(06-12-2022, 09:19 AM)homebiscuit Wrote:

(06-12-2022, 08:57 AM)The Real Marty Wrote: Hmmm... Maybe I am...  

Good point.

It’s easy to become focused on the negative aspects of humanity because it is easily exploited for a variety of reasons such as social causes or media ratings. What isn’t promoted as much as it should be are the stunning advances in medicine, science and engineering. We take these things for granted because they improve our lives indirectly while the negative are more in the forefront, which gives the illusion of a great imbalance. It is not in the nature, or benefit, of mankind to create more bad than good. Regardless of the illusion, we are always moving forward.

I agree with you but there are two sides of that coin.  Good things can have evil effects.  Jonathan Swift lamented infant mortality among the Irish in 1729. When many Irish farmers learned to grow the potato in the early 1800s, it seemed like a godsend.  Infant mortality went down, population went up.  We know the rest of the story.  

It was hundreds of thousands of farmers who did a good thing and changed their traditions to adopt the best food crop at the time.  You can't blame any human for the blight that killed the crops later.  Then it was just 500 or so English members of Parliament who voted to keep Irish ports open, allowing English industrial workers to outbid the Irish for the remaining food grown on the island. 

The story is similar when you look at other historical catastrophes.  People don't do the worst things.  Systems of government and economy do.  And the worst things happen when people aren't allowed to have a vote or a stake in decisions about their future. The Irish in the 1840s, the American Indian from 1776 to 1924, the Jews of Europe from 1795 to 1945, etc.

The more power people have to create their own future the better the future is.

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