# Cheer up, things aren't as bad as you think **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 28, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791 "2016-12-28T20:49:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/1 "2016-12-28T20:49:08Z")
We’ve had an awful lot of gloomy predictions here on the board lately but, as [Steven Pinker reminds us](http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/12/22/14042506/steven-pinker-optimistic-future-2016), the world and the US is in greater shape than it’s ever been. In the interview he’s first asked about the conception that violence everywhere is on the rise. > [@](#): > > Look at history and data, not headlines. The world continues to improve in just about every way. Extreme poverty, child mortality, illiteracy, and global inequality are at historic lows; vaccinations, basic education, including girls, and democracy are at all-time highs. > > War deaths have risen since 2011 because of the Syrian civil war, but are a fraction of the levels of the 1950s through the early 1990s, when megadeath wars and genocides raged all over the world. Colombia’s peace deal marks the end of the last war in the Western Hemisphere, and the last remnant of the Cold War. Homicide rates in the world are falling, and the rate in United States is lower than at any time between 1966 and 2009. Outside of war zones, terrorist deaths are far lower than they were in the heyday of the Weathermen, IRA, and Red Brigades. He is then asked about the fears of a surge in racism under a Trump presidency and has some cold water to pour on that too. > [@](#): > > Beware of headlines. And beware of statistics from advocacy organizations whose funding stream depends on stoking fear and outrage — I’ve learned that they can never be taken at face value. > > There are reasons to doubt that we’re seeing a big post-Trump rise in hate crimes. Rates of hate crime tend to track rates of overall crime, and there was an uptick of both in 2015, before Trumpism. > > Indeed, Trump capitalized on the crime uptick to sow panic about the state of the nation, and progressives foolishly ceded the issue to him. Moment-by-moment analyses of Google searches by the data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz show that Islamophobia strongly tracks incidents of terrorism with Muslim perpetrators. So hate crimes will probably depend more on overall crime rates and — in the case of Islamophobic hate crimes — on terrorist attacks than on a general atmosphere created by Trump. > > More generally, the worldwide, decades-long current toward racial tolerance is too strong to be undone by one man. Public opinion polls in almost every country show steady declines in racial and religious prejudice — and more importantly for the future, that younger cohorts are less prejudiced than older ones. As my own cohort of baby boomers (who helped elect Trump) dies off and is replaced by millennials (who rejected him in droves), the world will become more tolerant. > > It’s not just that people are increasingly disagreeing with intolerant statements when asked by pollsters, which could be driven by a taboo against explicit racism. Stephens-Davidowitz has shown that Google searches for racist jokes and organizations are sensitive indicators of private racism. They have declined steadily over the past dozen years, and they are more popular in older than younger cohorts. . Pinker is a liberal and it’s good to see that at least one of them has his feet firmly on the ground. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2016, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/2 "2016-12-28T20:56:20Z")
I don’t think things are that bad _now_, we’ve had 8 years of steady and competent leadership. I’m not so sure how the next four are going to go though. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2016, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/3 "2016-12-28T20:59:12Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Pinker is a liberal and it’s good to see that at least one of them has his feet firmly on the ground. Your potshot is misplaced. It’s the conservatives who are boohooing about how Barak and Michelle have ruined everything for everyone. It’s the right wingers who think now more than ever we need more guns and more Jesus. It’s the Republicans who keep telling us that Trump is going to make things “great again”. If we’re already great, then why did they come up with that stupid-asss slogan? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/4 "2016-12-28T21:12:08Z")
Renewable energy keeps getting cheaper. Artificial intelligence keeps advancing. Global poverty rates are declining. Medicine is getting better. People are more educated. Good. How does that change the fact that under the new administration fewer people will have health care, health care and health insurance will cost more, and we may end up facing serious military and economic problems due to the ignorance and ideological intensity of the new administration? The world is getting better, and will continue to get better. But there will be ups and downs. Venezuela has gotten much much shittier in the last 5 years. Also rates of liberal democracy have mostly stabilized since the early 90s. I don’t think there has been a ton of improvement in last 20 years on this front. ---
