Better All The Time #20

By | October 21, 2004
6 Comments


Dispatches from a rapidly changing, rapidly improving
world
#20
10/21/04

A question we’re often asked — how can the world possibly be "getting
better" when the bad news consistently outweighs the good? This is a
common misunderstanding. The reality is that good news so far outweighs bad
that the former isn’t considered noteworthy. A high school student robs a
convenience store. Meanwhile, at the school a few blocks away, 400 of his
peers are recognized for their academic achievements in an Honors Night ceremony.
Which of those two stories would be considered noteworthy? Which would be
picked up by the local media? Even if some enlightened media outlet treated
the stories equally (which would be a stretch), they aren’t equal. The good
news is 400 times greater than the bad.

That might not be a bad ratio to work with. Better All The Time isn’t
about donning rose-colored glasses and pretending that serious problems don’t
exist. It’s about remembering, if only for a moment, that the problems aren’t
the whole picture, and that — every day, for every problem that we are
forced to contemplate — hundreds of positive developments go unheralded.
Usually even unnoticed.

So here, for your edification and enjoyment, are ten news stories that
show how the future might be better. Each one reflects a development so positive
that even the mainstream media couldn’t pass it up.

  • https://www.blog.speculist.com Phil Bowermaster

    Test. Just trying to figure out why this entry cuts off at the wrong place.

  • https://www.blog.speculist.com Stephen Gordon

    On Item 8:

    There are many contests that could be set up involving carbon nanotubes. Prizes could be awarded for any of the following:

    1. For the first logic circuit constructed entirely from carbon nanotubes to do some prescribed mathematical chore like calculate pi to a certain digit.

    2. For the first carbon nanotube to reach a certain length.

    3. For the first carbon nanotube that exhibits a certain strength.

    4. For the invention of a process that lowers the cost of carbon nanotube production to a certain price per a certain length.

    5. For the production of a cable made entirely of carbon nanotubes of a certain diameter and a certain length and a certain strength.

    6. For the use of carbon nanotubes in quantum computing.

    7. For the use of carbon nanotubes in targeted drug delivery.

    8. The use of carbon nanotubes in a bulletproof jacket of a certain thinness, with the ability to stop a projectile of certain density, shape, and speed.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_nanotubes

  • http://www.eaglespeak.blogspot.com eaglespeak

    A very nice antidote to the “if it bleeds, it leads” news.

    Thank you!

  • rls

    My philosophy is that 98% of the people in the world are honest, hard working, freedom loving and have a respect for their fellow humans and their property. The remaining 2% are the ones that fill the newspapers and broadcasts.

    Good news is not reported simply because it does not sell papers or ad time on TV. Look at the local paper – the column inches of local, national and international news is but a tiny fraction compared to the population of your community, your nation or the world. Optimism breeds positive results.

  • -kert

    “Remember the great Space Race of the 20th century, the one that pitted the USA against the Soviet Union? It wasn’t just a race to the moon, it was a contest of the viability of capitalism vs. communism, of freedom vs. oppression.”

    Um .. capitalism vs. communism ? actually .. not exactly. Both behemots handed the task to their socialist state enterprises. US did not invoke the power of free market forces, and thus up to the flight of SS1 we were stuck in the world where spaceflight belonged to governments alone.
    Well, luckily, many decades later, this mistake is being corrected.

  • https://www.blog.speculist.com Phil Bowermaster

    Kert –

    You’re right. Our moon project was a government entity from start to finish. However, our efforts in the space race were seen as the fruits of a capitalist system, just as the Soviets’ efforts were seen as the fruits of a socialist system.