Overall, the world is a better place today than it was 100 years ago

[Onlooker]

Poll question: Overall, the world is a better place today than it was 100 years ago

[darkism]

1. True.

But not better than it was 5 years ago.

I miss Clinton. :(

[fleabert]

2. one only need to look at women's and minority rights to know this.

now if you look at the last ten? not so much.

[Deep13]

3. Yes, but...

... the health of the Earth itself is going downhill fast. And we are backsliding on the progress we have made.

[Selatius]

4. NOT TRUE

Just look at the billions in the world who go to sleep hungry each night, the people dying of diseases, the billions of workers who work in shit-poor conditions for pennies an hour. What does that get us? A life of relative comfort and luxury here in the industrialized world, but it was built on the blood and exploitation of the world's poor.

You call that progress? I call that an absolute humanitarian failure.

[IrateCitizen]

8. Excellent point! 100-200 years ago, many of those same people...

... were living as subsistence farmers, fishermen, etc. But hey, somebody had to "modernize" them by bringing them Christian civilization -- and look at where they are now as a result!

[LondonReign2]

13. And so it ws 100 years ago as well...

...but now far far fewer will die of polio or smallpox, or be crippled for life if not killed outright due to absolutely no labor laws, or die of "old age" at 45...

The list goes on.

[neweurope]

14. *applaudes* Hear! Hear!

--------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[forgethell]

16. People starved to death

100 years ago, too. In fact, this has happened throughout the history of mankind. At least today we can do something about it if we have the will.

Not to mention the many diseases that are no longer threats. No, things are much better for many parts of the world.

[AverageJoe]

5. I'll fess up

I'm the lone -- at this moment -- "no" vote. I struggled with this and tried to look at it from a global perspective. It seems to me that the existence of nuclear weapons, the rapid destruction of the rain forests, and global warming make it impossible to vote "yes."

Clearly, there are many things that are better than they were a century ago, but I don't think the hollistic score is better now.

[villager]

6. from the standpoint of the biosphere? No way.

It's a minute to midnight, now...

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Warpy]

9. There have been medical advances

but I think people felt better overall with laudanum over the counter. We have more cures, but most of us go around feeling pretty bad, especially once we're over 40.

I wouldn't trade advances in dentistry for anything, though.

It's also nice to sit here in running shorts and a T shirt instead of a wool dress, whalebone corset, high button shoes, and hairdo that required intense construction without the benefit of shampoom conditioner or mousse.

What I do regret is the loss of TIME. Even people who were working 12 hours a day found time when they got home to throw themselves completely into an avocation. Our lives are so rushed and jangled now that we pride ourselves on where we buy things, not our ability to make them.

[Tux]

10. I don't know

With looming theocracy, religious violence worldwide, increasing hatred toward gays, I'd say it's even. As long as we hold onto science, technology, and rational thought that is.

[Walt Starr]

11. Not only is that true, it is also true that

the world should be a 100 times better place now than it actually is.

[htuttle]

12. Define 'better'

Certainly, there has been much progress in the expansion of the definition of 'person' and 'inherent rights' in the last 100 years. More people are enfranchised in the US than were 100 years ago.

However, from an ecological point of view, things aren't good now. While pollution may always not be as visible as it was when coal and wood were our main fuels, it is having a more damaging effect on the environment. Many, many species have lost their habitats in the last century. Many more will go extinct over the next few decades.

Economically as well. More people have wage-paying jobs than 100 years ago, but there is also more need for money than 100 years ago. In most parts of the world, people have been driven off the land, and out of sustainable agricultural-based lives, into overcrowded cities where they now beg for worse jobs than they would have had working the land. Most of these people have not recieved the benefits of modern medicine, etc, that supposedly go along with 'progress', so for them the last 100 years is a decidedly mixed bag.

I guess sociologically, there's no question that the world is a better place than 100 years ago. However, I do not think the world is better in every way.

[XemaSab]

15. 100 years yes

6 years no

[damntexdem]

17. But a much-worse place than it was 5 years ago:

the Dubya legacy.

[cestpaspossible]

18. Better for whom?

[twenty4blackbirds]

19. Overall, the world is no better nor worse today than it was 100 years ago

...if we're counting by the median average.
There is a greater chance of pandemics in 2005. People can be more easily massacred (mines, etc) in 2005.
We still have poverty in this world. Malnutrition.
And then, we have global communication between _people_ not just rich people. With global communication we can have international friends and an internationalist viewpoint (meaning that we can then understand how other people view us) (on edit: this is a good thing :-)).

To name a small few comparisons.

One hundred years ago it was 1905.
* Einstein earned a doctorate from the University of Zurich for a thesis 'On a new determination of molecular dimensions'.
* Sinn Fein Founded - "Sinn Fein" was organized as an Irish nationalist party.
* Greeks Revolt Crete
* Revolt in Russia
* Norway Seperates From Sweden
* Sun Yat-sen Founds Union
* Japanese Victorious - The Japanese completely defeated the Russian Navy in the Battle of the Straits of Tsushima.
* Tangiers Crisis
* Russo-Japanese Peace - US mediation was another sign of emerging US power in the world.
http://www.multied.com/dates/1904.html
* HMS Dreadnought is laid down, revolutionizing battleship design and triggering a naval arms race.
* Pope Pius X + publishes the encyclical Vehementer nos.
* African-American intellectuals and activists, led by W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter, began the Niagara Movement.
http://din-timelines.com/1905-1909_timeline.shtml
* Elara, a satellite of Jupiter, discovered by Perrine
* Cyclone hit Tahiti and adjacent islands, killing some 10,000 people
* Las Vegas, Nevada founded
* A pogrom against Jews in Minsk Belorussia
* Pogrom against Jewish community in Brisk Lithuania
* Orville/Wilbur Wright's "Flyer III" flight 38.5 km in 38.3"
http://www.brainyhistory.com/years/1905.html
* George Bernard Shaw's play, Man and Superman.
* Photography, printing, and post combine in the year's fad, picture postcards.
* Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, challenges Marx.
* A small advance that holds: the fountain pen adds a pocket clip.
* In Pittsburgh the Nickelodeon movie theater opens; concept grows fast.
* Bus timetables are printed.
http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/time/1900s.html
* Monstrous Tragedy of 1905 - In the beginning of the XX c. Armenian nationalists began systematically to hound out Azeris from their ethnic lands. For this purpose they used all means - banishment, killings, genocide...
http://www.karabakh.org/?id=1001&item=3

[blindpig]

20. we're a lot closer to ecocide now

One hundred years ago we still had a lot of leeway, the population didn't hit 2 billion until 1930. There were still great swathes of wilderness, many peoples hadn't been touched by Western Civilization and overall were better off for it. Seems that for every killer disease that we subdue there's something else around the corner, often caused or aggravated by human behavior.

A lot of the behavior and practices of 100 years ago were stupid, horrible, wrongheaded, abominable, etc. But we still had a wealth of possibilities that have now been lost. Great ecosystems have been annihilated since then and the remainder are in the hopper. A multitude of cultures have disappeared and all we got for it is television.

For all of the social advances, some of which will prove to be temporary, biodiversity and the land have suffered horribly. And in the end the environment is the bottom line.