No time in human history has been more uncertain than the present. And yet, there's never been a safer time to live.
There are fewer active armed conflicts – groups of people killing each other – right now, than at any time in human history. In the US, violent crime is at a 50 year low. Globally, people are surviving and thriving like never before. Infant mortality continues to trend down, literacy up, per capita income, all up worldwide.
People move today like they never have before. Humanity worldwide is in the midst of a great migration, from the countryside to the city.
The internet has changed society in ways we're only beginning to understand. More uncertainty, but more benefit. Imagine how much harder surviving the pandemic would have been without this communication technology that enabled us to isolate ourselves.
In the past, people died of just everything. Kicked in the head by a horse. Typhus, epilepsy, consumption. Food poisoning, lead poisoning.
But they knew what their lives were about (the constant struggle to stay alive). Imagine if you only heard music once or twice a week, how sweet it would sound. Today, without the physical challenges, we struggle with mental and spiritual ones.
I believe there's no such thing as good or bad. Things happen, and they have consequences. We like some of the consequences, and not others – at least we think so, for a while, until we find out we had it backwards.
There's no such thing as "the good old days", just like there's no clean, easy, utopian future.
It's a tradeoff. It's all tradeoffs.
No pros or cons. Just uncertainty.