Tell Us The Good News For Once.

[Jeremy]

I love Pamela Bone.

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Pamela Bone: Tell us the good news for a change

* Whisper it: the world may just be getting better after all
* February 21, 2007

HERE is the news. Since 1992 the number of armed conflicts in the world has decreased by 40per cent. The period since the end of World War II is the longest interval for hundreds of years without a war between the major powers.
The percentage of men who died violent deaths last century - a century that held two world wars - was approximately 1 per cent, while the percentage of men who died violent deaths in hunter-gatherer societies is estimated at about 30 per cent.

Here is some more news: in the past half century millions of people across Asia have been lifted out of poverty; in the lifetime of a child born today, the world's population will have begun to decline; and as pointed out by Al Gore in his documentary An Inconvenient Truth, the hole in the ozone layer has been closed. I don't know what has happened to the acid rain that a few decades ago was going to kill all the trees in Europe. You just don't hear much about it these days.

I don't need to tell you the above is not all the news that's fit to print. The other news, about wars and terrorism, crumbling ice shelves and creeping deserts, is here, there and everywhere, and it needs to be. We need to know what is happening in Iraq. We need to be warned that we are on an environmentally unsustainable course.

We needed to be frightened about global warming, and sufficient numbers are now frightened enough to have forced governments to take notice: though I don't think many are quite frightened enough yet to get out of their four-wheel drives, stop using leaf-blowers instead of a broom, or to refuse to eat beef from cattle that have been fed beer to make their flesh more palatable to pampered palates; this last, while children are dying of hunger, is disgusting.

But don't we also need to know the good news too? The above-mentioned statistics about armed conflicts came from a reputable, five-nation funded Human Security Report published in 2005 by the University of British Columbia. It received almost no publicity. The main reason given in the report for the decline in the number of wars in recent years was the sixfold increase in UN preventive diplomacy missions, yet we only hear of the failures of the UN.

The media reflects public opinion as much as it shapes it, and news, by definition, is bad news. Headlines about the increased safety of rail travel don't sell newspapers or cause anyone to rush to turn up the volume on the television. Reports of medical breakthroughs that might save millions of lives do not generally raise as much interest as one shark attack. According to evolutionary psychologists, humans are hard-wired to react to the sensational and the horrifying: in primitive times we needed to know that the foreign invaders were burning the village next to ours.

(It was far less urgent to know that no one in the next village died of the plague that year.)

But if we get the media we deserve we also get a much-distorted view of the world from the media. We might have needed to be frightened, but we also need to feel there is hope.

More importantly, our children and grandchildren, whose job it will be to clean up the messes we have made, need to feel hope. Psychologists are already reporting greater incidences of anxiety and depression in children, who see television news pictures of dying rivers and raging seas, and hear environmental experts telling them this is their future. (It's not all that nice for us oldies either, who have to feel we are leaving the world in a terrible state for future generations.)

Some people can, of course, become quite angry at the suggestion the world may be getting better rather than worse. Pessimism is generally judged to be the more moral position. I suppose the reason is that optimism about the state of the world implies there is no need for reform. On the other hand, too much pessimism about the state of the world could lead to either despair or unconcern. If we're all doomed anyway, we might as well party while we can.

That there are fewer wars today is little consolation to the people suffering in Iraq or Afghanistan or Darfur (another question for the media: why is there 20 times as much reporting of Iraq as there is of Darfur, where there is just as much killing?)

That we in the West are healthier and richer than at any time in history is no consolation at all to the millions around the world who go to bed hungry every night. That the global population is not increasing exponentially does not mean that accommodating the nine billion or so people who will be on the planet before the population levels off around 2050 will be easy.

Nothing will be easy but it is not impossible either. There is nothing to be gained in pretending the world is worse than it really is. We probably will need to give up some of our excesses, and find cleverer ways of doing things. But we had better get on with it, instead of wallowing in the bad news fed to us by a media only too willing to give us what we want.

Pamela Bone is a Melbourne writer. Her book about cancer and war, Bad Hair Days, will be published this year by Melbourne University Press.

[jay7]

That is a far better outlook that 99% of the other writers out there. In Australia, is she popular and well known, or just well known enough that you managed to read something she wrote?

