The Best Time to Be Alive
SUBSCRIBE 👉 https://www.prageru.com/join
Are you worried about your future? Turn on the TV or scroll through social media and it’s hard not to be. But is there a brighter side to the story? Marian Tupy, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and co-author of Superabundance, explains why it’s a great time to be alive.
Script:
Are you worried about your future?
Worse, do you even have a future?
Many—especially those born in this century—are asking themselves these questions.
In 2021 researchers at the University of Bath in England polled 10,000 people all over the world between the ages of 16 and 25.
Seventy-five percent thought that the “future is frightening.”
Fifty-six percent thought that “humanity” is coming to an end.
Thirty-nine percent stated that they were “hesitant to have children” because the future was so bleak.
Are their fears legitimate?
Or is it possible there’s another side—a brighter side—to the story?
That we are, in fact, the most fortunate human beings—ever.
Just how lucky are we?
The late great satirist P. J. O’Rourke summed it up in one word.
Dentistry.
One could easily add electricity, air conditioning, and—lest we forget—indoor plumbing.
Louis XIV’s magnificent palace of Versailles had no proper waste facilities. People relieved themselves where they stood: in hallways, behind curtains, and in the gardens. One contemporary observer noted that Versailles was “the receptacle of all of humanity’s horrors—the passageways, corridors, and courtyards are filled with urine and fecal matter.”
This is Louis XIV we’re talking about—maybe the richest man on earth at the time.
Ask yourself this question: would you prefer to live in a studio apartment with electricity, a window air conditioner, and indoor plumbing or a Versailles palace with none of these things?
In nineteenth-century London, American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson observed that no one wore white shirts—the pollution indoors turned everything black.
View the full script: https://l.prageru.com/44fMUD2
#life #technology
source
Why are we so negative? The decline of faith, revelation, religiosity. So, man is stuck looking at the gloomy present without any hope for the future.
Evolution was dismissed as a scientific possibility over 100 years ago.
When we developed powerful microscopes and began to discover the majestic complexity inside of living cells, showing beyond any reasonable doubt that there is no such thing as simple life.
Therefore, life started complex from the beginning.
…
What we should follow. The train lines is best to be a trauma people to Accept Communist policies for better future and bring down the rich and bring down. The class system The person who lived a Commerce in a festive assistance. Skiing population. In stick with the bad news of listen to It. Venus is a good news.
>hallways
>curtains
> GARDENS
Eventually, I had to pause the video because I spent around 6 minutes straight laughing.
“Strong men create easy times and easy times create weak men, but weak men create difficult times and difficult times create strong men.” Cycles alternate, dynamic, like a roller coaster of facts and events.
great
I’m fearful of the future because I don’t want to lose this materially wonderful present to an AI apocalypse.
Whenever I pine romantic over the distant past my dad always says the same thing. “Two words, son. Dentistry and anesthesia.”
"The meaning of life is to give life meaning." ~ Viktor Frankl. Whether you find this in religion or philosophy, it is crucial imo. Those who fail to do this suffer depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, bitterness.
Fuckin-A !! Hat tip to PragerU and CATO
The saber-toothed Smilodon was not actually a tiger. Other than that, this video is spot on. They should show this to every school student.
Just think what people will have 200 years from now that we don't have today!?!?! Not so lucky now are we?
Jesus came to give us a more abundant life (John 10:10). Declare Jesus as your Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from death and you will be saved (Romans 10:9).
One time I was with a bunch of religious people, and they were all saying that our current lives right now are harder then our grandparents lives when they were our age. I was the only person who was telling them that they were wrong. Of course our lives are easier in every aspect. I don't know if this view is common among religious people, but it's what these particular religious people believed.
It's very possible those polling results were skewed by the still lingering social impact of the COVID pandemic.
The best time to be alive was actually about 25-30 years ago. Unfortunately, this generation has a lower standard of living than the previous one.
This video is to remember how Lucky we humans are and to never take anything for granted. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Outrage Porn is what I call the hype.
bro is literally telling us to live in the pod and eat the bug
This is a bit of a paradox. I agree that this might very well be the best time to be alive. However…as a lifeform limited by its own lived experiences….this is all I know. So couldnt the same be said for everyone who has ever been alive? Now is the best time to be alive. Because your life is almost always better than the generations that came before you. The progress we make. But since this is all I know, I can imagine it being better.
Even knowing all that was shared, I’m not optimistic because these advancements are only achieved in an environment free from govt compulsion and meddling in free markets. It appears that with the loss of the constitutional republic in the United States, and it’s vision of limited govt controlled buy the people, the entire world is slipping back into the swamp of oligarchical repression that has brought so much misery, mass graves and destroyed human potential through all of human history. Progress, wealth, happiness, achievement cannot continue at that same pace under a tyranny of elites.
Rare to see a PragerU video that doesn't have nostalgia for a past that didn't exist where all the white men lived in peace and everyone else didn't exist
The thumbnail alone is misinformation.
human beings are complainers MOST HONEST AND REAL QUOTE
I've thought this for a while. Just being born a hundred years earlier, our lives would have been much more uncomfortable, difficult and shorter. Medicine, dentistry, electricity, plumbing, farming, etc. have made our lives so much better. There's so much cheap food available now that obesity primarily affects the poor now, not the wealthy.
The US is not much better than the French Royalty, especially all the filthy inner cities. We have some creature comforts, but the world is still as morally bankrupt.
Remember the excessive wealth of the French Royalty lead to the French Revolution!
