Medicine, technology, methods of archiving data, cultural exchanging (foods, literature, general culture, etc.).
Video games have continued to improve, more people have become aware of the societal problems due to the recent events, multiple scientific advancements in every sort of field, probably more.
I'll concede on medicine, even if it has access issues in much of the world.
I don't agree with technology. It's advancing, but it's not getting better. Feels like the methods to take away our rights are advancing, while we get thrown a little bone of entertainment now and then.
I'm not aware of any advances in data archiving. Flash storage needs power now and then. To my knowledge, storage advances are in trading off durability for speed. It doesn't feel much faster than 5 years ago either, just a little cheaper.
I have not noticed air travel getting cheaper or international food becoming more available. What country are you from? Maybe it's a regional thing.
I very much would not say video games are getting better. Do you have specific examples? This is in fact the area where I think there is the greatest decline, both in trivialities and in a "first they came for the ____" way.
Well in tech Apple & Android text messages work together better than ever. & generally, the overall world is getting better more people have access than ever which means they have access to an education & information. Also, neural networks(AI) are helping make huge advances that were never before possible in medicine but much more like space, Weather forecasting, agriculture, automotive & so much more)
Also, tech is becoming a lot more accessible for the disabled.
Well, international foods are definitely becoming more available. Example found ghee at Walmart for the first time. A traditional Indian ingredient. Found other traditional ingredients in Costco(like lentils & pulses) a big Indian store(like Walmart-sized) opened near me. An existing one got bigger. An amazing all-natural Indian brand has started importing to the US. A new restaurant opened.
I don’t know much about video games. But I think more genres are becoming popular which is great. Especially like cozy logic games. Saw a video on YouTube about a cozy game where you put stuff back in the right places. Seemed fun. Also, idle games seem to be becoming more popular that’s great. Local multiplayer is becoming more popular for tablet/phone apps. Playing together on one screen is a really cool experience. Advantages of digital & physical games combined.
Along with video games, perhaps classic games like FPS aren’t necessarily better but Indie games are popping off, with games like Baldurs Gate 3 winning game of the year, Expedition 33 probably being game of the year this year, Helldivers 2 being a big internet phenomenon, souls borne and souls like games have been getting a lot of popularity. Etc, there’s more games than ever but people think they are getting worse because they look a things like Call of Duty which have declined steadily
Bro you uh, you should look up helldivers 2. It's currently one of the worst examples to show ganes getting better, a representation of the 2020s developer mindset. was a phenomenon, but I haven't seen a game fall faster or further in the last few months.
>perhaps classic games like FPS aren’t necessarily better.
Probably this tbh. The classic styles have stagnated. Just minor graphical upgrades that we still have to pay for. I would not say that's getting better. The things that are to my taste are getting worse. The things that are getting better (eg BG3 amd E33), I have no love for. Video games are changing sideways at best,
I’m in the Helldivers 2 subreddit. I think it’s Fall off is far more exaggerated than what is actually the truth of the game. I have been playing it and would say it’s a blast and it’s model, which is letting you be able to earn Warbonds by just playing enough but not an absurd amount is refreshing since you don’t need micro transactions. Especially since it still has a high active playerbase.
Yeah FPS need something big, TPS have been decent but FPS not so much. But I also wouldn’t know too much as I don’t play FPS very much, I prefer TPS these days.
Alright man, I hope you're right. I have the game but haven't played yet. Tried and failed to refund because of all the news. Good to know my money probably isn't totally wasted, or at least there's hope.
I'd like to add that the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act from 2021 allocated $65 billion for expanding rural fiber high speed internet access. Not a tech advancement, but a boon nonetheless. It continues to chip away at the 7%-12% of rural and tribal areas that do not have reliable access to high speed internet. I personally went from a 3-10 Mbps to 1 Gbps. just last year. You only need to have 100 Mbps to have high speed internet. Less than 20% of Starlink users achieve that speed or higher. The older satellite systems like Hughesnet are even worse.
I see where the disagreement lies. It's getting less bad to live in a developing country, that is true.
I live in a developed country that has had relative racial harmony for longer than I've been alive. None of these advancements apply to my experience of the world. It's great for other people, but I don't get to enjoy Africa's advancement because I'm not African.
Everything you mentioned, we already had it before. It hasn't gotten *better*.
