On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 10:20:36AM +0000, Dimitris Chloupis wrote: > To talk about regression is to not be aware of how extremely lucky and > privileged we are to live in a time that experts call "the long peace" . > Never in the recorded human history there were so few wars worldwide and as > much poverty and it continuously gets better even in this time of global > economic crisis.
Global Peace Index assesment for 2016 just came out, I recommend going through it. http://static.visionofhumanity.org/sites/default/files/GPI%202016%20Report_2.pdf In other news: "Terrorism is also at an all-time high, battle deaths from conflict are at a 25 year high, and the number of refugees and displaced people are at a level not seen in sixty years" Nevertheless, Europe still remains the most peaceful region (certainly makes it easier to have biased perception... I now also live in the 6th most peaceful country :)) > I wonder the role Pharo will play in all this :) Maybe next year instead of 100 dead pages, the GPI can be released as interactive Pharo image that would aid policymakers (and everyone) with understanding the data, relations between it etc. :) (Bret Victor anyone?) > > On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 1:56 AM [email protected] <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > Regression? Consider that 1 human on 5 is under the poverty line vs 1 on 2 > > not so many years ago and that a large percentage of the human population > > has been schooled in elementary matters (again, not the case not so far in > > the past). As linked above, Europe certainly does regress in some aspects. For example the attacks (albeit rare) already created enough fear that people are willingly giving up their rights and liberties in exchange of the promise of security (e.g. UK's IP bill that treats every citizen as assumed criminal, increased data collection and surveillance in one state after another, etc.; (ECJ ruled the UK's bill unlawful & not democratic, but unlikely it will have any impact). > > otherwise they would engage in a full on war to conquer the territory. ... there is a full on war in their homeland > > > > The psychological impact is just out of proportions vs the number of > > casualties. precisely, so you don't need to do that daily or weekly (like in middle east / northern Africa) > > I got rammed into by a truck last week and could have been killed. That's > > just a mundane occurence that statistically kills more people than any > > terrorist attack would. There is a difference between violent death and willingly engaging with risky situations. > > Best course of action is to keep on trucking I think the moral of your story should be: we should finally stop trucking and give that job to machines. :) Peter
