Hi Cecilia, first of all: thanks for posting this, many people seem to have forgotten these things lately. On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 12:06:19AM -0300, Cecilia Tanaka wrote:
Me too. Probably much more than you, my dear Mirimir. To find the truth, you must believe. I always wanted to believe. I still believe in a better world for everybody, but it is becoming pretty hard to discover what means a "better world" and "everybody", uh! :-/
There's no need to believe, observing is sufficient. From our vantage point it may seem everything is getting worse. We kill each other, we exterminate species, we destroy the environment, intolerance, corruption and lies, lies and much more lies. But the thing is: it's not the reality, it's just what we perceive it to be. Actually it's the other way around: things are getting better and better. Yes, sometimes it's two steps forward and one backward. However, look at the details. How many pople are being killed during wars these days? Of course, still too many, but not millions as in past times. More and more people pay attention to the environment. Who did that 100 years ago? Nobody. Who did protest against forest clearance in those times? Nobody. Against discrimination? A handfull. The list is endless. The difference to past times is this: 100 years ago children got missed all times, every day. The general public didn't care much, or even notice. Today, if a child gets lost, all the media - sometimes even international ones - report about it, every day 24/7, for weeks. This is the cause of the perception "oh my god all this criminality!" while in reality there's LESS criminality than ever before. You might counter: but what about unreported missing black children? What about the desastrous violence in Venezuela and Mexico? What about all those global warming deniers? What about the rising fascisim in the EU? What about idiots like Trump or Farage? Yes, these things must be fixed. But if you "zoom out" a little and look on the big picture, you'll realize that we as a species are developing, growing and indeed getting better. Well, at least this is as I see it. I just hate it that almost every one laments all day "we're going to die, the past was so much better" and such crab. Try to make a living in 1850. Or 1650. Or 350. Or 14000 b.c. Today is the best times of all. Todays poorest people are rich compared to poor people a couple of centuries ago. So, I don't need to believe, I know it's getting better. Even if local situations might be worsen here and there, this doen't matter that much for the species as a whole. best, Tom