonplace, that image would not have been as powerful as it would have been for those of us who haven't.

For me, the most powerful pictures remain the kind of thing that we saw during the Ethiopian famine in the 80s and the famous picture of the Vietnamese lass who was alight having been hit by napalm.

I saw my own son in the picture of him smiling.

I think you are right, some does depend on our own experiences.

A picture that changed me completely was seeing photos of a flat from which some failed asylum seekers had been taken without warning into custody. There were a few scattered toys but the thing that really got me was the bottle of Calpol that they'd had to leave. Never have I felt more ashamed of my country.

[Jack Knave]

At times I get the feeling that there are more troubles and wars in the world than there have been in the last few decades, and tensions are brewing across the globe. How do others feel about what's going on in the world?

I think what has changed is how much information we have access to.

Earthquakes and wars happened years ago, but news took longer to spread if it spread at all.

People only tended to know a small amount, or old news.

I did consider that but we have had pretty good news coverage for many, many decades so I think it would be more than that.

[Nearly Sane]

At times I get the feeling that there are more troubles and wars in the world than there have been in the last few decades, and tensions are brewing across the globe. How do others feel about what's going on in the world?

I think what has changed is how much information we have access to.

Earthquakes and wars happened years ago, but news took longer to spread if it spread at all.

People only tended to know a small amount, or old news.

I did consider that but we have had pretty good news coverage for many, many decades so I think it would be more than that.

any chance of citing figures rather than your gut?

[Rhiannon]

At times I get the feeling that there are more troubles and wars in the world than there have been in the last few decades, and tensions are brewing across the globe. How do others feel about what's going on in the world?

I think what has changed is how much information we have access to.

Earthquakes and wars happened years ago, but news took longer to spread if it spread at all.

People only tended to know a small amount, or old news.

I did consider that but we have had pretty good news coverage for many, many decades so I think it would be more than that.

But a lot of conflict would go unreported in the past. A lot of abuse of women for example, largely passed our media by until women took to the Internet to explain what happened within their communities.

[Jack Knave]

There are a number of factors.  As somebody else has pointed out the technological means of disseminating the world news related to tensions and warfare have improved so much that it appears almost instantly in your living room.  During the last world war the actuality of warfare appeared in your 'living room' but other bad news was largely suppressed to maintain morale.
The technological means of killing people and destroying property has advanced considerably and continues to do so.  This coupled with the world population explosion and density probably means that there are more potential casualties and destruction of property and mass migrations.
As the world resources dwindle political power blocks will flex their muscles to exercise control over getting their 'share'.
As more and more people are forced to live in precarious geological zones e.g. lowland areas, tectonic areas, any natural disasters will create more casualties.  Diseases will spread more quickly.
.... and that's just the good news.

Can I take it that you agree with the OP then?

[Jack Knave]

Please see the thread on 'Some positive thinking...' . I think there are lots of good things today as compared to earlier centuries and decades. Of course, when the world becomes smaller and all of us relate to each others problems...things  are bound to look gloomy.

I remember when I was in college... even events happening in other parts of India and even South India looked very distant and irrelevant to us. Only things happening in our town and maybe our State would seem important. Today its different. Even the killings in US, suicides in Japan, migrations into Europe... seem important and worrying. That's perhaps why we feel there are more troubles than before.

According to Hindu beliefs we will be entering a golden era (Satya yuga) after this period and I believe this is true.

And how long is this period? When does it end and the new one start?

[Jack Knave]

There is more of us - so there is more of everything. Good and bad. Link this to the aforementioned ease of dissemination of information and the bias applied to that information and you could be led to believe things are getting worse. In relative terms I don't think so.

Perhaps mankind is approaching critical mass when all manner of chaos will breakout...?

[Sriram]

There is more of us - so there is more of everything. Good and bad. Link this to the aforementioned ease of dissemination of information and the bias applied to that information and you could be led to believe things are getting worse. In relative terms I don't think so.

Perhaps mankind is approaching critical mass when all manner of chaos will breakout...?

Very traditional figures run into hundreds of thousands of years. More reasonable estimates put it at about 3000 years from death of Krishna which was around 1300 BCE. So we are overdue and should perhaps be getting there sometime soon.     

[Jack Knave]

Actually the news is overwhelmingly good and improving - albeit the news that's little reported.

