In today’s world, people are probably far better than our ancestors.
In the last century, people fought incredible wars killing millions of people and did untold horrors on others. Descendants of those warring countries — Germany, Japan, Russia, UK — are far nicer than their grandpas.
In the centuries before that people would burn widows and old women (termed witches) for no reason. They would try to measure innocence of an accused by burning their skin and waiting for God to make an intervention. They would kill anyone who had a different opinion on their god by crucifying them with nails hit like a psychopath.
Invading armies would burn up an entire town with all the people if they chose to not surrender. Police were few & biased and court systems didn’t evolve the rigorous processes we have today. You were left at the mercy of a mercurial monarch who could be stupid and vengeful. Untold horrors would be committed with cruel punishments.
We are far better than them. We are mostly law-abiding and get very little chance to break the big laws. We are good by default as most of us have very little energy to commit crimes. Crimes in major countries are substantially low compared to even 2–3 decades ago.
The reason you might see a lot more negativity is because of the abundance of social media trying to get your eyeballs. Crime gets your attention and not goodness. You try to vilify people for mistakes that you yourself might not have hesitated to commit.
If you block most of these negative media and yellow journalism and stick to statistics you can see we are becoming better than our fathers and grandfathers and their ancestors.
-Balaji Viswanathan
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