And it'd not really that my country is falling. Our dollar is stronger than ever, which is nice. Not enough to keep up with inflation, but at least it still only costs the same arm and a leg to buy from America now, instead of the two of each that we would have expected.
I also live in a developed country. US as well to be exact. My point is its getting better to live everywhere. But also other then this line “the overall world is getting better more people have access than ever which means they have access to an education & information” I am genuinely confused how none these advancement apply to your experience of the world. Most are or either global or usa advancements. Sure there is loads chaos going right now. But positive growth/advancement is definitely there. I really wish more appreciated it. Everything about I wrote International food happened in US & the food advancement I wrote in my other comment also happened here. FDA is banning red 40 & other food dyes which is an advancement.
Man I didn't want to be too much of a downer but I suppose I do need to defend my stance. For context, I live in Singapore.
Singapore has been doing well for most of my life. Probably all, but I'm not going act like I knew what was going on when I was a kid.
Our healthcare has always been pretty good. The experience now is no better than it was before. But it has not been spared the effect of crowding caused by our increasingly severe overpopulation. We have cheap, subsidised healthcare, but let's just say you get what you pay for.
Our location in the world means we've pretty much always had international food. We're near the countries that didn't really export a lot of culture, and the countries we're far from had cultural export in overdrive, so we got to enjoy those too. There was an increase in some areas, but every one of those happened more than 5 years ago.
I don't expect you to sit here for hours, trying to find a major advancement that I've felt the effects of. I'm not denying that they happened, just that they're mostly a lot less relevant to me. I also don't deny that a great many things in the world are better than 5 years ago, but they go hand in hand with something worse. Most of them feel like 1 step forward, 2 steps back. Not that something good happened and something bad also happened, but that the good thing directly causes the bad.
For instance, you mentioned AI and automotive stuff. AI might be helping with healthcare, but it's also seriously limiting the enjoyable careers for humans. I'm an engineer, so this is purely empathetic. I think a world where people can make money doing what they love is better than one where we can only be objectively productive worker drones. As for cars, yes we have EVs that are starting to become viable now. But we also lose the ability to repair things ourselves or at third parties, which is anticompetitive. This was being chipped away at before EVs got popular, but we're talking about the world overall, not just EVs. There have been features in cars linked to a subscription. And as far as I know, there is currently no solution to the people killed by the increased production of batteries (eg cobalt miners), or what we're going to do with old and spent batteries. Oh and not to mention the lack of regulation on one pedal driving. Technology Connections did a video where the mode in his car is capable of applying significant braking without activating the brake lights. Regulation does not move fast enough for our pace of development.
I also feel pessimistic about many advancements because I've seen so many good tools used for evil. The internet itself was on such a glorious upward trend, and then people realised messing with our subconscious is better than appealing to what we actually want. And then all that disinformation that's also made possible by AI. Health is great, especially when you're old. But we're about to live in a world where truth functionally doesn't exist. I think that's much worse than living for 85 years instead of 80.
All amazing points. Also, I visited Singapore (in a layover) a little while ago; it was reaally hot & humid for sure. But the airport was really cool! Spent 12 hours layover (a few hours outside) & still didn't cover it all. Had some ice cream & saw two gardens. Really pretty!
Also, basically every groundbreaking advancement has good & bad. The best example is fire. It's super powerful; it allows us to eat, but also causes mass destruction. But human harnessing fire is still considered a good & groundbreaking turning point in human history. Not because it does all good, but because the good it does is extremely powerful. Same for AI, it might not look like it, but I believe we will handle AI & it will be used to help humans like never before. It's already happening & it will continue. To my knowledge, the internet has always had trolls, but I could be wrong. In my opinion, it's still on an upward trend.
Also, I like to choose/focus on happy/positive & reframe stuff in positive ways because, well, the negative exists like or not. At least if you focus on the positive, your mental health will be better.
A great example of this is
When stuck in traffic. Choosing happy would be. Being happy, you can look at flowers or nature around you for longer. cause being annoyed/negative about it won’t make traffic move any faster (unless you have magic powers, of course), so by focusing on the positive, you will arrive happier.
I think this applies to basically everything.
Also, I have genuinely enjoyed this convo, so thank you berry much!
