Have you ever felt like the whole world is screwed up?

[clydefrand]

At 79, I hope I go before the start of WWIII. The terrorists (of all kinds), the sports figures doing weird stuff,
etc. -- I think perhaps the Buddhists are the only ones that don't want to start a war with someone else, and I'm not 100% sure about all of them. You know, we really should start putting all the 'good' news here as well all the other stuff we put here. Can't think of any just off hand, but will keep looking.

[Sunlei]

1. I think the world has always been a bit 'screwed up'

It's our lovely internet that brings the messed up stuff right into our homes. I agree it is hard to find good news, keep looking, it's out there!

[Shrike47]

2. Frequently. I just remind myself that with the Internet, we know too much about everything.

I too am older and remember The Good Old Days when I didn't have much of a clue what was going on in the world. These days, we get constant information about bad things that happen and it gets pretty discouraging. Hang in there. My theory is that things have long been like this, we just didn't know.

[RKP5637]

5. Good point! It used to be read a bit of the newspaper and 15 minutes of news at night. Now,

it batters us 7x24. There are also greater profits in bad news than good news, it's how the human psyche works. Humans go on alert for bad news, good news is not always as captivating IMO.

[hobbit709]

3. Rarely do I think that it isn't.

[RKP5637]

4. I woke up this morning thinking the same. It's really fucked up, and I wondered, are we witnessing

the thrashing and instability of the underpinnings for some type of WWIII. It seems the world index of aggression, hostility and assholishness continues to go up at the personal and global level. In fact, I was going to ask a similar question today.

[TeeYiYi]

6. The whole world...

...but me and thee; and sometimes I wonder about thee.

TYY

[tridim]

7. Screwed up compared to what?

The other Earth?

The world is what it is, and it is amazing.

[MoonRiver]

8. It's always been screwed up, thanks to homo sapiens,

the worst natural experiment ever.

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. Point to a time when it wasn't

War has been pretty much a constant in human history since there's been human history. However wars between great powers are pretty much a thing of the past (post-WWII, the mutual assured destruction inherent in warfare between nuclear-armed states has served to help keep the peace, even if that peace is at times an uneasy one). And as far as "sports figures doing weird stuff", society's attitudes toward domestic violence have changed considerably; 40, 50 years ago? It would have been considered a private matter; the NFL or any other sports league wouldn't have cared if one of their athletes beat his wife or children.

All things considered, in many ways the world is significantly LESS screwed up, at the present epoch, than at any time in the past (at least for those of us lucky enough to live in Western liberal democracies), in terms of a whole range of social issues (and other issues; people living in most societies are now much less likely to be victims of murder or other forms of violence than at pretty much any time in the past).

[Laelth]

10. To quote Lady Sybil:

"Because it's the gloomy things that need our help. If everything in the garden's sunny, why meddle?"

http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=downton-abbey&episode=s01e06

That's why we see so much gloom here on DU.

-Laelth

[TreasonousBastard]

15. My father used to say...

"If Mrs. Murphy bakes a pie, it's not news. If she throws it in Mr. Murphy's face, it is."

[femmocrat]

11. I think we are just exposed to so much more now.

So many sources of information as compared to the past. We just know more about it now than we did years ago.

Sometimes the best thing to do is to take a break from it all.

[pinboy3niner]

12. See sig line...

And DU has a Good News Group here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1267

[dumbcat]

13. Yeah, most of my life

many times I wonder how I ever got this far.

[FrodosPet]

14. Alas, even the Buddhists can get violent

In Myanmar, Revival of Attacks on Muslims

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/world/asia/myanmar-violence-buddhists-muslims.html?_r=0

BANGKOK — A resurgence of religious violence in western Myanmar this week has left six Muslims dead and dozens of homes destroyed, a senior police officer said Wednesday.

The deaths and the burning of houses in and around the city of Thandwe occurred Tuesday, just hours before President Thein Sein arrived in the restive area on Wednesday as part of a scheduled visit to cool religious tensions and criticize “extremism.”

~ snip ~

After flaring up last year in western Myanmar, anti-Muslim violence has spread to areas around the country this year, leaving dozens of people dead, almost all of them Muslims and some of them children. Buddhist nationalist groups have called for a boycott of Muslim shops, and radical Buddhist monks have stoked anti-Muslim feelings in sermons across the country.

The International Crisis Group, a research organization, released a report this week saying that more clashes between Buddhists and Muslims were likely because of “the depth of anti-Muslim sentiment in the country, and the inadequate response of the security forces.”

~ snip ~

------------------------------------------

Religion. Same as it ever was.

[Dustlawyer]

16. I think it's both that we just didn't hear about it and that social mores were a much stronger

influence. Now anything goes, the more shock value the better!

[newfie11]

17. Perhaps this will explain some of it

http://scgnews.com/the-geopolitics-of-world-war-iii

Of course this will probably get me banned.