Improving Our Standard of Living (Wattpad Edition)

Chapter 42: Sensationalism and Doom and Gloom

Despite my criticisms in previous sections, I don't want to give the impression that the world is worse off than ever before. In fact, the opposite is true. Global quality of life is better than at any other time in history, and people need to understand that. Otherwise, it's easy to be in favor of smashing current political-economic models established in developed countries, which is what we shouldn't do.

Reform, not revolution, is what we need.

Civil oligarchy is merely a flaw that has persisted in our otherwise vastly improved political-economic system. The system I'm referring to is representative democracy combined with capitalism. It has improved the human condition significantly. There are still oligarchs of course, and they are politically powerful. But ordinary people have much greater influence in political and economic affairs than ever before. They're richer and more educated. They have the freedom to vote. They can start their own businesses. They can buy and sell goods and services to and from other countries. And more. Civil oligarchy, though it is still oligarchy, is much further toward the democratic end of the spectrum than the other variants.

I have proposed several reforms that would make democracy and capitalism work better; that would make these systems fairer. I believe my approach is more pragmatic than smashing all the world's governments and economic institutions in a tantrum. My reformist approach is the equivalent of building on the shoulders of giants.

Who are these giants?

They're Nobel prize-winning economists, political scientists, activists, entrepreneurs, government leaders, and more.

Contrary to what cynics may believe, humanity has made many discoveries on more effective forms of governance. And on more efficient and productive types of economic arrangements. Countless peer-reviewed articles and statistics have shown that some political and economic systems are better than others. And they all have one thing in common: They give individuals more political and economic freedoms and more influence over policymaking.

We should build upon the discoveries we've made, rather than destroying everything in an anti-capitalist revolution. A rebellion against decades of solid data is a rebellion against reason.

No, the world is not getting worse, but many people believe it is. There are two reasons why.

The first is a region of the brain called the amygdala. It plays a significant role in our emotions. It makes us particularly susceptible to fear and worry and is a highly active part of the brain.

Humans evolved to be on the lookout for anything that might have even the remotest possibility of causing harm. The world used to be a very dangerous place. There were all sorts of things that could kill us. Diseases, predators, hunger, thirst, poisons, accidents, weather changes, other humans, and more.

Technically, these threats still exist today, but they were more of a problem thousands of years ago. That's why—if you include infant mortality—life expectancy was 19 until the Agricultural Revolution. That's right. The average person lived to the age of 19 if you include infant deaths.

The world was so dangerous that humans would not have survived had they not evolved to be in a near-constant state of worry about what might harm them.

For instance, it wasn't life or death if we missed a few berries while foraging. But if we couldn't spot the tiger hiding in the bushes, game over.

So we evolved to always see a potential tiger, whether it was there or not. We had to over-hype the threat of everything and invent new potential dangers just to play it safe.

The amygdala was the alarm system, and it was constantly going off.

Our innate fear and worry are why we tend to see the world much more negatively than the reverse. We see threats everywhere, and we blow them out of proportion because we're hardwired that way.