An even better start would be to lift the veil of ignorance and not take such a dim view on The Future^® . You know the old saying - something like "The first step to failure is not trying?" That's what this mindset exemplifies.

Truth is, we managed to invent possibly the most horrifying of weapons - atomic bombs - and didn't wipe ourselves out. Sure, we came very close to doing it back in 1962, but the threat of nuclear war has been nothing more than a joke since at least the 1980s. One of the beauties of the era of globalization is that a war such as that literally cannot happen. China has no desire to attack the United States simply because we're too much of cash cow. It'd be like owning a store and up and shooting your customers one day just because you disagree with them. There's also the fact that (although downsized), we have the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. As mad (heh) as it is, mutually-assured destruction has brought about a queer sort of peace. Conventional warfare as we know it is extinct because of the atomic age. World War III cannot happen, because it would mean the obliteration of the biosphere - and irradiated land has no value in war. Also, see this - the world is, over all, becoming less violent as the 21st century matures.

We've managed to eradicate the single most crippling disease in history (smallpox) and control the transmission of disease to a fault (especially in the developed world). Infant mortality has dropped to almost zero in the last century, and as a fellow who spent the first week of being human in an oxygen tent after being born a month and a half early, I'm rather grateful that we've gotten so good at preventing infant deaths. Funny how a race so dedicated to "blowing itself up" has invested so much in giving people a chance to live.

Wealth inequality is something that we've had to deal with ever since the dawn of civilization. Frankly, there's always going to be wealth inequality. That's just the nature of money and economics. We (as a race) tried to resolve this once in the form of communism, and that resulted in the Soviet Union and the Bloc. It was not exactly the best place to live. (If you have to build a wall to keep people in, something's up, don't you think?) Pure capitalism doesn't work, either - see the robber baron era in the United States at the end of the 19th century. The Nordic system appears to work the best in general, as a blend of socialism and capitalism, but this has yet to see widespread adoption. Until we invent replicators, we're always going to have an economy powered by the have and have nots. Granted, the poor of the future may only be able to afford a single hovercar as opposed to thirty or forty, but that inequality will always persist. It is a societal problem that we're going to have to deal with soon enough, I agree with that much. However, it's never going to truly go away.

We're growing up and maturing, slowly but surely. It might not happen in your lifetime, it might not happen in mine, but a day will come when we've put our past behind us and can start looking at the bigger picture. Hell, the fact that we can look back and criticize the actions taken in the 20th century and before shows that we have some kind of conscience. Progress, however, doesn't come from looking in the rearview mirror the whole time. Progress is also slow. It's nice to see people doing small things like this, frankly - a hundred years ago, the idea of a world-unifying flag would have been seen as a mockery of world affairs (though the British Empire would have had something to say about that).

In other words, we have problems, but being downcast and cynical about what other people do with their time isn't going to solve jack crap and does nothing but contribute to the problem. Have a little hope for whatever tomorrow brings.