I love how this discussion turned out
And all the optimism and good feelings.
Our societies are certainly better than before, and there is a tendency to more compassion.
There is also hate, violence, bigotry, fanaticism. There is war.
And of course there is still poverty, there is still lack of education. There is still deficient education, even misleading education, which is sometimes worse than no education at all.
I do believe that if every one of us tries to do the right thing by themselves and others, we will naturally evolve into better societies.
I don't believe the other stuff will go away. Unfortunately.
But we can always hope, and start the change from ourselves, I guess.
One thing I was told once and that I found surprising, is that actually meeting groups of people for whom you hold certain prejudices tends to reinforce these prejudices rather than the opposite. I've found it to be bizarrely true in many cases.
The global community is a good step towards global understanding and the bridging of different cultures.
It is also a huge battleground which everyone enters full of prejudices and often leaves having changed none of them.