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this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
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The thing you're evangelizing only leads to more consolidation of power and money, loss of jobs and power for the working class and climate devastation.
Yeah, technological progress has historically made life worse for humans.
Technological "progress" historically mostly served to siphon power to the wealthy.
Also, as a species, we're currently in the process of conucting a mass extinction, as well as destroying our biosphere.
I recommend you to read the book "Blood in the Machine" as an account how industrialization worsened the life of 19th century textile workers and how the Luddites fought against the disenfrachisement of the people.
I recommend reading "The Better Angels of Our Nature" by Steven Pinker. People love to complain about how much worse quality of life has gotten for people, but when actually pressed for specific ways it has gotten worse, they are almost always arguing from a complete ignorance of history. Lifespan is much longer, healthspan is much longer, rapes are way down, murders are way down, torture is way down, dying in childbirth is way down, incest is way fown, pedophilia is way down, starvation is way down, dying from wild animals is way down, wars are way down. Problems now for lots of the world are things like people bickering over who gets to be next to who when they pee and who called a "he" a "she".
This idea that the world is way worse than it used to be is absurd and just shines a massive light on how popular it has gotten to selfish brats completely oblivious of where we came from.
I knowof Steven Pinker and don't agree with his conclusions. I even got a video debunking him you're probably not gonna watch either
You've ignored my point about climate change. I'm quite sure that concerning history, I got a bit more nuanced takes than you do.
Medical advances have been made, yes. Inpart due to, technological advancements. These are fundamentally good and not what I'm arguing against.
How is that a result of technological advances and not social movements fighting for a brighter future?
I doubt that, if you look at it globally. Israel is currently performing a genocide. I consider that murder.
Again, healthcare advances.
Not touching those points.
Ecodiversity is way down and global pandemics are way up.
Are you kidding me? Did you live under a rock for the last 50 years?
No, problems now for "lots of the world" is climate change, job insecurity, housing crisis, dangers of a global war escalation, ...
Not what I said.
Says the person who choses to ignore how much progress has been done through sometimes violent, social movements.
It is honestly amazing how little you know of history. We literally had over 100 weeks with more casualties than the entire Russian and isreali wars combined back in ww2. And somehow you think wars are now worse. It's honestly mind boggling.
Also, it is absolutely undeniable that murder is way down. You haven't looked, and you can't imagine how far off you are. The same for pandemics, it's not even comparable. You are arguing that dinosaurs are smaller than most mice and it would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad that you are so sure of yourself and so completely wrong about something you refuse to research. It is literally so easy to quickly look up and find you are wrong.
you didn't watch the video, did you?
How are global pandemics way down? hou often did global pandemics occur in the past?
Ok, you got me. WWII was afwul. I would also consider it a historical outlier.
And you're gonna ignore climate change completely, huh?
Clearly, climate change is on the rise. It is absolutely a fair price to pay for all the advancement. For almost all of history, we were dying under 30 years, we are close to triple that thanks to technology and all signs point to lifespan increasing. For pandemics, even if we outrageously compare just the number of deaths, not even percentages as we should, many pandemics of the distant past were way way worse than the only one almost all of us have seen in our lifetimes.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/history-of-pandemics-deadliest/
I know you have it in your head that technology is evil or whatever, but that falls flat when you look up the numbers you are so afraid of. You are like a teenager complaining about how awful their parents are when literally everything you love and enjoy has come directly from them. I would not be surprised in the least if you are a literal teenager with how little you have heard about history.
You accuse me of knowing "alarmingly little" about history and hit me with that bullshit statistic of "dying under 30"? Get outta here. Also: I already explained that I completely condone the medical advancements.
I get a feeling that you're constantly strawmanning me, by acting as if I'm like "everything used to be better all the time". I'm not saying that some parts of life have gotten better. But I'm harshly objecting to the notion that technological progress has been a positive good to all of humanity. What I said was that technology usually helps the powerful to become even more powerful. I'm guessrng that you live in the imperial core (look it up) and therefore partly benefited from this concentration of power. This won't stay that way, if you're not rich. And a look at the state of common people in 19th century Europe (during the industrial revolution) backs me up on that one.
It's simply naive to claim that "everything has gotten better", while ignoring everything that has gotten worse.
Global pandemics weren't a thing in the past. And the one we encountered could have been avoided, if it wouldn't have been for the profit motive.
Don't you think that some cooky infographic from 2020 might be a **teeny bity* out of date?
You're talking about your strawman. I prefer a more nuanced take.
Measure your tone. You come off as a dick. You've yet to supply data that's not ridiculous. Watch the video.
Well, if you allow me some wild accusation: if I'm a teenager, then you're like a child arguing that Santa must exist on account of all the presents appearing on Christmas. And all the Stories of sweatshops for your christmas sneakers are lies, because obviously, the elves were making these.
Says the person who refuse to educate themselves to, learn things that question their held believs a tiny bit. I've literally proposed you history books to read.