I don't wonder. It's simply that, while certainly no one is perfect, almost everyone is better than almost anyone imagines that anyone could possibly be.
I think you have a very, very optimistic view of humanity. It's entirely possible you and I have completely opposite experiences, because while I've known plenty of good, decent people, I've known more that fell somewhere between mediocre and horrid.
I'm also not sure how you could consume any sort of news for any period of time and still hold on to this belief. Of course we hear about the worst, and it's put as shockingly as possible, but with all the terrible things that happen every day, "almost everyone" just doesn't seem to me to work in your statement.
> I think you have a very, very optimistic view of humanity.
Indeed, very much so! Having once lost my faith in progressivism, I found myself no longer wedded to the peculiar species of pessimism, regarding humanity and human affairs, which is part and parcel of that strain of political belief, and I further found myself capable for once of considering the possibility that for someone's politics to disagree with mine, however fundamentally, did not necessarily make that person a horrible human being. This discovery came as no small relief to me, in that it brought to swift and successful conclusion what had theretofore been a decade-long and losing battle against an increasingly black and pervasive depression.
> I'm also not sure how you could consume any sort of news for any period of time and still hold on to this belief.
Granted, and that's precisely why for the most part I don't. News that's local enough or big enough to matter in my life, I will hear about soon enough, and that's the only sort of news with which I choose to concern myself; as far as I'm concerned, everything else can go and whistle. What, after all, is the point in flagellating myself with a litany of trumped-up disaster stories regarding matters over which I have no power or influence in any case? Such obsessive behavior does no one any good.
> with all the terrible things that happen every day
Oh? This seems to me a rather lopsided view. What of all the terrible things that don't?
I picked up a copy last night. Thus far, it's mainly challenging my patience and my tolerance for lousy writing styles -- it wanders all over the place. I haven't read any of Schlosser's other books; is he always like this?
Having now finished the book, I remain unimpressed, or at least not impressed in the fashion you expected that I would be. If anything, I have to say that, not only for there have been relatively few mishaps over so many years of nuclear weapons having been actively deployed, but for none of those mishaps to have had a yield measurable in kilotons, strikes me as powerful cause for optimism.
