Reasons why 21st century won't be that bad?

[Bridge]

Yes, we are quite demonstrably making significant progress. Here are just a few:

Arab spring - In a few decades I predict the entire Arab world and maybe even Sub-Saharan Africa as well will become functional democracies. As soon as "the winds of change" so to speak start blowing, it's quite difficult to stop them.

European Union - Currently has 28/50 member states and everything points toward eventually every country becoming a member, it has basically guaranteed that the European nations will never wage war against each other again.

United Nations - Call it corrupt or inept if you want, I think you could make a convincing argument for that, it has done wonders for world peace and human rights. In my opinion it is profoundly fucked up that North Korea has been a member for over 20 years even though everybody knows it is the most repressive police state in the world, where human rights are freely disregarded, and I am quite disappointed that the UN seems to be doing nothing at all. Yeah, you could argue they would just start firing nukes at everyone if they felt threatened because they are fucking crazy but are they seriously going to do nothing?

WTO - It's been criticized as favoring rich nations and being undemocratic, and it very well may be, but its pros far outweigh the cons in my opinion. Evidence has continually shown protectionism to be highly damaging to economy and that free trade is better for everybody in the long run. The world GDP has been skyrocketing since 1950, right around the time GATT was established. Also, according to the CIA World Factbook economic growth in the developing countries is higher than in many of the "developed" nations. You can interpret this however you wish, but what it tells me is that everybody is getting richer, and especially with economic phenomena like BRIC, I think by the 22nd century things will be quite different from how they are now, and definitely for the better.

Don't really have patience for any more, this is taking quite a long time. But if you want you can look it up yourself. Colonialism is basically gone, even though it is quite capable of being a positive thing, slavery has been abolished and equality issues like sexism and racism have made some significant progress. Not quite gone yet, but they are fading out. I don't think we will see a repeat of the 20th century any time soon. And to say we are on the verge of a catastrophe is to me absurd. We've never been better.