Are things getting better and does it matter? Everything is fine.

This relativistic argument has emerged many times in this blog so gets its own page now.

If things are getting better then our children will enjoy better lives than us. And their children even better than them.

But, problem. It means that I am expected to live my whole life in far worse conditions than my grand-children, and my children is worse conditions than them.

Does this mean that my whole life is therefore worse? This is the dangerous implication of the development idea.

Usually we spin that the other way. My life is much better than the past and we celebrate the improvements.

But it seems those improvements don't exist, because compared with the future they are actually worse.

So it means that how "good" things are depends entirely on how you look at it, and not in the actual state of affairs.

So "Development" is just a way of looking at things, it isn't a real state of affairs at all and it has no bearing on our lives!

We can be happy regardless the state of development, or perhaps better we just ignore the development idea. This means that all countries, and all people rich or poor can live equal lives since the difference lies only in how they think about things.

This is the final death knell of "Materialism." It does not matter what your state of affairs, it makes no difference.

And this ends obsessive resource use. There is no need for technological innovation or progress, no need to better ourselves or improve things. Everything is just fine, it has always been so.

BUT and big but. This does not end anything. Mankind is creative, we have innate desire to be better and to end suffering and wrongs. This does not change. Life goes on. What changes is that we realise that measuring our happiness based upon whether things are better or worse is a myth. Things are always better and worse it just depends how you look at them.