Perceptions Are Comparisons

My main focuses recently on this blog have been the lack of appreciation for what we have, the lack of optimism among people, and the willful ignorance that produces this perception of misery.  I have posted about the difference between a depression now and the Great Depression. The difference between the same GDP as 1990 and 1930 is immense, and is the same percentage of economic reduction in both cases.  The average welfare recipient, by definition living in poverty, has a refrigerator, a television, a cell phone, and some form of health care.  This is in many ways a more affluent life than the middle class of the "Golden Age" of Americana, the 1950's.

I have written about the enormous transformation of the lives of women, from a life of ignorance, hard labor, and lack of choice to a life of knowledge, education, freedom of choice, and freedom from hard labor.

I have written about the astonishing improvement in conditions worldwide, in everything from health to food to education.  Essentially every indicator that matters points to an amazing improvement in the lives of most people around the world.

I have written about this being the time of greatest peace and security that the world has ever known.

I highly recommend the lecture below, part of what I consider an essential resource for someone who wants to be an informed and knowledgeable person, TED, Technology, Entertainment, Design.  It's sixteen minutes long and talks about where we are, possible futures and the problem of scientific ignorance/denial.

Michael  Specter lecture

I am actually more optimistic than even this guy (and I would definitely choose to go forward rather than back) because while I agree that the US is becoming more plagued by science denial than it has been in decades, this is not as true for other places around the world, like Europe, and the emerging giants of China and India.  The consequences of science denial in the US are not so much that the necessary advances won't happen, but that they will happen elsewhere in the world.  Technological innovation drives economic growth and education drives technological innovation.

So, even during a prolonged economic downtown, in general things are getting better over the long term.  So why is a negative outlook so prevalent to seem almost universal?  The reason is that all judgments of worth etc. are based on comparisons.  Someone is a good woman compared to other women.  The economy is bad compared to Japan.  Violence is up or down compared to five years ago.  These comparisons are choices, although almost certainly unconscious choices.  In general we don't really seem to sit down and think about what time period, location, and population we are selecting to compare our situation against.  We simply have a feeling about how things are going, and we tend to base that feeling on a comparison between how we feel now and how we felt in the past.

The problem with this comparison is that human beings naturally tend to forget the bad things in the past and remember the good things.  The reason why I think this is that consistently over history people pine for the good old days (which were worse) and are terrified of the terrible future (which is usually better).  However, people are so unaware of this process that they ask themselves why they remember bad things more than good things, even though this is false.

The advancement of human civilization has been based on the examination of our natural feelings on the basis of evidence.  We may naturally want to rape teenagers, fight for property, enslave others, and unthinkingly follow tall men, and hate our neighbors, in fact I think all of those are true.  However, upon examination of these ideas through the lens of reason we have largely squashed these concepts.  We have managed to direct our innate sense of disgust towards these actions, and quite rightly so.

This means that it is possible to change how our minds work.  We can use our conscious minds to reason and come up with different ideas and methods of thinking.  We can change our perceptions based on the comparisons we make, and we can choose which comparisons to make.  We can also decide to make these comparisons through evidence and fact rather than how we feel.

My most basic idea then is that there is an axis of optimism upon which you can choose to make your comparisons.  You can choose to focus on the negative elements of the moment (so the relative decline of the middle class in the richest country in the world in comparison to the general rise of wealth worldwide) in comparison to your rose-colored view of the recent past.  Or you can choose to focus on the positive elements of the present (the greatest amount of healthcare for Americans ever, increasing lifespans, new technology and discoveries, treatment for mental illness like never before, enormous improvement social values for races, homosexuals and women, better health, wealth and education in general around the world) and compare them to the history of humanity across the world.

One method will result in you feeling sad, pessimistic and hopeless.  The other will make you excited and optimistic.  Both comparisons are true in and of themselves.  Which is a broader and more complete view of the circumstances?  Which makes you happier?  Which gives you more hope and motivation to improve the world?  The choice is yours.