The Weird Truth: Things Can Improve and Still Feel Awful

It’s possible to live in an era that’s historically safer in many big-picture ways while still feeling like the world is a garbage fire. Long-run trends can move in the right direction even as today’s headlines serve up a daily stress smoothie of war, disaster, and rage. Here are 10 reasons we're in the most peaceful time in history and why it really doesn't feel like it.

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1. Deadly Wars Are Less Common Than They Used to Be

Over the long run, the world has seen fewer periods where massive numbers of people die in state-based conflict compared with earlier centuries. Even with recent spikes, many datasets show that today’s conflict death levels are generally lower than the catastrophic peaks of the world wars. That doesn’t make modern conflicts “small,” but it does shift where we sit on the historical scoreboard.

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2. Big Countries Have More to Lose by Fighting Each Other

Modern economies are tangled together through trade, supply chains, and finance in ways that raise the cost of open war. When your prosperity depends on stability, starting a major conflict becomes a lot less appealing. It’s not romance, but it’s a pretty effective buzzkill for aggression.

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3. Nuclear Weapons Made “Total War” Harder to Imagine

As grim as it sounds, nuclear deterrence has pushed powerful states to avoid direct all-out war with each other. Leaders can posture and threaten, but the stakes are so high that escalation becomes a terrifying game nobody wants to finish. That tension is real, yet it can also act like a lock on the worst door.

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4. International Institutions Add Speed Bumps to Conflict

Organizations and treaties don’t magically prevent war, but they can slow down rash moves and create off-ramps. Even when they’re imperfect, they offer tools for negotiation, monitoring, and pressure. Sometimes peace is less about a heroic handshake and more about boring paperwork that works.

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5. Democracies Often Have Stronger Nonviolent Pressure Valves

In places with stable institutions, people can push for change through elections, courts, journalism, and protest instead of armed rebellion. That doesn’t mean democracies are always calm (have you seen X lately?) Still, having political options beyond violence can reduce the chance that conflict becomes the default.

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6. Extreme Poverty Has Fallen, Which Lowers Some Pressures

When fewer people are trapped in extreme deprivation, certain drivers of instability can ease over time. It’s not a cure-all, and inequality still stings, but widespread poverty dropping is a meaningful shift. A world with more basic security tends to be a world with fewer desperation spirals.

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7. More Kids Survive

As child mortality drops and public health improves, families and societies experience less constant loss. That kind of stability can ripple outward into education, productivity, and long-term planning. It’s hard to build peace if life feels like one emergency after another.

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8. Violence Inside Countries Has Declined in Many Places

Global homicide trends have generally moved downward over recent decades, even if the story varies a lot by region. That gap between “the data is improving” and “it feels worse” is one reason this topic is so emotionally confusing. Your brain notices the spike in your feed, not the slow decline on a chart.

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9. Peacekeeping & Mediation Are Normal Tools Now

International peacekeeping and conflict mediation have become standard responses in many crises. They don’t always succeed, but they reflect a world where “let’s try to stop this” is an expected move. That shift matters, even when outcomes are mixed.

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10. There’s More Accountability Than There Used to Be

War crimes investigations, human rights reporting, and global scrutiny are far more common than in earlier eras. Plenty of perpetrators still evade justice, but the idea that abuses should be documented and prosecuted is stronger than it was historically. The norms aren’t perfect, but the direction has changed.

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Now that we've covered why we're actually in the most peaceful time in human history, let's talk about why it certainly doesn't seem that way.

1. The News Highlights the Worst, Not the Typical

Media is designed to grab your attention, and calm progress is not exactly clickbait. If a hundred places are peaceful and one place is in crisis, the crisis becomes the headline because that’s what sells. Your brain concludes “everything is collapsing,” even when the average day is relatively quieter.

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2. Social Media Makes Distant Pain Feel Like It’s Next Door

You can witness tragedy in real time from thousands of miles away, and your body reacts as if it’s happening nearby. That constant exposure can keep you on edge even if your local life is stable. Strangely, being more connected can make the world feel less safe.

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3. Recent Conflicts Have Been Highly Visible & Brutal

The last few years have included major wars and humanitarian crises that are hard to ignore. Research groups have reported elevated battle deaths in the 2020s compared with much of the post–Cold War period. So even if the long-run story is improvement, the short-run chapter has been rough.

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4. Modern Violence Can Be More Psychological Than Geographic

Even if you’re far from a war zone, economic shocks, cyberattacks, and disinformation campaigns can still hit your life. That kind of threat feels slippery because you can’t point to it on a map and say, “It’s over there.” Uncertainty is stressful, and modern uncertainty has a range.

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5. We’re Comparing “Now” to an Ideal, Not to History

It’s easy to judge today against how things should be, not against what things were like in 1620 or 1920. Progress doesn’t feel comforting when your standard is “no suffering at all,” which is a very human standard to have. The mismatch makes improvement feel irrelevant.

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6. One Big Disaster Can Drown Out Ten Quiet Wins

A single horrific event can erase the emotional impact of many smaller positive trends. That’s not you being irrational; it’s how attention works under threat. The trouble is that the world keeps delivering big, vivid events on a regular schedule.

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7. Our Brains Aren’t Built for Global-Scale Awareness

Your mind evolved to track danger in a tribe-sized world, not a planet-sized one. Now you’re processing problems from everywhere while still trying to remember where you put your keys. That overload can make “safe” feel impossible to believe.

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8. Political Polarization Makes Everything Feel Like a Fight

When public life is tense, even normal disagreements can feel like a crisis. If every issue is framed as existential, your body stays in battle mode. Peace doesn’t feel peaceful when everyone’s yelling.

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9. Economic Anxiety Hits Close to Home

You can’t pay rent with “historical trends,” and financial stress makes the world feel unstable fast. Even if violent conflict is lower than in past eras in many ways, day-to-day insecurity can still be intense. When your personal future feels shaky, global peace stats won’t soothe you much.

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10. We Notice What’s Wrong Because We Expect Better Now

Rising expectations are actually a sign of progress, even if they make you more disappointed in the moment. When people believe life can be safer and fairer, suffering becomes less “normal” and more outrageous, as it should. The frustrating part is that a higher standard can make an improving world feel like it’s failing.

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