| Do you think that society is more out of balance now than it was 30, 50, 70, or 100 years ago? If so, I’ll be glib and say you haven’t paid enough attention to history :-) To pick a random anecdote, in the past senators have been physically attacked and maimed by their colleagues on the senate floor, i.e. while at work. Campaigns were dirtier than they are now. Politicians would accuse each other of being murderers and even cannibals. (e.g. look up the coffin bills and Andrew Jackson.) The mainstream media printed many things that would be unacceptable today. (Jon Stewart had a good bit about this a long time ago.) Not to mention the total war involving multiple continents that happened a couple times in the last century... Not to say we should think that stuff will never happen again. It absolutely could. But depending on your viewpoint we’ve always been on the brink of collapse, or on the brink of greatness, etc. ----- Also, I don't believe that reading or watching news counts as "paying attention", especially if you're not in the position to take any action as a result (i.e. you don't work in politics, policy, etc.). It's generally a very passive activity. The time would be better spent observing what's going on in your town/city rather than "the world". Or even just doing something constructive in your area of expertise, e.g. writing free software, etc. |
I've observed that with the Internet increasing our potential access to information by > 1000x, the adaptive emotional response to any given piece of information needs to be toned down by a factor of 1000x to maintain emotional stability. Wouldn't make me very popular at parties to say that the proper emotional response to kids getting murdered at a festival is to shrug your shoulders and say "By the numbers, your odds of getting killed in a mass shooting are still one in a million, which is less than when we were kids", but that's both a true and a rational statement to make.