Cheer Up…things Are Getting Better, Not Worse

Wwanderer

Kids, don't try this at home!
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This

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-charts-to-be-thankful-for-this-thanksgiving/

is pretty interesting and strongly contradicts the conventional wisdom (especially prevalent among older folks, as it always has been) that the world is going to hell in a hand basket (a weird idiom), that the past was better than the present and the future will be worse still.

The comments are also interesting in what they reveal about how strongly people want to resist the notion that things are getting better, though of course comments posted on the net in response to almost any article are typically made by those with particularly strong and extreme views on the topic in question.

-Ww
 
It's all about perspective. I think it's human nature that a percentage of people always look at things as a 'glass half-empty'. Personally, I thing things are on a strong upswing and I see things moving in a positive direction despite the negativity portrayed form most media outlets.

I'm by no means financially wealthy, but I'm certainly not struggling at all. I watch other people struggle, sometimes as a result of their own bad decisions or simply just dealt a bad hand.

Have you ever really noticed how people bicker, fight and just beat each other down on these comment systems attached to news articles? I don't even bother to read places like Japan Today with all the negativity in their articles and rancid comments. (I really get the feeling that JT is anti-japan in how some of their articles are written, or probably more correctly stated that they lack objectivity.)

-Eliah
 
It's all about perspective. I think it's human nature that a percentage of people always look at things as a 'glass half-empty'.

Yes, I agree (about it being human nature), and in a way that is also good news! Even though the half-empty glass syndrome makes people unhappy, it is also the/a major driving force behind the many ways in which the world is improving (such as those reflected in the charts at the link).

-Ww
 
It's all about perspective. I think it's human nature that a percentage of people always look at things as a 'glass half-empty'. Personally, I thing things are on a strong upswing and I see things moving in a positive direction despite the negativity portrayed form most media outlets.

I'm by no means financially wealthy, but I'm certainly not struggling at all. I watch other people struggle, sometimes as a result of their own bad decisions or simply just dealt a bad hand.

Have you ever really noticed how people bicker, fight and just beat each other down on these comment systems attached to news articles? I don't even bother to read places like Japan Today with all the negativity in their articles and rancid comments. (I really get the feeling that JT is anti-japan in how some of their articles are written, or probably more correctly stated that they lack objectivity.)

-Eliah

But in the readers section the Japan bashing crowd is counterbalanced by the pro-Japan crowd (which sometimes too pro, depending on how you feel about some issues.)
So aren´t you looking the JT glass as half empty here?
 
But in the readers section the Japan bashing crowd is counterbalanced by the pro-Japan crowd (which sometimes too pro, depending on how you feel about some issues.)
So aren´t you looking the JT glass as half empty here?

It's just a matter of observation, I am not swayed by pro-japan or anti-japan comments.

My personal preference is to avoid reading comments altogether and just gather news from various sources both inside and outside of Japan.

I'm usually a 'glass half-full' kind of guy, there's no reason to live with such negativity.

-Eliah
 
I can't recall any specific comments I've read following JT articles, if I ever read any at all, but in general the comments and "discussion" (a generous description of the typical exchanges between posters) you see following almost any serious online publication, blog or whatever tend to make me think of the famous Mark Twain quote:

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." :D

Like you, E, I just ignore the comments the large majority of the time and usually regret it when I don't.

-Ww