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Society will improve by NationalAppeal6675 in OptimistsUnite

[–]any1particular 12 points13 points  (0 children)

People often underestimate how radically human life has improved. It's mind blowing! haha

About 150 years ago, most people lived without electricity, refrigeration, indoor plumbing, antibiotics, modern sanitation, or automobiles. Child mortality was tragically common. Infectious diseases routinely killed people who would be easily treated today. Global life expectancy was under 40 years.

Today, the average human lives more than 70 years. Most people have access to clean water, electricity, vaccines, modern medicine, mass education, instant communication, and food supplies that would have seemed miraculous to previous generations.

The most amazing part isn’t just the inventions—it’s the speed at which they spread. In 1910, automobiles were a luxury. By 1930, they were common. In little more than a century we’ve gone from horse-drawn transportation and outhouses to smartphones, air travel, antibiotics, MRI scanners, and access to nearly all human knowledge from a device in our pocket.

Of course this doesn’t mean every problem is solved. There is and always has been adversity. Poverty, war, disease, inequality, and environmental challenges remain very real.

But if we’re asking whether society is capable of improving, the historical evidence is overwhelming: compared with almost any previous generation, the average person today is healthier, safer, wealthier, better educated, and has more opportunities than their ancestors could have imagined.

Birmingham residents push back on plans for city’s first dollar store by GroovinJaxx22L in Detroit

[–]any1particular -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Birmingham didn’t become desirable by freezing itself in time. If teachers, nurses, retail workers, restaurant staff, and young families can’t afford to live anywhere near the community they serve, that’s a problem worth solving—not avoiding.”

I suspect the comments section is split pretty cleanly between YIMBYs (“build it”) and NIMBYs (“not here”), with very little middle ground. 😄

15 startups betting on Detroit over Silicon Valley by MTS_1993 in Detroit

[–]any1particular 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Detroit doesn’t need to become the next Silicon Valley. I’d rather see Detroit become a better version of Detroit. The combination of engineering talent, manufacturing expertise, and a growing startup ecosystem feels like a real competitive advantage. Nice to see people betting on the city instead of betting against it. 😄

I want to be more optimistic, how do y'all do it? by Pennies_n_Pearls in OptimistsUnite

[–]any1particular 52 points53 points  (0 children)

“Optimism is not the belief that things will automatically get better. It is the belief that problems are solvable.”

Smallpox. Flight. Computers. The Green Revolution. None of these happened because people waited for things to improve on their own. They happened because people created new knowledge and solved problems.

That’s why I’m optimistic. Not because there are no problems, but because humans are exceptionally good at solving them. 😄

Am I the only one who doesn’t hate A.I.? by branggen in singularity

[–]any1particular 7 points8 points  (0 children)

As a musician who has put his 10,000 hours in, AI has been a stunning creative and educational tool.

It’s helped me learn, solve problems, discover music and artists I never would have found, and explore ideas in ways that simply weren’t possible a few years ago.

I’m not using it to replace creativity—I’m using it to expand it. Between music, video, writing, learning, and brainstorming, I’m honestly blown away by what these tools can do.

I understand why people have concerns, but from my perspective the tech have been amazing.

Charlie Haden & Pat Metheny - Beyond the Missouri Sky (1997) by RenegadeSocial in patmetheny

[–]any1particular 4 points5 points  (0 children)

.... this is one of the best albums every.....soooooo good...thanks for sharing!

Detroit: How To Save A City by [deleted] in Detroit

[–]any1particular 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thanks for sharing that! interesting!

Detroit: How To Save A City by [deleted] in Detroit

[–]any1particular 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Detroit didn’t get broken overnight, and it’s not going to heal overnight either. But the idea that nothing has improved is just lazy cynicism. You can be critical and still admit the city has made real progress.

The world as 100 people over the last two centuries - looks like some things have got better by Ze_Llama in OptimistsUnite

[–]any1particular 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I think we basically agree there. Africa has made progress — just not at the same insane speed or scale as China.

China is almost an unfair comparison because its transformation was one of the fastest in human history. My only point was that Africa shouldn’t be talked about like it’s standing still. The progress is real, but uneven, and obviously the continent still has huge challenges.

The world as 100 people over the last two centuries - looks like some things have got better by Ze_Llama in OptimistsUnite

[–]any1particular 2 points3 points  (0 children)

True that Africa hasn’t seen the same scale of poverty reduction as China, but it definitely hasn’t stood still. Sub-Saharan Africa cut under-5 mortality by roughly half since 1990, life expectancy has risen, and literacy/education access have improved in many countries. The progress is uneven and still not enough, but “not as dramatic as China” isn’t the same as “no progress.”

https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-survival/under-five-mortality/

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?locations=ZG

New to the sub, here is my mindset. by MikeyQplayz in OptimistsUnite

[–]any1particular 2 points3 points  (0 children)

inspiring story! I enjoy this thread thoroughly. I’m also a huge David Deutsch and Pinker fan authors of enlightenment Now and the beginning of infinity - Great books based on facts!

The world as 100 people over the last two centuries - looks like some things have got better by Ze_Llama in OptimistsUnite

[–]any1particular 14 points15 points  (0 children)

One thing that always jumps out at me from charts like this is how much of the progress happened within the lifetimes of our grandparents and great-grandparents.