[Jeremy]

Well she writes for The Australian - which is probably one of the top 3 regarded newspapers in the world.

[Splint]

A little boy who was kidnapped at gunpoint this morning in Florida was found alive a few hours later. An amber alert had gone out immediately and the kidnapper let him go.

[Jeremy]

Interesting Brad, but is that relevant to the discussion? This is a topic about an essay called "Tell Us The Good News For A Change" - not really a place for just posting random good news. At least that's not what I intended, I guess if you want to post good news, feel free. I just wanted people to read that essay.

[crazylegs32]

She better quit dissin' on the kobe beef. Whats wrong with feeding a bull beer and giving it daily massages.

[Jeremy]

From the context of the statement, clearly the fact that it produces significant amounts of greenhouse gasses, and personally I don't want to live in a world facing an economic depression worse than the great depression and world wars 1 and 2 combined. If people giving up extravagant meat is part of stopping that from happening, it doesn't seem like a significant blow.

Some people may also argue that it is immoral to spend so much money and effort into cattle while 40,000 people starve to death every day.

[Switch Kicker]

Some people may also argue that it is immoral to spend so much money and effort into cattle while 40,000 people starve to death every day.

I call it population control. There needs to be more deaths in teh world every day. More starving people, and more disease infected people. And less "accidents."

Anytime someone is on TV announcing, "Woot, I survived cancer.." I go, "Now why'd you have to go and do that. You were supposed to die."

[Jeremy]

So you think it is a good thing that 30,000 children under the age of 5 die of starvation every year?

[source]

[Switch Kicker]

So you think it is a good thing that 30,000 children under the age of 5 die of starvation every year?

[source]



[/img]http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2005 ... rchild.jpg[/img]

You're not going to make me feel bad by showing me pictures of unfortunate children. The cold fact is, that's just tough shit. That's life. And it's going to get worse before it gets better. If there weren't so many people to begin with, this problem wouldn't be so big of a problem right now.

I personally couldn't care less that 30,000 children starve to death each day.

I've had the belief for a very long time that the population's never going to go down through abstinence, so it's only going to go down this way. People dying. We need more of it. Either that, or these damn Africans need to realize that more kids isn't a good thing. Especially seeing as they can't feed themselves, let alone thirty kids.

[Jeremy]

Actually the scientific evidence shows that countries with high levels of education have very low birth rates and mainly stable or even falling birth rates.

Also the only country with an official abstinence policy has demonstrated very clearly that it works (China has the 163rd highest birth rate in the world)

So all the evidence shows that your claim, like pretty much everything you write, is completely false and that you actually have no idea what you're talking about.

Why don't you go back to school or read a book instead of posting your made up bullshit?

Sources to show that I'm not just talking crap;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/4208479.stm
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_b ... birth-rate

[Guest_1]

Jeremy, there are also consequences to that in China: http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/specials ... icide.html

[Jeremy]

I didn't deny that. I would prefer to live in a world run like China than one where 30,000 children under the age of 5 starve to death every day. Which would you prefer?

[Switch Kicker]

Actually the scientific evidence shows that countries with high levels of education have very low birth rates and mainly stable or even falling birth rates.

Also the only country with an official abstinence policy has demonstrated very clearly that it works (China has the 163rd highest birth rate in the world)

So all the evidence shows that your claim, like pretty much everything you write, is completely false and that you actually have no idea what you're talking about.

Why don't you go back to school or read a book instead of posting your made up bullshit?

Sources to show that I'm not just talking crap;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/4208479.stm
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_b ... birth-rate

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/abstinence

Like I said, abstinence will never bring the population down. An "abstinence policy" and abstinence are not the same thing. China's birth rate is down because their government makes it so.

And your first paragraph says it for me. Countries with higher education have lower birth rates. Which is probably why 3rd world countries have such a problem, with desease and starvation. They dont' have any education.

And since when do you throw out random ill-fated insultes such as telling someone to go back to school when you know nothing about that person's life? That's something new for you isn't it. I am in school thankyou, and I do read. Just finished "So Far From the Bamboo Grove." Good book. Plenty of death, disease, starvation, and suffering in it. All about how shitty it was for the Japanese people in Korea during WWII.

