Thread: The happy cosmic hippie thread
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Old 09-12-2009, 10:23 PM   #102
WT Sharpe
Bah, humbug!
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Location: Chesapeake, VA, USA
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Violently happy
I'm happy because I'm more encouraged today than yesterday about the outlook for humanity. Today I listened to Stephen Pinker giving a talk entitled "A brief history of violence" on iTunes. It's a free 2007 podcast from "TED Talks". The title doesn't sound very upbeat, but hearing him explain how drastically and steadily violence has decreased from the time we were hunter-gatherers through the Middle Ages to today puts things in a whole new perspective. I don't think I'll ever look at those who nostalgically pine for the "good old days" in the same way again.

His message is that despite all the dire news stories of crime and craziness we're bombarded with daily, this does appear to be the best of all possible times to be alive. Our fascination with the negative blinds us to the tremendous progress we've made as a species.

Here's hoping this post will make someone else happy.
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