**Author:** ![Turek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/turek/32/18782_2.png) [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2016, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/5 "2016-12-28T21:38:27Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Pinker is a liberal and it’s good to see that at least one of them has his feet firmly on the ground. And any TRUE [del]Scotsman[/del] liberal would agree with him! ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/6 "2016-12-31T13:30:09Z")
You want to cheer us up, how about you don’t take swipes at us? Don’t give us reasons to defend our concerns, thus reminding us of all the negatives. That article doesn’t really deal with any of the actual concerns. None of that shit is stuff we didn’t know. The guy even redirected the actual questions being asked to answer other questions. A dangerously incompetent and mentally ill man will be in charge of our country. He has chosen people for departments that want to dismantle them. He is giving the keys to power to actual racists–who cares if they are a decreasing minority? He’s already caused two minor diplomatic incidents, and he’s not even President yet. He’s already trying to commit us to a new nuclear arms race. His own party is trying to prevent him from communicating with the rest of the world. And that’s without getting into a credulity problem. You can believe bullshit no matter how smart or well educated you are, since we don’t really teach critical thinking, or how to verify sources. Real numbers show that the budget for news is getting lower, so corners are getting cut. They’re so bad that obviously fake news sites can join the fray and people can’t tell the difference. It’s a garbage in, garbage out situation. None of the positive things this guy mentions remotely deal with any of this stuff. And, frankly, he comes off as a bit of an elitist asshole, acting like people wouldn’t be concerned if they were just as smart as him. All the while deflecting from discussing the real issues. Real good news would be about how to actually fight the problems we currently have, not reasons why we can all be complacent. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/7 "2016-12-31T14:20:01Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > I don’t think things are that bad _now_, we’ve had 8 years of steady and competent leadership. I’m not so sure how the next four are going to go though. Exactly. Just because things are good now doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be worried about the direction the country will go in starting next month. Things were in pretty good shape in 2001 when Bush took office and ended our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity. And I fear Trump will be a worse President than Bush was. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/8 "2016-12-31T14:37:39Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > How does that change the fact that under the new administration fewer people will have health care, health care and health insurance will cost more, and we may end up facing serious military and economic problems due to the ignorance and ideological intensity of the new administration? The population of the US is about 300 million; there are over 7 billion people on the planet. The US population is under 5% of the total - within the bounds of a rounding error. Trump becoming POTUS is almost irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/9 "2016-12-31T14:41:38Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Renewable energy keeps getting cheaper. Artificial intelligence keeps advancing. Global poverty rates are declining. Medicine is getting better. People are more educated. Good. . _Renewable energy keeps getting cheaper._ But is largely squandered. More than half the power that flows through America’s power grids is used for lighting alone. Motor fuels are used largely for recreational driving. - Artificial intelligence keeps advancing.\* But Pogo still cant beat me at Monopoly more than once out of ten. AI will remain stupid for a long time to come, and as a culture, we become stupider the more we rely on it.. And where is the Artificial Wisdom, to advance beyond the 2,000 year old moral codes that are still applying Intelligence? _Global poverty rates are declining._ Poverty rates are relative. Poverty is defined as those that are below a certain percentile, and that never changes. - Medicine is getting better\*. But more costly, and the cost of medicine is rising a lot faster than the reach. \* People are more educated. \* Which means nothing. Beyond basic literacy and arithmetic, education is just feeding the education-indusrial complex. Most workers in the US, and nearly all globally, learned their present work on the job, unaided by electives in art history or any other education above literacy. Look who our better-educated people just elected. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/10 "2016-12-31T14:45:55Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > The population of the US is about 300 million; there are over 7 billion people on the planet. The US population is under 5% of the total - within the bounds of a rounding error. Trump becoming POTUS is almost irrelevant. But Trump is POTW - President of the World. Not at all irrelevant. He will decide the future of almost everybody on the planet. Who are, no doubt, developing antibodies to immunize themselves as I write. He is president of the world, with one or two percent of the global vote. Democracy in action. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/11 "2016-12-31T15:02:38Z")