You're attitude lately is bullshit.

[Switch Kicker]

I didn't deny that. I would prefer to live in a world run like China than one where 30,000 children under the age of 5 starve to death every day. Which would you prefer?

And I never gave you my preference on how the world should be. I said it's gonna get worse before it gets better. So the sooner it gets worse, teh sooner it gets better. Therefore, I welcome the large amounts of death in teh world.

That's my belief, if you don't like it, tough fuckin' shit man. I never said you couldn't have your beliefs or anything like that.

[Jeremy]

How is the fact that you never said how you wanted the world to be relevant to this discussion? Nobody is claiming that you did. You did state that it is a good thing that 30,000 children under the age of 5 starve to death every day. My question was clearly directed towards the person putting forward the problems with China's policy.

As for your defined claims of abstinence. Fair enough, I agree wholeheartedly, except I don't think that any serious people have argued that we need to use abstinence to reduce population. In fact the only time abstinence is mentioned in the news is in relation to the fact that 30% of American schools teach it as the only way to have safe sex. I have heard unconfirmed reports that some Muslim countries also teach that. America has an exceptionally high birth rate compared with the rest of the developed world.

So if we return to the initial statement; which was that I think some people (not necessarily me) would see it as immoral to "eat beef from cattle that have been fed beer to make their flesh more palatable to pampered palates; this last, while children are dying of hunger" followed by your statement that it is a good thing that those children die, it is clear that we can see that were that money spent on raising those cows (whose meat sells at about $500 usd per steak) spent on education and fighting poverty in the third world, it would have a significant difference in stopping those children from dying in such a horrific manner. We can also see that by putting funds into education in the third world, we can actually reduce populations to sustainable levels. Considering the amount of wealth that the developed world has plundered from the third world, it seems just that we now use that wealth to rebuild those nations.

Regarding you reading that book. What do you want? A medal? I'm sorry my post was too hard for you to understand. When I said you should read a book, I meant a book on the subject of third world poverty and global population sustainability. Not just any random book.

Regarding my attitude; You are the person who thinks it is a good thing that 30,000 children under the age of starvation died today. You are the person who has not managed to put forward a single source backing up your views. I may be hostile towards you. That's because I see dogmatically holding beliefs without evidence, such as what you're doing on this issue, as a significant global problem and when ever I come across such people, I vent my frustration that the majority of the world still believes things without having evidence to support their beliefs. I also think your claim that 30,000 children under the age of 5 dying of starvation every day is a grotesque and abhorrent view and I find it very hard to feel anything positive about a person who could support such misery and suffering.

[crazylegs32]

We cant rebuid nations and have sustainable populations if the environment is no longer suitable. Alot of Africa is screwed due to climate change and war and to try and feed them in the longterm makes less sense than moving them.
I still dont see how Kobe beef is a problem. It involves one or a few people taking great care of a cow. If I was a rancher Id have some Wagyu for sure. Its worse when we take steel and plastic and make cars and packaging out of it but I dont mind that either.

[Jeremy]

Another good news story;

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JOHN HORGAN
Director, the Center for Science Writings, Stevens Institute of Technology; Author, Rational Mysticism

In response to the Edge question; "What are you optimistic about?"

War Will End

I'm optimistic that one day war—large-scale, organized, group violence—will end once and for all.

Many people find my optimism naive, if not delusional. Last semester, I taught a class called "War and Human Nature," and my students polled classmates on the following question: "Do you think humanity will ever stop fighting wars once and for all time?" Of the 205 respondents, 185 replied "No"; 20 said "Yes" or "Maybe. " Several of the "optimists" added comments like "Yes, war will end when the human race will end," and "Yes, because in the future the human species will unite to fight alien species. "

Recent scholarship on warfare seems, at first glance, to support this fatalism. Just a few decades ago, many scholars believed in the "myth of the peaceful savage," which depicts war as a byproduct of modern civilization that did not exist in pre-state societies. In his book Constant Battles, the anthropologist Steven LeBlanc debunks this myth, pointing out that the vast majority of primitive, pre-state societies engaged in at least occasional warfare. Mortality rates from violence in some societies reached as high as fifty percent.