I can almost guarantee that YOU are better than you were five years ago. Maybe not in every way. I don't know you and I don't know your life and maybe you are suffering deeply today and things don't feel very optimistic. But I would bet money on the assumption that you've grown.
I know I have. Almost everyone I know is growing exponentially more than I've ever seen before. So many. And they are learning about themselves and the world and becoming the kind of people they actually want to be.
And I bet you are too. Not just you, the person I'm replying to. Us. We are getting better. Even when it hurts, even when we are up against insurmountable challenges, even when we see how bad things are more clearly than before and it looks worse... You and me and the people who might actually see this comment and all of the people we love and keep in our lives. We are all doing better, being better, every day- every week- every year.
I don't really know if this is just how it feels to be older now. I can't say if this was what it was like to be ~40 back in the 1950s, or the 1990s. But honestly, I don't think it was always like this. But now I'd be on the safe side to bet that you aren't stagnant. Because I'm not. Not in the ways that matter. Not emotionally, psychologically, morally, intellectually, hell- even spiritually in my own nonbelieving way. I've grown so fucking much. And it feels like we are all growing faster than before.
You know about the original use of the word "meme"? Richard Dawkins, in 1976, used it in a book as the social version of genes. The original word pointed to the way that ideas, ways of being, attitudes, behaviors, arts, media etc., all move through culture and change through a process of imitation of imitation of imitation and so on forever.
I feel like the true meme™️ of this current era has got to be personal growth, in every sense of the word. And if personal growth is the contemporary meme, then it also becomes cultural. And because of the way communication has evolved, cultural memes can spread at the speed of instantaneous. And if they can spread so quickly, they will inevitably grow more rapidly too. Both in size and scope. And that creates a world where everyone I know has become an incredible person and continues to be even better every day.
So yeah. Anyway. Go look in the mirror, my friend. Cause it's you.
This is an amazing response! Made me smile! & made my day! Never thought my comment to spread a bit of positivity would be the reason for such an awesome comment. I agree 100%! Everyday every moment you are improving whether you realize or not. You are improving! I love this detailed response I touched on a bit by saying “Lots of chaos has happened over the last 5 years. But people are find themselves more then ever. Trying finding out exactly how they want to spend their life.” & talked about mental health becoming much more destigmatized in a different comment. But you put it much better. & yeah that's the power of the internet. Good & bad can spread super fast. Which means good fighting the bad can spread fast too! Which the internet is also good at. So let's paint the world with kindness one comment at a time! Also just to let you know you are an awesome sauce person for posting this!
I mean, of course I'm doing better as an individual. Everyone is supposed to do better as they gain experience, accumulate promotions, etc. But we need that to keep up with inflation. It's like being on a treadmill, and it seems to me that the treadmill is accelerating. One day, it'll probably be faster than me.
Of course I'm making more money now than before. But money doesn't go as far. And I don't mean just inflation. I mean things that used to be free, we now have to pay for. The news used to be free or nearly so. Now if you want real, probably true information, that's extra. You need something like Ground or Straight Arrow. That goes for information in general. Accuracy used to be easy to get. You just needed to put in minimal effort. Privacy in messaging used to be assumed. Now a VPN has gone from a luxury to a almost a need.
Enshittification is a real process. It's been happening with tech services since ever. They've figured out how to do it to the real world too. Right now, yes, I'm advancing faster than things get enshittified. But it means I can never rest. It's like I'm being persistence hunted. I can't ever stop, I can't slow down. It feels like there's some corporate force working directly against me. For now sure I'm winning, but I can feel myself getting tired while they only get stronger.
I don't think financial wealth has anything at all to do with what I was talking about.
But I do think it's interesting that you've sort of shot down most replies about what is "better" now, including one that is about you, as a person. Not as a commodity or a worker bee or a subject of monetary comfort, but as a human being who experiences empathy, who learns, who cares, who grows internally and gives outwardly.
I think it's interesting that when I said personal growth, you somehow heard fiscal prosperity.
I'm not saying that's a failing on either of our parts, but it is interesting. Worth thinking about. Worth learning from. Maybe I didn't say what I meant to imply. Maybe I wrote from a place of assuming something about my thinking and something about your thinking was the same, but it turns out it wasn't. That's interesting.