> [@](#): > > …when asked by pollsters,… Surely, if this election cycle has taught us anything, it’s that ‘pollster’ is a meaningless descriptor, and that poll results are never, ever anything BUT highly suspect. I feel pretty strongly about that too. Yes, when asked a majority support diversity and decry racism, but on Election Day they _actually_went another way. Maybe they just didn’t want the clipboard holder to think them deplorable. Personally, I find I cannot take seriously pollsters, their questions or results. (But maybe it’s just me!) ---
**Author:** ![ZurBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/71e660/32.png) [@ZurBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZurBob)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/12 "2016-12-31T15:39:32Z")
I appreciate Pinker’s observation on Trump, i.e. the world (is getting better, and…) is too large a force to be affected by him. I also appreciate the posts here that decry Trump’s impending menace to the world. What befuddles me is why, in such conversations, opinion must be so polar? It’s probable that the outcome of Trump-ism will be somewhere between Pinker’s rosy outlook, and the “end of the world as we know it” gloom portrayed by the doomsayers here. ---
**Author:** ![ZurBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/71e660/32.png) [@ZurBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZurBob)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/13 "2016-12-31T15:42:24Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > …Personally, I find I cannot take seriously pollsters, their questions or results. > (But maybe it’s just me!) There’s two of us. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/14 "2016-12-31T16:12:16Z")
> [@ZurBob](#): > > What befuddles me is why, in such conversations, opinion must be so polar? Could it be the Sunk Cost fallacy? Perhaps Democrat Dopers have spent so much effort hating him in the election campaign that they can’t let go? They must continue to despise him as the Fount Of All Evil at every possible turn. ---
**Author:** ![Cyros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a698b9/32.png) [@Cyros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyros)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/15 "2016-12-31T16:13:47Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Personally, I find I cannot take seriously pollsters, their questions or results. > (But maybe it’s just me!) > [@ZurBob](#): > > There’s two of us. I just don’t trust this poll. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/16 "2016-12-31T17:09:50Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Could it be the Sunk Cost fallacy? Perhaps Democrat Dopers have spent so much effort hating him in the election campaign that they can’t let go? They must continue to despise him as the Fount Of All Evil at every possible turn. . . . and will continue to do so, at least until he offers a hint that he can be motivated by any other stimulus besides his own aggrandizement and personal gain. He has had every opportunity to tweet something civil or tolerant or sensitive, but has yet to do so. I agree with some of Trump’s positions, which app;arently he hasn’t thought out very well. I occasionally agreed with WBush and maybe even Reagan, and said so at the time. I also strongly disapproved of some of the Carter and BClinton policies, and have said so. But at the core, Trump appears to be a selfish narcissist with a dangerous and possibly fatal ration of power, and has so far said or done nothing to belie that notion. .He says he wants to make Ameria great again. But America was never great, it was only rich and powerful and, quite frankly, bloodthirsty. America has never distinguished itself for any moral virtue. Trump values only rich and powerful, and that is the Great he dreams of. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/17 "2016-12-31T17:37:21Z")
liberalism and progressivism are what’s helping the world trend towards the better. Conservatism has never done a damn thing to make anything better. Conservatism is what feeds war. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/18 "2016-12-31T17:47:50Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Motor fuels are used largely for recreational driving. > > . This would surprise me. Other than boating and NASCAR, what is “recreational driving?” Vacarion travel? I would have thought most fuel went for trucking and commuting to work. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/19 "2016-12-31T17:50:38Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Pinker is a liberal and it’s good to see that at least one of them has his feet firmly on the ground. I look forward to pointing at this the next time a conservative goes “We survived eight years of the Obama horror, don’t worry about Trump.” ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791/20 "2016-12-31T18:05:58Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > This would surprise me. Other than boating and NASCAR, what is “recreational driving?” Vacarion travel? I would have thought most fuel went for trucking and commuting to work. Personal discretionary travel. Like to the mall. The average US car is driven 12,000 miles a year. A daily 20-mile commute would account for only half of that. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cheer-up-things-arent-as-bad-as-you-think/775791.md?page=2)