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Cinder
@Triquetrea
There is also the third issue, that the metrics have incomplete coverage and are chosen for effect Which is not to say they're wrong, mind, but statistics are mostly presentation - what isn't shown can be just as significant, or sometimes far more significant, than what is.
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Julia Galef
@juliagalef
Two things that can both be true: 1. The world is getting better, by most metrics of human well-being 2. The risk of a major catastrophe is going up over time Yet I often see ppl try to dismiss 2 by saying "The doomsayers are wrong, things are getting better, [argument for 1]"
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Cinder
@Triquetrea
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@Triquetrea
E.g. it's well and good to mention that more countries are adopting democratic institutions, but measuring the health and integrity of those institutions does not produce such a rosy picture.
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Cinder
@Triquetrea
Whichever way you swing it, though, our metrics and analysis are fairly pathetic approximations of a world that is much more fluid than we pretend. Democracy could see a massive improvement within a decade. It could also die. Likewise for *most* other issues, but far from all.
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Cinder
@Triquetrea
There are trends you can forecast, and trends you can't. The problem is, we often can't tell which are which until after the fact - when we can pretend that we knew all along.
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