this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
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By realizing that it IS getting better. We live in a world now where information has exploded out of control. What this means is that we now know exactly what's going on everywhere, and it turns out that's a lot of shit.
That shit was still happening, but until fairly recently it was just out of the picture. The average person didn't know about any of it , couldn't do anything about it anyway, and thus it didn't really impact them.
Fast forward to today you hear of tragedies ALL THE TIME. Bad shit happening to good people for seemingly no reason. The difference here is that you just happen to know about it. The objective truth is that bad shit happens less today than it did at any other time in history. We just see every instance of it, not just our local community instances.
When all the bad information from the news begins to bombard me, I think back to March 2020, when the pandemic hit full swing. That might seem odd to some because many would argue that was the spark that set of the series of events that got us here. However what I see now, years later, with a bit of perspective, it was an amazing time. For the first time in human civilization almost our entire species focused in on one task and overall succeed. An existential threat to our entire way of life emerged, most people got on board and we avoided the absolute worst.
We're not meant to process all the bad things that happen in the world every day. Our primate brains are meant for small communities, not international events. Perhaps the pandemic isn't OPs thing or yours to think about, but I'll bet that almost everyone has some memory that gives them hope. Think about it, hold into it. A hopeful thing happened once, it'll happen again.
This is definitely true. A lot of people fucked around during COVID and made aspects of it worse, but they would have probably done that anyway. Overall, we did a very impressive job worldwide in managing the crisis.
If you ever think the world is shit, disconnect. Turn off the news, get off social media, spend a week interacting with your local community only. You'll see people can be pretty awesome, and you can make a very real impact in the world by helping your local community.
Well as the saying goes, ignorance is bliss. Honestly, I think its healthy to takes breaks from the news and social media if world news is getting you down, just focus on the things that you can control in your life.
I use to think like that in my 20s. But the truth is right now, it's definitely not getting better. I teach in college/univ and the amount of ignorance and entitlement I've seen in the past couple of years is alarming. Elon Musk and Andrew Tates are the role models for many young men now, there is a masculinity crisis and it's affecting everyone.
Maybe it's just because of the people I'm around, but it feels like society's concepts of both masculinity and femininity have continued improving. There are of course the Tate acolytes, but they seem as much like the gasp of a dying ideology as anything. Not sure about Musk, that particular brand of personality cult prosperity gospel never seems to really go out of style.
If you consider serious, global issues with empirical data, such as disease, poverty, hunger, the world is indeed improving, and has been for a while, see e.g. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-living-in-extreme-poverty-cost-of-basic-needs
I"m aware of that and I do agree some things are getting better. That was exactly my mindset in my 20s. But I believe you could use other data, like wealth repartition, environnement, consumption, media concentration, etc. to demonstate the opposite. The simple fact that we did more damage to the planet in 200 years that we did over 40k years is making me really worry. But yeah, I guess it depends on how you perceive certain things.
Your statement reads like "we haven't made all the progress, so we haven't made any." We have learned, if nothing else. We've learned that our carbon emissions, for example, have an impact on the environment, and many people are moving towards bettering that. It's not DONE, but to put on blinders and act like it's the same as it has always been is at best ignorant.
It's not what I said. You can call me ignorant all you want, but the truth is the F150 is the most sold car in north America, and the sales are going up each year. The vast majority of people who claim to be concerned about the environment are not about to change anything in their behavior. Flash news, Taylor Swift is worried about climate change. Unfortunatly, you and I riding our bikes and using paper straws won't be reversing the trend.
Yeah, too many people buy trucks, but the counterpoint is
And someone could probably find more recent data that os even better.
That was already around. You had the toxic masculine movie stars of the 70s-2000s. Soldiers and fighters have been glorified since the times we've had soldiers and fighters. The only difference there is a wider audience. You also have an increasing number of reasonable voices out there reaching a broader and broader audience too. Violent crimes are consistently down, we just see all that there is.
From my perspective, toxic masculinity has been more assertive than ever in recent years. As mentioned in another reply, I had to intervene to protect female students from male behavior for the first time in my career this year. One of my colleagues was harassed by a student in full view several times this session. This is new for us. We have both extremely open, sensitive and respectful students, and the opposite, but the main difference is that the second group is now uninhibited and not shy about putting himself in the spotlight.
You're using anecdotal evidence, from one perspective. You're a university professor, surely you can see why this isn't exactly a compelling argument compared to hard evidence, right?
I don't want to be rude but you really should not continue teaching (at least in the same way) if you are that repulsed or disconnected from your students.
Students will always have different priorities and mindsets than their teacher would like them to have, and most times they'll be wrong; it's a part of life in acads. Most of these youngsters have had very little exposure to the world and it is bound they'll make mistakes. That's what school is for. And they will certainly not remain the same, just like anyone from your generation as well, when they get older.
You cannot just get into teaching and not expect delinquency, that's not how it works. Just focus on getting the subject matter of whatever you're teaching through their heads and ensure everyone understands the concepts, the "bad" idealogues will eventually get sorted out themselves.
I dont want to be rude but you dont seems to have any no clue about what teaching is, even more so at a university. I'm a good teacher. I teach them things that are fundamental to our field and that will serve them for the rest of their lives for those who graduate. They tell me. I have a good relationship with most of my students, they like me and I like them (I'm not a dinosaure, I was in their shoes 15 years ago). Still, the reality is that each year we have to lower the pass threshold, both at the High school (my wife teaches) and university level. The level of entitlement and the view that teaching is a business like any other, on the part of both students and the institutions, reduces the level and value of learning. For the past few years now, we have been graduating students that I would never hire because they lack fundamental skills. For what it's worth, I wouldn't even blame them, I'd blame their parents instead, because they've been guinea pigs for malicious technology like social networking and ubiquitous cell phones. In terms of values โโnow, the only thing I will add is that this year, for the first time, I had to intervene to protect female students from the toxic behavior of male groups. More then once. And also It's funny because the tone and confidence of your message actually reminds me of certain students.
Is it that bad? Sorry, I genuinely thought you were only complaining about the kids being undisciplined in class and the like. What you're describing is scary, may I ask what were they doing? Are today's kids entering criminal territory of harassment? I thought things like bullying have been progressively declining over years?