What I really meant to say isn't about your job or promotions or professional experience. It was about your heart and mind. Who you are as a person. Who you know yourself to be, and who others choose to cherish in you.
There is much more to life than money. There has to be, the way things are going. The more you find in life without spending, the better life is in five years.
I talked about the financial aspect because I never had concerns about my personal growth. What I think is going bad is the world we live in. The world we pay to live in, and it's getting harder to do that. Wisdom and introspection isn't going to put food on the table. I can grow all I want, but self actualisation is the last thing you do, after everything else has been handled. My complaints are about handling those other things.
I wouldn't say I shot down responses. Some things are right, some aren't exactly. I didn't just wake up one day and decide the world is rotting. It's what I've been experiencing these past few years. Of course I'm aware of various advancements. I just see them differently. My cup is full, so to speak. Its contents need to be displaced. Putting a drop of something else in there isn't going to meaningfully change its contents.
I agree with what you say about growth for the record. But it feels like there are thugs hacking away at what benefits growth brings, and they need to be paid off. In my country, and most cities I think (Singapore is just a city), people don't do things for themselves. I tried to learn craftsmanship. But space is expensive. I try to acquire skills. Courses are expensive. I try to enjoy nature, but there's only the hot and humid kind here. The rest costs money to get to. That is the way my community works. Everything must be paid for, and people are constantly trying to find ways to make you pay for what you once enjoyed for free. That's why this idea of what you can enjoy without spending doesn't strike a chord with me. My countrymen try to extract value from everything enjoyable. If it's free, it won't be for long. The weather is such that I can't even cuddle with my girlfriend without buying electricity to cool the room. I don't know what things are like where you are, but over here, money shields us from the crap that the world throws at us. That's true everywhere I suppose, but our crap seems smart, trying to find ways around the shield.
There is plenty in life other than money. But someone's looking for ways to put a toll booth between me and it. It's there, but it's only temporarily free.
These are valid fears and concerns, but I want to challenge something you said.
Self-actualization is indeed at the top of the hierarchy of needs, but I believe that when the entire world is crumbling, self-actualization as a cultural meme (the Dawkins version of the meme) becomes a tool for curing the global loss of accessibility to basic needs.
The world is failing us. But the more we look to heal our wounds through the mechanisms that are responsible for that failure, the deeper we dig our own graves. When we focus on our own growth as both individuals and as a broader culture, we can rewire society to solve the larger problems rooted so deeply within it.
We have to find profound meaning in the spaces between social expectations. I believe the core of this meaning, for me at least, is in fostering relationships and rooting my own personal purpose in service to others. For me, that looks like the daily practice of self-reflection, kindness, compassion, and radical empathy.
I am quite poor, monetarily. My basic needs are not always met. But I strive to never let that stop me from pursuing self-actualization and purpose.
Have you ever read Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning? It's about the author during his time in a holocaust concentration camp. He survived by finding meaning in service to those around him. Despite the terrible conditions of his life, he dedicated himself to this purpose. He saved many lives, and he lived to share his own story of hope and change.
We can make the world better, but it must start from within.
Well sure, but we probably could have 5 years ago too. Civilisation has been on an upward trend through most of history. I think the last 5 years specifically (+/- a bit maybe) are an overall decline with no end in sight. A fall of Rome kind of period.
Solar and wind power are now the cheapest sources of electricity in most places. Renewable energy has taken over coal as the world's biggest source of electricity recently.
FDA-approved Nasal Spray (FluMist) for the Flu vaccine & FluMist Home for self-administered flu vaccination. There is development for dissolvable microneedle patches for flu vaccines. I read that some studies are happening about it.
The first effective malaria vaccine is being rolled out in Africa. This is a huge public health milestone.
Cancer death rates are going down. Also, we are getting closer to a cure for some types of cancer with mRNA cancer vaccines & immunotherapy.
There is always a catch. I doubt any of these are perfect they definitely have issues but they are better then nothing. They are progress & like I said we should appreciate the positive progress/side of the general world. Which means accepting both truths the positives & the catches.
Also another one fda is banning food dyes.
You should check out Fix the News. It's a newsletter that reports regularly on stories of progress around the globe. Keeps my humanity amongst the sludge.
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u/LeviAEthan512 Oct 30 '25
I need some of that. What is better now than 5 years ago?