[throwawayqdhd]

It's so strange to hear this perennial talk of the apocalypse when factually, we've never lived in a more prosperous, healthier, and better connected world.

Maybe these wealthy people know more than I do, but I've just seen literally billions lifted out of abject poverty and apocalypse-like situations in the last 20 years alone in China and India.

We haven't had a major war in more than half a century. Disease rates are lower than they've ever been. Dying from hunger was a very real thing for the majority of the world, but it's a problem we've erased quite a bit.

[balladeer]

We had major wars as recent as few years ago let alone half a century. Maybe not in the West and yes it was not of WW scale.

We do live in a today that has more medical advancements than yesterday. But is our lifestyle/life really healthy when looking at it for the long term? Are the widening gaps of socio economic imbalances really good or neutral for our society, again in the long term? And those advancements in science and technology reaching everybody evenly? I doubt all of these.

In Bangalore I drink packaged drinking water in a so called posh residential area. There is a village next to my apartment complex where people drink ground water and if they are lucky the water supplied by municipality. Both sources are unsafe and contaminated. They can't afford the packaged water. They also did not contaminate the water they drink. We (the richer part of the society) did.

I personally believe rich are leaving (now this may not be in a well planned and intentional manner) the poor behind in the race of survival or something like that.

[blattimwind]

> But is our lifestyle/life really healthy when looking at it for the long term?

We're basically poisoning ourselves right now. >30 % of children have chalk teeth nowadays, meaning their teeth are utterly broken and unusable right off the bat. Humans are becoming more and more infertile. Cancer rates in children and young adults are going through the roof.

[throwawayqdhd]

The thing is, the people you mentioned in Bangalore didn't even have access to water 50 years ago. India is a great example because the country has progressed on all metrics so much in the last few decades. You don't recognize it because you see such abject poverty in front of you. 30 years ago, this poverty was more hidden in that the country mostly lived in rural areas, far away from cities.

[balladeer]

50 years ago that water was not contaminated and yes they did have access to water that was not contaminated. Also, I forgot to add that there was plenty of it too and now there's little.

No, it is not hidden from me. I am from the hinterland. I moved to Bangalore 7 years ago. Before that 4 years in college which was semi rural and before that it was pure hinterland. The divide/gap what we see today was not this wide 10 yrs ago, or 20.

PS. I am not pointing to any specific Govt. Just the modern times.

[monort]

Russia and US have 1600 deployed warheads each, ready to fly any minute. I don't understand why most people don't consider this as threat. We are living with a gun to our heads.

[felix_nagaand]

Don't forget Israel. They'll launch their nukes indiscriminately if they lose control of their region. Their nukes are also distributed around the world on submarines ready to lay waste to major cities the world over. No different than Russia, China, and the USA.

[arethuza]

Relative to the Cold War, where biggest threat was the paranoid Soviet leadership overreacting to their expectation of a first strike by the West, there don't seem to be that many scenarios where a war seems likely.

[freeflight]

I wouldn't be too sure about that, the Cold War wasn't a one-sided affair where only the Soviets overreacted, that was a common theme for both sides due to the stakes at play.

I also wouldn't say a scenario like that has become less likely, depending on how you look at it, especially in the context of US nuclear force modernization [0], it could actually become much more likely.

Because irrational people exist everywhere and I have no doubt there are plenty of people around, some of them probably in very powerful positions, who are still busy "wargaming" a thermonuclear scenario in which they could end up as "winners".

[0] https://thebulletin.org/2017/03/how-us-nuclear-force-moderni...

[monort]

I don't think the threat level changed greatly, the most likely scenario is a mistake launch and crazy officer. Do you know Russia has a system of automatic retaliation attack?

As for the war threat - both sides had their hotheads during the Cold War, but in the end they were overruled.