Where are our visions?

[grumbler]

Why is there the assumption that the world is "better" than ever before?  Because more diseases can be cured and those who can afford the medication/treatment can add more years to the end of their lives?  Because more people have more consumer goods than ever?  What are the criteria?

Because there other criteria that point to things being worse for a lot of people.  Loss of traditions and the richness of community life, increasing instability and uncertainty about life prospects, the creation of new desires that go unsatisfied, an overabundance of choices in rich countries, new forms of communication actually producing more social isolation, etc.

The world is better than before because, on average, people have enough food and economic security to worry about having an overabundance of choice 

In a world that's never probably been more unequal, "averages" do a lot of work, don't they... Global economic and food security is still entirely unrealized.

I don't get why the overload of choice in rich countries is such a joke when we're talking about whether all our contemporary advancements have created a good quality of life.

You seem to be doing something very odd in this post. On one hand you dismiss improvements in food and economic security as they have not been globally realized but then want to also drill in on an overabundance of choice which is only really afforded to a small segment of individuals world wide. I don't really think you can have both points.

This is the main point that I was going to make, but the other point I think Mihali fails to understand is that the claim that "world that's never probably been more unequal" is patently untrue, and far less untrue than it was back in his "good old days."  We are more aware of poverty than ever before, because of improvements in communications, but the availability of food and clothing to the poorest is far better compared to world averages than it has ever been.

[grumbler]

You seem to be doing something very odd in this post. On one hand you dismiss improvements in food and economic security as they have not been globally realized but then want to also drill in on an overabundance of choice which is only really afforded to a small segment of individuals world wide. I don't really think you can have both points.

I'm saying that it's not self-evident that peoples' lives are "better than ever" either in poor countries or rich countries -- clearly, the issues differ for the person depending on place and status.

I'm saying that it is self-evident, except to social conservatives who value "traditional community values" over life expectancy, infant mortality, and education.

[dps]

Because more diseases can be cured and those who can afford the medication/treatment can add more years to the end of their lives? 

I wouldn't dismiss that too quickly.  I don't want to hijack this thread with another health care debate, but the fact is, it's not just the wealthy and/or elderly who have benefitted from modern medical technology.  In the West, even just 150 years ago or so people could expect that a pretty high percentage of newborns would never live to see adulthood.  Now, instead of being somewhat expected, the death of a child is considered an unlucky tragedy.  The rest of the world isn't there yet, but the situation is improving almost everywhere (and where it's not, it's usually as a result of war, which has never really been good for anyone's life expectancy).

[dps]

You seem to be doing something very odd in this post. On one hand you dismiss improvements in food and economic security as they have not been globally realized but then want to also drill in on an overabundance of choice which is only really afforded to a small segment of individuals world wide. I don't really think you can have both points.

I'm saying that it's not self-evident that peoples' lives are "better than ever" either in poor countries or rich countries -- clearly, the issues differ for the person depending on place and status.

I'm saying that it is self-evident, except to social conservatives who value "traditional community values" over life expectancy, infant mortality, and education.

An odd statement, considering that Mihali is the one questioning whether or not it's self-evident, and he isn't a social conservative. 

[Capetan Mihali]

Access to food and clothing for the poorest does not directly bear on whether or not there is greater global inequality of wealth than ever before, which as far I know is an open, but legitimate, question among people who study it seriously.

And the question is whether peoples' lives are "better" than ever.  Although you quite ironically build an enormous strawman argument for me, I'm hardly arguing that things are worse now than "my" "good old days."  I'm questioning the tendency to treat it as axiomatic that life is necessarily better now than ever before, in rich countries and poor countries.

[Monoriu]

I think the tragedy is that people don't care about statistics showing that they are objectively better off than people who died 200 years ago.  They only compare themselves with their peers, with their parents' experience, and with their own past experience.  By this measure they may not be getting better.  Because their peers who work in the right professions are getting richer all the time, their parents can get stable jobs and afford houses with better success, etc. 

