Brown Motion

As an absolute question I think aliens might agree that humans are better off than on..I mean look around you, the idiocy and the chaos and the disparities and the discrepancies. But on the other hand they may lose their valuable source of entertainment. But I digress as always. The real question I was trying to pose and seek answers was whether we as a species are better of on the planet now than say when Henry Ford was born, or when Abe Lincoln was around or when Alexander became great or when the Egyptians decided to haul ass and build some pyramids? I was listening to a thesis from a Harvardite that in general we are doing better in terms of totality of violence and human destruction. His POV is that over the millenia we have reduced our total kill rate and therefore are a much more civilized society and that there is hope. Now clearly such a subject is abstract and quantifying violence and consequent suffering is at best a theoretical exercise. While it may be true that we ...