It’s really not. At least no more than it has been in the past
Yeah, there are tons of things to make better and improve on, but things could be a lot freaking worse. (For more people, anyway, for too many people it’s already terrible currently, e.g. Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen, Haiti … )
Yeah standard of living overall is factually better than at any other point in the last few hundred years.
Medicine alone has made getting to or living past your mid-30’s far less hard or filled with pain - even for those in poverty.
And hell I’d argue that if the original commenter really believes it’s a dystopian shit-show…it’s crystal clear how to make your own lot better.
Yeah standard of living overall is factually better than at any other point in the last few hundred years.
Really depends on who you are and where you live. I’m watching my Houston ISD getting torn apart before my eyes. Police were running around UH campus clubbing students and dragging them into squad cars just a few weeks ago. The derecho that blew through downtown knocked out 5-10% of the windows in various buildings and killed the power for a few days. Electricity costs have doubled in the last ten years, while summer heat is up a sold five degrees Fahrenheit on average.
Is my standard of living better than it was for someone living in the city a generation ago? Doesn’t look like it. But hey, we’ve got weird new AI and the stock market is very up. Is it better than someone living in Houston in 1824? Yeah… I guess? But so much of that seems to hinge on having electricity and running water. And the more pipes keep bursting and lines keep getting knocked down, the less reliable these services seem.
Medicine alone has made getting to or living past your mid-30’s far less hard
Average life expectancy has been over 60 years of age since at least the 19th century. A lot of that came entirely out of the advent of vaccinations.
Good think we’re not having trouble convincing people to get vaccinated in the modern era, I guess.
Not to forget, how we now “only” work 40h (for most people), but productivity went up and a lot of down times and social interaction in the past, were replaced by workload grind in a now stressful office environments.
Except now there’s nukes, end stage capitalism, and climate change… Sure up until like 100 years ago shit sucked hard for just about everyone, but at least there was no way they could literally end all life on earth
Even if we set out to do so we couldn’t end all life on earth (literally)
I think this vision usually comes to be when people aren’t aware of how much worse other people have it, or how much worse was in the past.
Sure nowdays there are a lot of terrible things happening, but we have the best tools ever to fix them.
The world needs a bit more of optimism, the only way we can start fixing our problems is acting like we can.
How do you know how bad many of the people have it here? Also, in general, I reject the premise of your comment.
Just because people may be suffering more elsewhere, doesn’t mean we don’t have a right to be frustrated by our current systems. This is especially true in a society that allows absurdities like billionaires to exist.
No. I’m familiar with history. It is normal.
I’ve read history. I know what actual dystopian nightmares look like. We’re not in one.
Someone in Gaza would disagree right now.
Yeah, and Jews in WWII would disagree with you.
It’s always easy to find a very specific group of people that are having a horrible time, that doesn’t mean that on average, humans live better and safer than in the entire history of humanity. Sure, the last 10 years saw a bit of a down turn, but thing are still way better than, say, 40 years ago.
I guess it’s hard to remember how really hard life could be
Idk man it’s really not a competition. AI powered automated genocide and industrialized genocide are both horrible in their own way and to me absolutely dystopian nightmares. Same way how China uses AI to track every aspect of their citizens lives + also genocide.
The Uyghurs are absolutely living in a dystopian nightmare. China uses technology to track their citizens. You can’t blame it on AI, although AI has improved their technology. Their tracking predates AI. Also our current “AI” is just self-improving algorithms, not true AI.
“Things can always get worse” is a pretty shit justification to say things aren’t bad now.
No-one is saying that all is fine. Yes, there are loads of big issues right now, but we’re still living better and safer than 99% of all the humans that have ever lived. We are not living Ina dystopian world.
- “We are not living in a dystopian nightmare”
- ”The fact that things can always get worse justifies a lack of effort to make things better”
- ”All is fine”
These are three different statements. Not the same thinfs.
Can we fucking stop with the sloppy quoting? Nobody in this thread is responding to what anybody else is actually saying.
Yes, this system absolute madness only equaled by the madness of the mass tolerance of it.
And NOT the fun weekend bender kind of madness I haven’t had time for in years due to capitalist exploitation.
It’s always been terrible, this the best we’ve had, and it’s still still terrible.
I’d argue we peaked between 25 and 50 years ago, and now we’re sliding back down the hill.
I’d argue you’re not very familiar with recent history. Also, who is “We”?
Potential convicted felon president with many active indictments looking to give himself blanket immunity for all crime and appointing himself dictator president for life. All while every year is the hottest year on record, there isn’t enough housing, actually nazis feel safe to actively demonstrate in public, a million less Americans are alive post COVID and all of the world’s wealth is split between 7 people and all the world’s companies owned by 4 parent companies…
What the fuck are you talking about dystopian?