But these grim statistics yield a surprisingly upbeat message: Things are getting better! Hard as it may be to believe, humanity has become much less violent than it used to be. In fact civilization, far from creating the problem of warfare, is apparently helping us to solve it. In War Before Civilization, the anthropologist Lawrence Keeley estimates that in the blood-soaked 20th century 100 million men, women, and children died from war-related causes, including disease and famine. The total would have been 2 billion, Keeley notes, if our rates of violence had been as high as in the average primitive society.

Moreover, conventional war between the armies of two or more nations is becoming rare. Three years have passed since the last international war. (Israel's incursion into Lebanon last summer doesn't count, because the Lebanese army did not fight. ) This is "the longest episode of interstate peace in more than half a century," the scholars Charles Kurzman and Neil Englehart point out in their recent essay "Welcome to World Peace. " Although they are dominating the headlines, civil wars have also declined since peaking in the early 1990s. We are dealing now with guerilla wars, insurgencies, terrorism—or what the political scientist John Mueller calls the "remnants of war. "

These statistics do not provide much solace to the victims of war's "remnants" in Iraq, Darfur, Sri Lanka, Palestine, Colombia and other troubled regions. But they show that we are moving in the right direction. Other recent events offer more grounds for optimism. As recently as the late 1980s, we still faced the threat of a global nuclear holocaust. Then, incredibly, the Soviet Union dissolved and the Cold War ended peacefully. Apartheid also ended in South Africa without significant violence, and human rights have advanced elsewhere around the world.

The first, crucial step toward ending war is to believe that we can do it. We should also recognize that war is over-determined—stemming from many different possible causes—and so peace must be over-determined too. In their final papers, most of my students wisely advocated pursuing not a single, silver-bullet solution to the problem of war but multiple approaches. Their proposals included supporting democracy in other countries, bolstering the U.N. 's peacekeeping efforts, fighting poverty and improving education, restricting or eliminating arms sales, inculcating tolerance for other cultures in children, giving women more of a role in government.

"Achieving peace on a global level will not be easy," one student wrote, "but things already seem to be moving in the right direction. Humanity's best shot at ending war is now. "

His optimism fuels my optimism.

[Switch Kicker]

He's always got a factual come back. Do you just believe in facts? Or do you just not have your own personal beliefs. Maybe you should come up with some of your own ideas instead of constantly posting links to other people's ideas.

If your so hell-bent on these political and moral subjects, then why don't you go do something about it? I swear to god, you have some fucked up political response for everything.

There can be a perfectly fine conversation going on (Yes, I know that doesn't happen often with me in the topic, but it does happen occasionally.), and then here comes Jeremy O'Wheely, flying by with his stupid god damn facts. You quote more people then the New York Times, or any other major newspaper for that matter.

And I agree with CrazyLegs. There nothing wrong with really good steak. There's nothing wrong with anyone doing anything they want with their money.

[Jeremy]

In all serious forms of discussion you are expected to produce sources for everything you claim to be fact. In a serious discussion, people dismiss your comments unless you can back them up with research or evidence by somebody else.

It is crucial to know the facts of an issue before you formulate an opinion on that issue. You can't know everything, but to formulate opinions without attempting to look at the facts, like you do, is completely unacceptable in the academic world.

A great example is the question of what falls faster, a 1kg weight or a 10 kg weight. For 400 years we have known the answer to this question, and yet many people do not know the correct answer. When they think about it logically, without any knowledge of the facts, people generally come up with the wrong answer; because in some ways the wrong answer makes more sense than the right answer. However a little research on the topic, or even carrying out similar experiments yourself, clearly demonstrates the correct answer. Aristotle rebuked the Galileo's answer as rubbish, to which Galileo responded that the only way Aristotle could think that way is because he hadn't done the experiement himself.

A debate out of ignorance is meaningless. The more facts we know about the issue, the closer we can to a real truth and find real solutions to the problem.

You claim "There can be a perfectly fine conversation going on (Yes, I know that doesn't happen often with me in the topic, but it does happen occasionally.), and then here comes Jeremy O'Wheely, flying by with his stupid god damn facts."

But can you give any examples of that happening? Certainly not in this topic, since I started it.