/lit/ - Literature

>>16505383
You know nobody would argue that here, he'd get destroyed with that argument. Idk how ppl get away w publishing stuff like that

>>16505383
Pinker's crime is thinking that trend lines matter

>>16505411
>tfw you just need to give him more trend lines but for opposite trends and he'll follow those

>>16505411
As in, if you need trend lines to know things are great then things aren't great. And if you think trend lines tell you anything about the future then you deserve what is coming to you. But other than that Pinker is an enjoyable whitepill

So based.

Capital is our world so you better get with it or gtfo.

I always mix up Steven Pinker with Karl Pilkington. It's not fair to Karl, I know.

>>16505383
This refuted Pinker

>>16505383
Refuted by Taleb

There's something about Steven Pinker that seems evil, like he's got tons of skeletons in the closet.

>>16505424
You are a spoilt brat if you live in a first world country and think things aren't better than they were in the past.

>>16505428

Same

>>16505550
Never dig always build, you don't want to know

>>16505383

who buys these trash books?

>>16505383
Pinker makes a rather simple error here. We don't live in statistics land. We live in the current world on the brink of crisis. All the trends and data he cites are small comfort. It's like telling a terminally ill cancer patient with rare form of the disease that he should feel too bad, after all, only .001% of people get his type of cancer, and that after all, 99% of the others survive it even though he won't.
And people are unhappy. Unhappier than they've been for as long as we've been gathering data on depression and other mood disorders. All the material progress in the world doesn't speak to people psychological needs.

>>16505557
I appreciate antibiotics and electricity, but you can keep all the other stuff.

>>16505724
>should
shouldn't

Refuted by any non centrist writer who has wrote anything vaguely political in the past 200 years.

Enlightenment got us into this situation.

>>16505383
He's right. The right wing tards on this board will argue that we need to return to a "traditional" society because "muh values," but the fact of the matter is that secularism and liberal capitalism have been the values during the most peaceful time in human history. Europe is progressive and secular as fuck and has almost no violence or wars. Meanwhile traditional societies in the middle east are constantly at war.

>>16505557
the only good things about today society are antibiotics/ medicine overall, some technology like the internet(even if now a big part is full of ads/bots and retards) instant communication, smartphones, cars, and a lot of advances in engineering, that's it, overall the culture is worse, same with people, music, art, literature etc.
You just need to take a look around you and see. And one of the most important things, technological progress has slowed down, what I mean is that we've gone from airplanes to nuclear bombs, satellites in space and people on the moon to smartphones and stem cells? compare 1945 to 1975 with 2000-2020.
There's an article about that, The golden quarter https://aeon.co/essays/has-progress-in-science-and-technology-come-to-a-halt

>>16506022
>The West who is more peaceful than the place they arbitrarily drew borders, looted and left
Wow, amazing insight!

>>16506022
>Meanwhile traditional societies in the middle east are constantly at war.
All of those wars are caused by American and UN intervention.

>>16506031
>>16506051
and god bless us, cause that's incredible based

>>16506031
>>16506051
Cope. The UN has never forced people to join Al Qaeda; we can thank religious indoctrination for that. Not to mention that many regions of the middle east aren't under western imperialist control, like Saudi Arabia, yet these regions are still very backwards.

>>16506062
I bet you whine about Middle Eastern refugees too
You guys are fucking retards

>>16506063
Yes the UN never made anyone join Al Qaeda, but you really don't see how the lasting effects of imperialism have fucked over the Middle East?

>>16506094
I'm not going to deny that imperialism can politically devastate a region, but that's still no excuse for the unprecedented amounts of violence caused by Islamic terrorists. During WWII huge parts of Europe were imperialized and turned to rubble, culturally decimated. Yet today Europe is a fully functional continent while most of the middle east isn't. Why? Because Europe turned to a more secular, reasonable, and liberal worldview after WWII and the middle east (for the most part) didn't.

>>16506094
what about the lasting effects of the kikes on europe?

Steven Jewkner

>>16505399
He is jewish

>>16505399
>>16506124
Ass to ass

>>16506111
>unprecedented amounts of violence caused by Islamic terrorists
A couple of bombings are the reason the ME is the way it is?
Nothing to do with all the regime change and corrupt dictators being propped up by western powers? Not the ethnic cleansing going on in Palestine?
You're retarded.

>>16506139
isn't it mouth to ass? What's ass to ass

>>16506022
We don't literally want to return to traditional society. We want less rights for women, less power for big companies, no immigration.

>>16506027

Ok, besides

>antibiotics/ medicine overall, some technology like the internet(even if now a big part is full of ads/bots and retards) instant communication, smartphones, cars, and a lot of advances in engineering,

What have the romans ever done for us?

>>16506022
If one wishes to, say, reduce the US' presence globally, as well as reducing military expenditure -- as would be the obvious consequence -- I think most people would agree; BUT, if you, at a slight instance suggest doing this to focus on US issues, i.e. putting the US first, you'll get lamented as "racist," "Nazi," etc. etc. Some people cannot be pleased.

Another question to ask is: which past values are we going back to? Pre-Industrial Revolution? Pre-Spanish War? Pre-WW1?

Progressive is just a buzzword that boils down to Leftist, essentially; or some nebulous unempirical phrase that literally has no end and is only incited when it's to push the ideals of the person who invokes it. It's become as meaningless as Conservative.

>>16506143
Looks like someone hasn’t seen Aronofsky’s masterpiece, Requiem for a Dream

>>16506140
>Not the ethnic cleansing going on in Palestine?
their population has literally grown like never before
If that's supposed to be ethnic cleansing then it's the most incompetent attempt at it in all of history

all i know is that the wars and destruction of the past must be avoided at all costs

>>16506213
>avoided at all costs
should they?
looks pretty dope

>>16506027
>overall the culture is worse, same with people, music, art, literature etc.
>You just need to take a look around you and see.

So, to know that culture and society are rotten you just need to look around you. But you weren't there in the past to look around you. How do you know that if you were alive 100 years ago, you wouldn't have look looked around and found contemporary society wanting? For all you know you would have romanticised a more distance past.
>No no, really the best time was the age of chivalry. This modern era of 1920s is an awful degenerate time.