Humankind

Humankind - A Hopeful History

A book by by Rutger Bregman. He basically comes up with some arguments to show how life is better now than it ever has been in many regards. Main stream media sells bad news because it is profitable, but it leads to a skewed perception on the way things really are. Bregman tries to recalibrate the readers perception, not towards naivety, but towards awareness with the areas that need improving, with recognition of the actual improvements civilization has made. One interesting study he describes is that about black boxes in airplanes, and how even moments before people know they are going to die in an airplane crash, they are often kind to each other. He uses that and some other examples to illustrate that the slippery slope fallacy often employed by the right-wing, where as soon as resources become scarce, everyone becomes homicidal, is not true. Furthermore the children depicted in Lord of the Flies are completely unrealistic for how real children would behave in such a scenario.