The natural disasters and political instability this year leads to a dismal outlook.
Only Jesus will see u through whatever happens.
thanks for this video prager you! i live in a city projected to be underwater by 2050 but then I remembered I have a toilet so i have nothing to worry about 🙂
"Follow the trend lines, not the headlines."
> Looks at the average IQ trend line from the late 19th century to the present date
The video does a great effort to show how things are better today when compared to the past, which is all fine and cool, but it forgets to account for two things:
1) It takes a stable, functional and relatively high-IQ population to maintain this system, with all its modern conveniences. Even third-world countries can only afford the moderate degree of development that they have today thanks to the innovations and advances brought by developed nations (e.g., electronics used worldwide were designed in the U.S. Japan, Korea, etc.; vaccines that help tackle diseases endemic to Africa are still developed in Europe and the U.S.).
2) Global IQ and G-factor (general intelligence) rates are dropping at staggering rates, especially in developed nations (Lynn Effect), thanks to dysgenic fertility (welfarism, demise of the family unit, etc.), exposure to chemicals, and demographic replacement. There are already studies available that show that Gen-Z people already have lower intelligence on average when compared to Millennials and Gen-X. What do you think will happen when the average IQ of the U.S. population, for example, drops from its current 99-100 to Brazil levels (83-85)? You don't even have to think too hard – just look at places like Baltimore and Oakland, which used to be some of the most charming cities in America and are now crime-infested hell holes with trash everywhere.
Yes, the world looks better today than it did two centuries ago, but this development should not be taken for granted, like it's a line that goes up indefinitely. The whole thing can collapse pretty much overnight. Rome eventually collapsed, plunging Europe back into an agrarian society. Also, look at South Africa, which went from essentially a first-world nation to a third-world Sub-Saharan basket case in the span of one generation. With the U.S. and most Western European countries undergoing a general decrease in their average IQs, Japan facing a demographic winter, and China with a social security system increasingly under pressure thanks to its rapidly aging population, there's very little reason to be optimistic as to what the world is going to look like in 50-100 years.
Braindead boomers can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that just because life might be materially better, it doesn't translate to more happiness or less suffering.
The old world didn't have fancy electronics and modern amenities, but you know what it did have? Class, culture, civility, morals, and intelligence. I'll take that over a modern world in a dead, decaying, festering culture any day.
You guys are mostly Christian, aren't you? What's that famous Bible verse? "Man does not live by bread alone." There's a point to that verse, you know. Think about it for a moment, would you?
To new watchers, beware. Fact check everything he says with trustworthy sources, such as Nature and Pew Research Center. He's not telling the whole truth, if any truth at all.
Also many people think negativity will make them look like deep thinking sensitive intellectuals But like Steven Pinker said, it's not depth, it's 'deepity'.
Completely agree!
Why are we so gloomy? Because good news is not news; it is a human interest filler on page 24. "If it bleeds, it leads."
All the conveniences in the world are worthless if there’s no one to use them. Society is collapsing and we will probably go into several centuries of dark ages. Don’t blow smoke and call it diamonds
The world may change for the better…but the heart of man should cope up with it.
You only mentioned material things, how about spiritual aspects?
“There is no war in Basingse”
Remember the mantra of modern, legacy media: enrage to engage. They are not interested in you being happy.
I'm a pragmatist & science aficionado. I carefully observe & analyze trends over time & conclude what the future direction is most likely to be in particular circumstance. But you don't have to be relentlessly driven to realise the planet is under siege by human activity & it (the planet) is reacting (appropriately) & in a manner sending a not so "subtle" message that we must change our habits if we are to have a future!
But as a pragmatist I also understand human nature & any hope for change in our habits is absolutely impossible. Just the nature of mankind!
I still wish I could've been born 10 years earlier! (1986 vs 1996) I would've love to have had more to experience 2D animation in theaters, when fast food restaurants had more cool stuff to offer for children especially, have the expensive with such cool long gone stores like, Delia*s, Limited Too, Sam Goody, and Wet Seal, grow up when social media was only in its infancy years, and have more time to travel to great places much before more crime rate went up and the states separating into blue and red states + CA not being as destroyed as it is today. I would've loved to have more time to have grown in the days before the 2008 recession and COVID.
While agree with most of this content, I need to ask the most important question: why do we expect ever increasing technology advances when the birth rate among those who make technology breakthroughs (and maintain tech infrastructure) is very far below replacement? To put it directly, engineers and scientists overwhelmingly do not have anywhere near enough children to replace themselves. Educated people have especially low birth rates – and these rates are decreasing rapidly. We may joke or complain about dating apps, but the consequences are quite dire. Engineers are rarely considered to be the most desirable men on dating apps. They simply cannot compete with loud, tall (and not very technically gifted) men. Check mate. Most of the smartest guys lose the most important game of life – having children. Even the few who may be inclined to have children, understand the effect of divorce and family court on their quality of life should they risk all their wealth in marriage. I cannot take seriously the notion of infinite human improvement when those most likely to invent technology are not having children. Add to that the obvious breakdown in families, civility, currency values, and public order, and I cannot take seriously the notion that a perfect world awaits us 1000 years from now.
I agree with all of this as we have so many joys and luxuries.
Though one valid counter point is that during our great grandfathers time, his single income could support his whole middle class family… I cannot imagine such a case today. Often the man and woman both work to scrape by.
I thank God I'm living in 2023 and not 1923, 1823, or 1723.