Globally child mortality has halved since 1990, girls very nearly match boys now in terms of the number of years in school, devastating diseases have been nearly (polio) or completely (smallpox) eliminated, previously chaotic and dictatorial countries (Nigeria, Indonesia) have had very successful democratic elections, life expectancy is increasing, the gap between poorer and richer countries has inexorably narrowed etc.

Pretty much everywhere you look there are (largely unreported) stories like this. That's not to say that catastrophic things are not happening (they are the things that get reported) but it is to say that underlying trends are almost universally positive.

In other words, if you rely on the most of the news outlets for your understanding of "the World" you'll get a very distorted view of it.

Try googling Hans Rosling for information about the stats actually say.   

But increased numbers of people cause problems...

[Jack Knave]

Dear Blue,

Here's a thought, a news programme that only reports good news would anyone watch it??

Gonnagle.

What, that lie? We have those and the US is plagued by them.

[Jack Knave]

JK,

So how do you feel about all the violence and wars in the world today?

For my part, obviously wars are horrible but it's comforting too to know too that proportionately fewer people are caught up in them than at pretty much any time in our history. You need to consider both what does happen and what does not happen to understand this - recently I was listening to something on Radio 4 when a Nobel laureate was asked what the most important historical event of the last century had been, and his reply was the fact that nuclear war did not happen.

I'm paraphrasing, but the point is well-made I think.

Still could, though...

[Nearly Sane]

JK,

So how do you feel about all the violence and wars in the world today?

For my part, obviously wars are horrible but it's comforting too to know too that proportionately fewer people are caught up in them than at pretty much any time in our history. You need to consider both what does happen and what does not happen to understand this - recently I was listening to something on Radio 4 when a Nobel laureate was asked what the most important historical event of the last century had been, and his reply was the fact that nuclear war did not happen.

I'm paraphrasing, but the point is well-made I think.

Still could, though...

Which is specious as regards your OP

[Nearly Sane]

There is more of us - so there is more of everything. Good and bad. Link this to the aforementioned ease of dissemination of information and the bias applied to that information and you could be led to believe things are getting worse. In relative terms I don't think so.

Perhaps mankind is approaching critical mass when all manner of chaos will breakout...?

Do you have the calculation that gives this?  Is your name Malthus? (Though I note again it is specious to the OP)

[Jack Knave]

Hope,

Don't remember where I read this, but I believe that, when one takes the global population and the instances of 'trouble' into account, the proportion is probably not that much worse than it has ever been (the period that includes the 2 world wars excepted).

Depends what you mean by "trouble", but the point is that it's not worse at all - we live in a time where you are statistically far less likely to be involved in a war, as well as to die early, to contract horrible diseases, to be illiterate etc.

But the problem is that people get use to their ease of life and that becomes the norm or datum level and anything less is seen as bad and a cause to fight back against losing their life style. Spoilt brats is a good example of this.

[Jack Knave]

JK,

So how do you feel about all the violence and wars in the world today?

For my part, obviously wars are horrible but it's comforting too to know too that proportionately fewer people are caught up in them than at pretty much any time in our history. You need to consider both what does happen and what does not happen to understand this - recently I was listening to something on Radio 4 when a Nobel laureate was asked what the most important historical event of the last century had been, and his reply was the fact that nuclear war did not happen.

I'm paraphrasing, but the point is well-made I think.

Still could, though...

Which is specious as regards your OP

Am expanding the scope of things....

[Jack Knave]

There is more of us - so there is more of everything. Good and bad. Link this to the aforementioned ease of dissemination of information and the bias applied to that information and you could be led to believe things are getting worse. In relative terms I don't think so.

Perhaps mankind is approaching critical mass when all manner of chaos will breakout...?

Do you have the calculation that gives this?  Is your name Malthus? (Though I note again it is specious to the OP)

I'm suggesting that the increase in violence, if this is the case, may be due to the increase of people on this planet and that resources are getting scarce. At some point it will reach a tipping point.

[Rhiannon]

Or not.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Jack,

I'm suggesting that the increase in violence, if this is the case, may be due to the increase of people on this planet and that resources are getting scarce. At some point it will reach a tipping point.

If I remember correctly one of Hans Rosling lectures, he did mention that war might be the inevitable outcome.

Gonnagle.

[jakswan]

I think its inevitable that eventually someone who believes the end of the world has been prophesied gets their hands on a weapon that can bring that about. 

[floo]

I think its inevitable that eventually someone who believes the end of the world has been prophesied gets their hands on a weapon that can bring that about.

Sadly you could be right. In the US there are some right-wing religious nutters who would just love to bring about Armageddon!