Another fundamental problem is that people expect a linear relationship between effort and reward, and there is a minimum standard of living even if they don't work.  In other words, a reasonable reward for a reasonable effort.  The reality is that the curve is somewhat flat and only goes up exponentially toward the high end, and the floor isn't as high as people expect.  In other words, winners take all. 

[MadImmortalMan]

Productivity and income used to be correlated until the early 70s. So arguably you could say that effort and reward used to have a more linear relationship than they do now.

[Capetan Mihali]

Because more diseases can be cured and those who can afford the medication/treatment can add more years to the end of their lives? 

I wouldn't dismiss that too quickly.  I don't want to hijack this thread with another health care debate, but the fact is, it's not just the wealthy and/or elderly who have benefitted from modern medical technology.  In the West, even just 150 years ago or so people could expect that a pretty high percentage of newborns would never live to see adulthood.  Now, instead of being somewhat expected, the death of a child is considered an unlucky tragedy. The rest of the world isn't there yet, but the situation is improving almost everywhere (and where it's not, it's usually as a result of war, which has never really been good for anyone's life expectancy).

I do see your point, and don't mean to dismiss the enormous advances medicine has made globally.  But your bolded sentence really highlights the issue I'm trying to raise.  Infant mortality rates as a whole have decreased, but what you write suggests that this has had the consequence of vastly increasing the emotional pain and social isolation involved in having a child die. Someone losing a child today might not have the cultural resources or community support that their ancestors had, and it might not be obvious to them that their life is much better than their ancestors because infant mortality as a whole has decreased.

[grumbler]

Access to food and clothing for the poorest does not directly bear on whether or not there is greater global inequality of wealth than ever before, which as far I know is an open, but legitimate, question among people who study it seriously.

If the measure of quality of life is merely GINI coefficient, then life probably is worse for the non-starving Indians of today than for the starving Indians of 1945.

The problem with your MOE is that it leads to the conclusion that the way to maximize quality of life is to have a nuclear holocaust so that everyone loses everything, and are all thus perfectly equal.

And the question is whether peoples' lives are "better" than ever.  Although you quite ironically build an enormous strawman argument for me, I'm hardly arguing that things are worse now than "my" "good old days."  I'm questioning the tendency to treat it as axiomatic that life is necessarily better now than ever before, in rich countries and poor countries.

You should probably look up "axiomatic" before using it in a strawman argument again.

[grumbler]

Productivity and income used to be correlated until the early 70s. So arguably you could say that effort and reward used to have a more linear relationship than they do now.

I think that the issue is that effort and income used to be more closely correlated, rather than productivity and income.  Nowadays income inequality is justified by "productivity" arguments (even going so far as to relabel trustafarians as "job creators").

[jimmy olsen]

You seem to be doing something very odd in this post. On one hand you dismiss improvements in food and economic security as they have not been globally realized but then want to also drill in on an overabundance of choice which is only really afforded to a small segment of individuals world wide. I don't really think you can have both points.

I'm saying that it's not self-evident that peoples' lives are "better than ever" either in poor countries or rich countries -- clearly, the issues differ for the person depending on place and status.

I'm saying that it is self-evident, except to social conservatives who value "traditional community values" over life expectancy, infant mortality, and education.

The US is actually an outlier in this issue. It's doubled in the last two or three decades.

[CountDeMoney]

I do see your point, and don't mean to dismiss the enormous advances medicine has made globally.  But your bolded sentence really highlights the issue I'm trying to raise. 

Starvation still the #1 preventable killer globally, and it's still easier to get a cell phone than a bucket of drinking water in too many parts of the globe.

[Scipio]

At times like these, I think it's time for A Better Tomorrow II.

[PDH]

We don't do visions anymore, we do bottom lines.

[Josquius]

We're too efficient these days.
Dreaming doesn't have a easily quantifiable cost-benefit ratio so....