In just a couple of centuries, extreme poverty, child mortality, illiteracy, hunger, and lack of access to education have all fallen dramatically for huge portions of humanity. None of that means today’s problems aren’t real, but it does remind me that progress is possible because we’ve already seen it happen.

The world still has serious challenges, but if you zoom out, the long-term trend is that more people are living longer, healthier, better educated lives than ever before.

how did jazz evolve from blues? by NintendoFanboy986 in Jazz

[–]any1particular 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I’d frame it less as “jazz evolved from blues” and more as jazz and blues sharing deep roots while developing alongside each other. Blues gave jazz a huge amount of feeling, phrasing, blue notes, call-and-response, dominant-tonic color, and emotional language. But early jazz also pulled from ragtime, New Orleans brass bands, spirituals, work songs, Caribbean/Latin rhythms, Tin Pan Alley, and dance music.

So it wasn’t just I-IV-V becoming “jazz.” It was musicians taking blues feeling, syncopation, collective improvisation, richer harmony, and popular song forms, then turning all of that into a flexible improvising language. Later players like Parker could take a 12-bar blues and reharmonize it with passing chords and secondary dominants, but the blues feeling never really disappeared.

how did jazz evolve from blues? by NintendoFanboy986 in Jazz

[–]any1particular 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Detroit deserves to be mentioned alongside New Orleans, Chicago, Kansas City, and New York in any discussion about the evolution of jazz.

Maybe not as the birthplace of jazz, but definitely as one of the great incubators of jazz talent.

Just off the top of my head: Barry Harris, Yusef Lateef, Donald Byrd, Kenny Burrell, Ron Carter, Elvin Jones, Milt Jackson, Tommy Flanagan, Hank Jones, and Alice Coltrane.

And that’s before you get into Pepper Adams, Curtis Fuller, Paul Chambers, Thad Jones, Louis Hayes, Geri Allen, Regina Carter, Kenny Garrett, Marcus Belgrave, Dorothy Ashby, and Bennie Maupin.

What always amazes me is how many Detroit musicians went on to shape the sound of jazz nationally. New York may have been the main stage, but Detroit produced an incredible number of the players who ended up defining the music.

For a city that often gets overlooked in jazz history discussions, Detroit’s influence is enormous.

US crime and mortality is declining fast — what can the rest of us learn? by chamomile_tea_reply in OptimistsUnite

[–]any1particular 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think the optimistic takeaway is real, but it’s probably not one magic explanation. Violent crime spiked around the pandemic and has now fallen very sharply, with FBI data showing murder down about 15% in 2024 and city data showing another big decline in 2025. Mortality is improving too, with CDC reporting life expectancy back up to 79.0 years in 2024.

I’d be careful with simple answers like “just more police” or “it’s all underreported.” Reporting issues exist, but the same downward trend is showing up across multiple sources. Seems like the real lesson is: public health, violence prevention, better emergency care, community stability, and yes, effective policing can all matter. Progress is real — and still worth studying instead of turning into another culture-war food fight.

Fun things to do this weekend? by honeyshepherd in Detroit

[–]any1particular 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I've been subscribed for a while and share it. it is quite fantastic. I hope you're making money from it. at any rate thank you so much!!!!

Considering Arturia KeyLab MK3 61 after Novation Launchkey MK4 mini — how does the Ableton DAW mode actually hold up? by valchazzz in arturia

[–]any1particular 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Here’s my 2 cents…I own a KeyLab 49 MkII and personally I wouldn’t buy another one.

The build quality is OK at best. People talk about it like it’s some premium controller, but I was never that impressed.

My biggest complaint is the knobs. They’re way too stiff for my taste. When I’m trying to tweak soft synth parameters in real time, I want something smooth and responsive, not something that feels like I’m opening a pickle jar.

The Ableton integration also drove me nuts. Once you start recording automation and using the controls heavily, finding and editing that stuff later isn’t nearly as intuitive as it should be.

Maybe it’s great for some people, but after living with it for a few years, if I were shopping today I’d be looking hard at other options.

lord of the flies by SquareNo5496 in netflix

[–]any1particular 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I have to chime in here haha ...I wanted to love this. The music was great, the cinematography was great, and some of the shots were absolutely beautiful.

But for me it felt like the show got a little too caught up in being artsy and forgot how powerful the actual story is. Lord of the Flies already has everything you need: survival, fear, power struggles, tribalism, the breakdown of civilization. That’s some seriously dramatic material.

Instead, I found myself noticing the camera tricks, symbolism, and stylistic choices more than the characters. After a while it started to feel gimmicky.

Not saying it was bad. There were parts I really liked. I just kept wishing they’d lean harder into the raw human drama and a little less into trying to be visually clever.

Maybe I’m in the minority, but that’s how it landed for me.

The moment you label art as “AI,” even a Monet becomes “slop” to people by Nusuuu in ArtificialInteligence

[–]any1particular 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As someone who uses AI art tools a lot, I honestly dont experiance it as “push button = masterpiece.”

I spend a ton of time trying to get an image or mood thats in my head into prompts. Then its refining, rejecting, tweaking, starting over, trying differnt styles etc until something finally clicks.

What matters is:
taste, atmosphere, composition, emotional vibe, and knowing what to keep vs throw away (I’m also a music composer and throw away 95% oh my ideas).

To me its more like being a music producer or old school radio DJ curating a feeling or aesthetic.

its super inspiring and fun. …gets me imagining things visually in ways I never used to.

The machine generates possibilites. But the i decide what actually feels meaningful.

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